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 diversity and inclusion initiatives in addition to her role as a full-time Professor of English in the College of Arts & Sciences.

“Crystal’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,” BU provost Jean Morrison said in a statement. “She has consistently produced programming that not only answers the issues facing us, but also helps to initiate structural change.”

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 and has led to her extensive work as a moderator on several different art-related public forums.  

“I’m an advocate for the arts. I am an advocate for justice and equity and inclusion and have worked hard to help organizations align themselves to their stated principles—to actually get real about things,” Williams said in a press release from RISD. Her first term will officially begin April 1st.