Bola Delano-Oriaran

Divisional Dean for Social Sciences, Professor of Education and Director of Student-Teaching Abroad

B.A., Savannah State University 
M.P.A., Savannah State University 
Ph.D., Pennsylvania State University

Programs: Teacher-Education

Bola Delano-Oriaran, Ph.D., is an advocate for equity and multiculturalism in education and society. She earned her undergraduate and master’s degrees at Savannah State University, Georgia, and her Ph.D. at Pennsylvania State University before assuming her current position as associate professor of education and director of the Student-Teaching Abroad program at St. Norbert College.

Delano-Oriaran has more than 30 years of experience in engaging students from marginalized communities to pursue higher education opportunities. She continues to apply her teaching and scholarship focus, especially in the areas of positioning people of color for academic and professional success and engaging predominantly white communities and school districts in critical conversations on issues of race and social injustice. 

Her teaching and research focus on diversity and inclusion issues in schooling and society, authentic critical culturally engaging service-learning, closing the opportunity gap, engaging teachers for successful diverse classrooms and multicultural education. She has published papers in refereed journals and books and consults and speaks publicly on issues of diversity and inclusion and best practices in community engagement. She is the lead editor of two volumes on service-learning: 2015 SAGE Sourcebook of Service-Learning and Civic Engagement and the forthcoming volume on Culturally Engaging Service-Learning with Diverse Communities.

Delano-Oriaran is the founder and co-founder of numerous initiatives, including African Heritage, Inc., Umoja, a Black Heritage program for transracial families with Black/African-American children and the African Heritage Emerging Student Leaders Institute. She is the recipient of numerous awards on diversity issues and community change, including the 2020 Ethics in Action Award, Sister Joel Read Civic Engagement Practitioner Award, the City of Appleton’s Toward Community Unity in Diversity Award, St. Norbert College’s Scholarship Award, the Wisconsin State Human Relations Association’s Outstanding Human Relations Educator Award, and St. Norbert College’s Bishop Morneau Community Service Award. She was also recognized as one of the 28 most influential African-Americans in Wisconsin. 

Courses
EDUC 125 Foundations of U.S. Education 
EDUC 372 A Multicultural Approach to Early Education Curricular Issues and Instructional Methods 
EDUC 477 Student-Teaching Abroad
GS 408 Social Inequalities: Race and Minority Relations

Selected Publications
Delano-Oriaran, O., Penick-Parks, M. W., & Fondrie, S. (Eds.). (2015). The SAGE sourcebook of service-learning and civic engagement. SAGE Publications.

Delano-Oriaran, O. O., Penick-Parks, M. W., & Fondrie, S. (Eds.). (2017). Culturally engaging service-learning with diverse communities. IGI Global.

Delano-Oriaran, Omobolade O., and Marguerite W. Parks. "One black, one white: Power, white privilege, & creating safe spaces." Multicultural Education 22 (2015): 15-19.

Delano-Oriaran, O. (2014). Engaging pre-service teachers in diverse communities through service-learning: a practical guide for application. Journal of Education for Teaching, 40(2), 186-188.

Delano-Oriaran, O. (2012). Infusing Umoja, an authentic and culturally engaging service-learning model, into multicultural education. International Journal of Teaching and Learning in Higher Education, 24(3), 403-414.