Conversations with Dr. Kayla Baker, Dr. Mark Maxwell, Yasmin Forbes, and Lisa Harris Gillespie: A Deep Dive Into CREED's North Carolina Equity Fellowship
CREED's North Carolina Equity Fellowship supports educators as they design projects that address disparities in our educational landscape. But what does this look like in practice? We sat down with four different Equity Fellows from past cohorts to learn how the program shaped their outlook on education equity, and how that carries over into their work today.
Dr. Mark Maxwell, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Fellow, 2023-2024
Incoming Dean of Students, Easton Elementary
Maxwell designed an Equity Ambassadors program that aimed to assess levels of cultural competency and awareness among staff within Winston-Salem/Forsyth County Schools (WS/FCS). With WS/FCS having 4,500 employees total, Maxwell's project involved 92 educators in the district. The project was carried out using the Intercultural Development Inventory (IDI) scale to assess each of the educators. The scale has five different levels, being adaptation, acceptance, minimization of difference, polarization, and denial.
In the first year of the program, the focus was finding weak spots. From his implementation of the IDI scale, Maxwell found that 60% of participants were in the minimization stage of cultural competency, meaning that they oftentimes downplay cultural difference and emphasize more universal principles. In the second year, the focus shifted to helping the educators take action. This could involve planned steps for educators to expand their perspective, such as attending cultural events or seminars in the community.
Maxwell found the diversity of perspectives in his cohort to be especially valuable.
"Whether somebody is working in the capacity of as a school leader, or this person is working at the district level, or this person is working through advocacy, through a nonprofit or something of that nature, these things intersect, and they must support each other,” he said. “And so for me, that was the thing that became critically important, to be able to basically have those conversations with people in that way, and to learn from them and to put more tools in the toolkit.”
Maxwell, who will be taking on a role as Dean of Students at Easton Elementary next school year, calls himself a "dean of culture." Easton has a large Hispanic population along with many other minority students, making equity work extremely important. He hopes to build a strong, positive environment for the students, staff, and families being served, and that involves embracing difference rather than shying away from it.
"My role as a diversity leader is to make sure that we're helping people to see beyond what they might perceive as a deficit for a child, and actually see the genius in every child,” he said.
Aside from his work in education, Maxwell also creates his own artwork under the name Misfit Toys Art. His work in education often intersects with the stories he tells through his paintings, and his creations are largely inspired by the things happening around us socially and politically.
“I started to see within the painting that I was telling stories of my students,” Maxwell said. “I was telling stories of my colleagues. I was telling stories of my experiences.”
To see more of Maxwell's artwork, you can visit https://www.facebook.com/MisfitToysArt/.
Dr. Kayla Baker, Higher Education Fellow, 2023-2024
Diversity Program Manager and Higher Education Scholar
When designing her fellowship project, Baker described how the fellows were encouraged to consider three key factors. These included 1) the fellow's interests and values, 2) their sphere of influence, and 3) education equity issues that resonated with them personally.
Using that framework, her project was about creating and advocating for same-race peer groups and spaces in education, as training the youth was one of her main interests. She chose to focus mainly on students in STEM fields, which was influenced by her current job working as a diversity, equity, and inclusion specialist for a physics nonprofit organization.
Baker’s primary area of expertise is in Student Affairs, so her work with her physics nonprofit was a chance to venture into something new. However, she found that oftentimes in STEM, there is a lower sense of belonging that students of color feel due to a lack of representation in the field. This was the main education equity issue she aimed to address, investigating if online community spaces could improve student confidence and performance.
The project took some inspiration from her doctoral dissertation at UNC Greensboro, which specifically honed in on how black students at predominantly white institutions were impacted by same-race peer spaces online. Some metrics that were tracked had to do with measures of academic success, including student retention of class content.
When it comes to creating outlets for campus diversity, Baker said that faculty at colleges and universities should push to be more intentional about creating opportunities where students can connect across differences.
“I think a lot of times like faculty and staff, or even administration, like they have this desire for students to connect across difference, but they aren't intentional about creating those opportunities. They kind of just assume that it'll happen, or leave it up to the students to be responsible for that.”
In her free time, Baker also likes to teach dance classes and choreograph her own pieces as a creative outlet. After she completed her dissertation, she put on a dance showcase with multiple pieces inspired by her research findings, helping the audience to understand the essence of her work.
“I do like to try to take research or different things and then transition that into movement to be able to share it with the general public.”
Baker encourages future Fellows to lead with passion, and to choose topics that they are truly invested in when thinking of project ideas.
“This contribution to the field or to the work is a bit bigger than you. It has a bigger purpose. It will make a bigger difference than just outside of yourself.”
Yasmin Forbes, Teacher Fellow, 2020-2021
Curriculum Specialist, National Council for History Education
Forbes co-designed a project coined “Ashay,” a West African term that represents the ability to make things happen and spark change. Ashay was done with the goal of finding ways to support new teachers and put a support system in place to guide them throughout their career in education. The program had three areas of focus including recruitment and retention, curriculum support, and finally mentorship.
“A lot of our focus was looking at making sure that you just don't leave the teachers to just fend for themselves, but actually find ways to support them throughout their their teaching career, because both of us as first year educators when we first came into the classroom kind of felt like we were just thrown into it.“
As a curriculum specialist for the National Council for History Education, Forbes mainly works with 3rd-5th grade educators in St. Louis, Missouri. One of her biggest goals is to help create lesson plans that teachers can easily and quickly incorporate into the classroom. Additionally, however, she also hopes to help teachers and students become more informed about gaps in history curriculum, as there are often stories that go untold.
She ultimately hopes to develop a curriculum that brings attention to individuals that are overlooked or maybe misconstrued historically. More specifically, she strives to ensure that revolutionary struggles that are oftentimes demonized are portrayed accurately and given the proper representation that they deserve.
When it comes to representation not just in curriculum, but also within educator hiring processes, Forbes believes that diversity should be a given. Rather than placing it under the label of DEI which is often societally stigmatized, it should be treated as something we are making conscious, continual efforts to achieve.
“It shouldn't necessarily even need a label,” Forbes said. “Like, there shouldn't have to be something where we're calling it anything.”
Forbes encourages future Fellows to come into the process with an open mind and learn from the different perspectives in the program, be they individuals working in the classroom or outside of it.
Lisa Harris Gillespie, School Leader Fellow, 2021-2022
Principal, Mary MacArthur Elementary
As an elementary school principal and recognized individual in the Fayetteville Observer’s 40 Under 40 in 2024, Gillespie is passionate about best serving the needs of all students.
“Whoever walks through that door deserves to have an experience that is tailored to them,” she said.
For her Fellowship project, she designed her own equity assessment for schools to self-complete. At her school, she was familiar with assessments that teachers had to do individually, however she had never seen one solely focused on creating equitable experiences for students and staff.
Gillespie is a firm believer in the mantra, “All children can and will if we do.” In other words, if we provide all students with the right resources and support, the possibilities can be greater than imagined.
Especially in classrooms of students with differing needs or learning abilities, Gillespie said that caring for each child’s learning needs is seen as an expectation, not just an encouragement.
“We can have a child who maybe is autistic, that has a speech delay in the same classroom with a child who maybe is an academically gifted learner. So we have two very different areas of the spectrum, but both children deserve the greatest out of that teacher.”
Looking towards the future, Gillespie’s goal is to continue to help close achievement gaps that exist within the data for students of color and those with disabilities. For minority students wanting to work in education one day, she says to work hard in pursuing that path regardless of the outside noise.
“Don't run from it,” Gillespie said. “Run towards it.”
These fellows vividly demonstrate how equity work can take various forms, be it through curriculum, peer support, creative expression, and more. To engage in impactful projects and meet like-minded individuals passionate about representation and equity in educational spaces, consider applying for our 2025-2026 fellowship cohort! Applications are open now through Wednesday, September 10.
Jaya Nadella is a rising sophomore at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. She is majoring in Political Science, with a prospective double minor in PPE (Philosophy, Politics, and Economics) and Media and Journalism. She hopes to harness her passion for writing as a tool for driving change, and has dreams of attending law school after undergrad. Jaya joined CREED in 2025 as the Summer Communications & Marketing Intern.
