Dr. Aurora Kamimura (she/her/ella), is a lecturer in Education, and Assistant Provost for Inclusive Excellence. Her teaching, research, and administrative career of over 20 years has been founded on broadening access, equity, and diversity in the P-20/professoriate pathway. She has been fortunate to work on these issues at the local, state, and national level throughout her career. Moreover, at each stage of Kamimura’s career, equity and equitable organizations remain central to her values and work.
As a mixed methodology social scientist and equity-centered positive organizational scholar, Kamimura’s current research focuses on organizational change mechanisms required to diversify the professoriate, which has aligned with her prior research on equitable practices in education. Some of Kamimura’s earliest research focused on enhancing college access for Latinx/a/o, immigrant, and undocumented students. This research was conducted primarily through the National Center for Institutional Diversity and the National Forum on Higher Education for the Public Good, both at the University of Michigan. Her research agenda expanded to encompass strategies for diversifying STEM graduate programs, by specifically focusing on equity-centered admission practices.
As an instructor, Kamimura has felt honored to teach on various campuses for undergraduate and graduate students from diverse backgrounds and lived experiences – racially/ethnically, gender, socioeconomically, age, regionally, and disciplinary. In addition to her time here as a lecturer, she has taught courses for the University of Michigan, University of Louisville, University of California, Irvine, University of North Texas, Texas Christian University, Southern Methodist University, and Indiana State University, in the areas of higher education, organizational behavior, and sociology. While teaching at these diverse campuses, she gained pedagogical expertise that she uses to enhance her skillset as a lecturer on a daily basis.
Kamimura’s teaching experience is complimented by expansive capacity as a facilitator, including serving as a teaching consultant for the Center on Research for Learning and Teaching (CRLT) at the University of Michigan. At CRLT, she facilitated workshops on topics, including “Inclusive Teaching During the First Week and Beyond” and “Facilitating Classroom Discussions in the Social Sciences.” Her teaching philosophy is grounded in the techniques and strategies she learned through the Program on Intergroup Relations, which works to develop inclusive learning spaces across diversity. As a professor, Kamimura continuously work to leverage her research and administrative expertise to enhance the learning environment. Through these varying and in-depth experiences, she has come to be sought as an expert on inclusive teaching strategies nationally, and been invited as a guest panelist on webinars and podcasts to discuss success strategies.
Kamimura’s research and teaching are complimented by her professional work in the K-16 pathway at the brink of student affairs and academic affairs in various units, including Outreach, Service Learning, Multicultural Affairs, Academic Support Services, and as an Associate Dean. Kamimura also currently serves as the Assistant Provost for Inclusive Excellence where she works on developing and implementing strategies to diversify our faculty and to provide more inclusive learning environments in our classrooms around campus. At a national level, Kamimura serves as the Treasurer-Elect on the Board of Directors for the American Association of Hispanics for Higher Education (AAHHE), and is involved in several national projects focused on the development of Latinx/a/o leadership.
Selected publications:
Kamimura, A. (Forthcoming). “Let’s Road Trip: Aligning Theoretical Frameworks, Research Questions, and Research Design.” In A.L. Terosky, K. Conway, L.D. Gonzalez, J. Sun, W. Jones, D. Perez II, E. Doran, & V. Baker (Eds.) A Practical Guide to Teaching Methods in Education: Lesson Plans and Advice from Faculty. London: Taylor & Francis.
Kamimura, A. (2020). "Cuida tu casa y deja la agena": Focusing on retention as a self-perpetuating engine for the recruitment of Latina faculty in STEM. In E.M. González, F. Fernandez, & M. Wilson (Eds.), An Asset-Based Approach to Advancing Latina Students in STEM: Increasing Resilience, Participation, and Success. New York, NY: Routledge.
Posselt, J.R., Porter, K., & Kamimura, A. (2018). Organizational Pathways Toward Gender Equity in Doctoral Education: Chemistry and Civil Engineering Compared. American Journal of Education. 124(4), 383-410.
Porter, K., Posselt, J.R., Reyes, K.A., Slay, K.E., & Kamimura, A. (2018). Graduate Students Changing STEM: Burdens and Benefits of Student Involvement in Diversity Work. Studies in Graduate and Postdoctoral Education 9(2), 127-143.
Posselt, J.R., Slay, K.E., Reyes, K.A., Kamimura, A. & Porter, K. (2017). Equity Efforts as Boundary Work: How Symbolic and Social Boundaries Shape Access & Inclusion in Graduate Education. Teachers College Review. New York, NY.
Kamimura, A. & Posselt, J.R. (2016). The benefits of diversity for innovation in academic research. In L. Morgan Robert, L. Wooten and M. Davidson (Eds.), Positive Organizing in a Global Society: Understand and Engaging Differences for Capacity-Building and Inclusion. New York, NY: Routledge.
Reyes, K.A., Kamimura, A., & Southern, K.G. (2016). Undocumented Student Access to Higher Education: Focused Efforts at the Federal and Institutional Levels. In B. Overton-Adkins, P.A. Pasque, and J.C. Burkhardt (Eds.), Engaged Research and Practice: Higher Education and the Pursuit of the Public Good.
Ortega, N., Frye, J.L., Nellum, C.J., Kamimura, A., & Vidal-Rodríguez, A. (2015). Examining the financial resilience of Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) as they prepare to serve the next generation of Latino students. In A.-M. Nuñez, S. Hurtado and E. Calderon Galdeano (Eds.), Realizing the potential of Hispanic-Serving Institutions. New York, NY: Routledge