2024-05-07T20:15:01-04:00 https://archinect.com/news/article/150291431/crystal-williams-is-announced-as-the-18th-risd-president Josh Niland 2021-12-16T16:21:00-05:00 >2021-12-16T16:21:13-05:00 <img src="https://archinect.gumlet.io/uploads/e9/e90441950cbd4a6f585eabbb5002ab8a.jpg?fit=crop&auto=compress%2Cformat&enlarge=true&w=1200" border="0" /><em><p>When we began the search for RISD&rsquo;s 18th president, we sought candidates with not just the experience, education and wisdom that the job requires, but also receptivity, an aesthetic sensibility, the skill to communicate in a community that trades in images and materials, and something even more intangible: a deep, abiding empathy that can bind us all together</p></em><br /><br /><p>Williams has held similar positions at Williams College, Bates, and as the first-ever Dean for Institutional Diversity at Reed College in Oregon. While at Boston University, Williams was responsible for staff training and a host of successful <a href="https://www.bu.edu/thurman/programs/brothers-united/" target="_blank">diversity and inclusion initiatives</a> in addition to her role as a full-time Professor of English in the College of Arts &amp; Sciences.</p> <p>&ldquo;Crystal&rsquo;s creativity and her talent for helping manage complex and challenging situations related to race, gender, sexuality, and socioeconomic differences have been invaluable in moving BU forward,&rdquo; BU provost Jean Morrison said in a statement. &ldquo;She has consistently produced programming that not only answers the issues facing us, but also helps to initiate structural change.&rdquo;</p> <p>Williams is a graduate of NYU and Cornell and is considered a prolific author and poet, with superlative works featured in the MOMA poetry project and the American Poetry Review, among other places. Her writing has received multiple awards an...</p>