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- Starita Boyce Ansari, Ph.D. is EduTech Innovator and Global Workforce Developer for The New 3Rs.
The Women’s Philanthropy Institute of the Lily Family School of Philanthropy at IUPUI
- (India University/Purdue University Indiana) prestigiously named Dr. Starita Ansari one of the Global Top Ten Black female philanthropists. Dr. Ansari is a scholar and author whose expertise is the economics of discrimination and education inequity. Dr. Ansari’s work has been recognized by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, the Association of Black Women in Higher Education, the American Association for Higher education, the American Association of University Women, and the Ford Foundation.
Dr. Ansari’s expertise are program design and evaluation, responsive philanthropy, and strategic planning. Her passion is responding to the systems and beliefs that prevent racial equity. Dr. Ansari has led many initiatives in the public and private sectors. She secured $41.2M for a new science center and residential hall for Cheyney University, America’s first Black higher education institution. Through the guidance of former First Lady Barbara Bush, Dr. Ansari secured a transformative gift of $2.5 million for a national literacy program designed to teach incarcerated youth literacy and self-worth (i.e., to love themselves). Years later, this seminal program remains part of the education program in select prisons. As Deputy Executive Director of NYC Mission Society, Dr. Boyce designed an AmeriCorps violence prevention program which was ranked 10th in the nation by President Clinton’s administration.
Though Starita had been improving health, education, and other systems across the nation, her son awakened her to realize her work was not enough! In 2015, when Pres. Trump was campaigning for presidency, her then 7year-old boy woke his parents drenched in tears and perspiration. He wailed: “When Trump says he wants to make America great again he wants to return to the days of people spitting on Ruby Bridges.” Starita wrapped her soul tightly around her son’s soul for him to feel her heart beats and her to feel his. Then she told him that will never happen. He cried: “It already is; they see us differently.”
After studying workplace DEI, Belonging, Affirmative Action, Anti-racism trainings, Social Emotional Learning and Multicultural Responsive Learning activities, Dr. Ansari agrees with the American Psychology Association, which has stated that those programs have not enriched the lives of Black children and their families. Thus, America has not achieved a “ More Perfect Union”.
In 2017, Dr. Starita Ansari founded The New 3Rs – teaching Black History, Responsive Philanthropy (awarding grants from youth giving circles to those most impacted by racial inequities) and Critical Race Theory (studying racial inequities). Dr. Ansari welcomes you to join her in creating a “More Perfect Union”. The New 3Rs – through the aRt of social justice storytelling we build Relationships and a sense of Responsibility.