Our Team

D.J. Preston, Director of Student Recreation & Wellness and Interim Director for CDI

Director, search process underway

The Director of the Center for Diversity Inclusion position is currently posted and a national search is underway. Find the posting here: https://jobs.radford.edu/postings/12671

The Director reports to the Associate Vice President for Student Life. The Director is the senior inclusion officer in the Division of Student Affairs and responsible for activating a vision for engagement and success while leading the Center for Diversity and Inclusion. They represent the department and division on committees; develop and oversee budgets; implement campus-wide programs and learning outcomes assessments; collaborate with faculty and staff; advise multiple multicultural student organizations, direct cultural/heritage programming; serve as campus liaison with the Radford University Campus Ministers Association; coordinate efforts to identify and address the needs of the minoritized students.

Dr. Marilyn Ortega (she/her/hers)

Dr. Ortega serves as the Assistant Director for the Center for Diversity and Inclusion at Radford University. As a first-generation college student, she earned her Bachelor of Arts in Ethnic Studies and Bachelor of Arts in Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies from Kansas State University. During her tenure at Kansas State University, she focused on expanding discourse around the School-to-Prison Pipeline to understand how the Prison Industrial Complex is as a reproductive justice issue terrorizing communities of color in the United States.

Dr. Ortega then went to the University of Kansas, where she earned a Master of Arts in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, a graduate degree in Indigenous Studies, and her Doctorate in American Studies. Her research and life work are grounded in her lived experiences and situated within the fields of Women of Color feminisms, Critical Trauma Studies, and Critical Prisons Studies.

Dr. Ortega is a social innovator and visionary invested in building and nurturing coalitions across diverse communities through evidence-based strategies and decolonial praxis. She has over ten years of progressive experience in diversity and leadership experience within higher education, with expertise in transformative/social justice and abolition. 

Office Manager, search process underway

The Office Manager of the Center for Diversity Inclusion position is currently posted and a national search is underway. Find the posting here: https://jobs.radford.edu/postings/12879

Reporting to the Director of the Center for Diversity and Inclusion (CDI), the Office Manager is primarily responsible for providing administrative and fiscal support to CDI. This position is responsible for coordinating the departmental and Student Finance Committee (SFC) funded accounts, overseeing office expenditures, managing equipment and supply purchases, processing contracts for guest speakers/entertainment at events and assisting with all aspects of arranging travel including entering the requests into the university accounting systems. The Office Manager will process hiring paperwork for student wage positions and elected paid student organization positions.

They are responsible for providing monthly budget and expenditure reports to Director and student organization leaders. They provide training for student staff and student organizations officers/leaders on SFC and University policies, procedures and processes. They supervise student staff in absence of the Director and Assistant Director and assist with special events held in the Center during normal work hours as appropriate or required.