February 13, 2023

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by: admin

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Tags: Celebration, Tampa

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Categories: 2023 Honorees

Dr. Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman

Dr. Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman is Associate Professor of Sociology and Interim Associate Vice Provost for Faculty Recruitment, Retention, and Engagement at The University of South Florida. She received her B.A. from Cornell University and her M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from Duke University. She is the author of The Color of Love: Racial Features, Stigma, and Socialization in Black Brazilian Families (2015, UT Press), a three-time award winning book and the topic of her 2015 TEDx talk.  She also co-edited the book Race and the Politics of Knowledge Production: Diaspora and Black Transnational Scholarship in the USA and Brazil (Palgrave). She has been the recipient of numerous awards and grants, including by the Ford Foundation, the American Sociological Association, and the Reed Foundation. A Fulbright research scholar to Brazil, Hordge-Freeman published her most recent book in 2022, Second-Class Daughters: Black Brazilian Women and Informal Adoption as Modern Slavery (Cambridge University Press). She has taught courses on Racial & Ethnic Studies, Comparative Racial Stratification, Global Human Trafficking, and created an award-winning study abroad program on Afro-Brazilian culture in Bahia, Brazil.

In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder, in 2020, she was appointed Senior Advisor to the President and Provost for Diversity and Inclusion and later served as interim Vice President of Institutional Equity. In these roles, she led and developed the USF Anti-Racism Initiative, collaborated to create, and launch of the Diversity, Anti-Racism, and Equity (DARE) data dashboards, and worked with external and internal stakeholders to implement new policies and practices to address anti-Blackness and promote equity among student, faculty, and staff. Dr. Hordge-Freeman is founding convener of the USF Black Employee Steering committee and founding chair of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council. She also led a process to redevelop the new Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at the University of South Florida. In 2021, in recognition of the broader needs across the university, she co-developed the Advancing the Latino Access and Success (ALAS) Taskforce and facilitated the establishment of the Presidential taskforce for Accessibility to support persons with disabilities. Under her leadership, the University of South Florida was selected to receive the 2022 Higher Education Excellence in Education award.

As part of her commitment to public sociology, she launched a YouTube channel, “Sweeter the Juice,” where she discusses racism, colorism, and sexism in a humorous and accessible way. Most recently, she and her husband, McArthur Freeman, launched the Imagine Black_AI Instagram page and organized an art exhibition where they create images that explore Afro-Futurism and representations of Blackness. She is a member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority, Inc, the Athena Society, the Society for Senior Ford Fellows, and the USF Women and Leadership in Philanthropy. She is 4th generation from West Tampa, and the proud mother of Nathaniel and Janelle Freeman.

Dr. Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman is an asset and a Community Champion. She was nominated as a City of Tampa Black History Committee Community Honoree of Distinction because of her work to promote equality and to create avenues for social change within the community through education.