Welcome Oliver W. Colbert

Welcome

OLIVER W. COLBERT

Furthering its commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion, the Law School recently welcomed Oliver Colbert to its full-time Admissions Office team as the first-ever Associate Director of Admissions & Diversity Initiatives.

A native of New York City born and raised in Brooklyn, Oliver currently resides in St. John’s home borough of Queens. He earned his undergraduate degree in Journalism from SUNY Buffalo State and a master’s in Higher Education Administration from Stony Brook University. As a college administrator for six years, Oliver’s work focused on supporting and developing students, specifically students of color from marginalized communities.

His favorite quote, from American novelist, playwright, essayist, poet, and activist James Baldwin, nicely captures the importance of Oliver’s work at St. John’s Law:

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.”

Associate Director of Admissions & Diversity Initiatives

10 l ST. JOHN’S LAW MAGAZINE

THE PIVOT

A Year of Resilience, Reckoning, and Reinvention

Over the past year, as the world faced a public health crisis unparalleled in recent history and the United States confronted, again and again, pervasive racism in its systems and structures, the St. John’s Law community came together. In a range of forums and formats, students, faculty, executive leadership, staff, and alumni pivoted to rethink, innovate, and evolve as individuals, as professionals, and as a Law School animated by the Vincentian question: What must be done?

The stories that follow offer a snapshot of this time of resilience, reckoning, and reinvention. They present in two parts: PART I, BEYOND INCLUSION, chronicles just some of the ways our community members are helping to make St. John’s Law not just an inclusive institution, but an actively and ardently antiracist one. PART II, PANDEMIC SHIFTS, shares stories about learning, teaching, and lawyering in the face of unprecedented challenges.

Together, these stories weave a narrative of unity, strength, and success. It’s also a narrative of adversity, and the Law School community’s response to it. And it’s a narrative that’s still unfolding as the vital work of antiracism and the global pandemic go on.

PART I