Berklee has appointed Dr. Lacretia Johnson Flash as the senior vice president for DEI, community, campus culture, and climate. In this inaugural senior leadership role, Flash will oversee diversity, equity, and inclusion and forge innovative strategies to build and strengthen the Berklee community. Prior to this new role, she served as the college’s vice president of diversity and inclusion.
In a career spanning more than two decades in higher education, Flash has led strategic institutional diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts in her numerous roles as an educator and administrator. She has contributed to national conversations on diversity and multicultural change in higher education organizations through her research and scholarship on multicultural organizational development and cultural competency. Her work was also recognized nationally for its innovative and sustained approach to diversity, equity, and inclusion learning through a multiyear professional development series. As a visual artist, Flash brings a passion for creative practice, sensitivity to the developmental journey of each person, and a disciplined approach to the complex problems that impact communities.
Flash joined Berklee in 2018 as assistant vice president of diversity and inclusion. During her tenure, she convened Berklee’s first Campus Climate Summit, which brought together Berklee’s students, faculty, staff, and campus leaders to discuss the greatest challenges facing the Berklee community and generate proposals to address these challenges. She provided critical leadership in forging powerful partnerships and coalitions across the institution to create and implement Berklee’s Plan to Address Systemic Racism, expand DEI-focused professional development and signature diversity and inclusion programming, such as Berklee’s Legacy Award and concert. In recent years, Flash sponsored the institution’s first comprehensive campus climate study and the implementation of an action plan based on its results, as well as other cross-organizational efforts that resulted in Berklee’s first Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award from Insight into Diversity this fall.
Flash grew up in Maryland and is a longtime resident of Vermont. She holds a Doctor of Education degree in educational leadership and policy studies from the University of Vermont and a Master of Arts in education and a Bachelor of Arts in English from the University of Maryland. She is also a visual artist who specializes in watercolor and mixed media work.
