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Strategies for Community Engagement
April 20, 2022 @ 3:00 pm - 4:30 pm
FreeUNC’s Frank Porter Graham Child Development Institute is pleased to welcome Derrick Willis, MPA, as the fourth and final speaker in our 2021-2022 distinguished speaker series, Examining Equity and Diversity in the Field of Developmental Disabilities.
Derrick K. Willis, MPA, is the director director of Iowa’s University Center for Excellence in Developmental Disabilities (UCEDD) at the Center for Disabilities and Development (CDD) within University of Iowa Health Care. Prior to joining CDD, Willis served as director of Urban Mission for 14 years at the Institute for Human Development, Missouri’s UCEDD. He has more than 36 years of experience in working at non-profits, state government, and higher education, and his work has primarily focused on youth and families from diverse backgrounds who live in urban communities. He currently serves on the Association of University Centers on Disabilities (AUCD) Board, as an At-Large member and is the past Chairperson for the Multicultural Council for AUCD.
Willis holds an adjunct faculty appointment within the College of Education at the University of Iowa and is a training director for Iowa’s Leadership Education in Neurodevelopment and other related Disabilities program (ILEND). He is an advisory board member for the UI-REACH program, serves as president of the Board for The Dream City, a nonprofit organization in Iowa City, board member of Goodwill of the Heartland and chairperson of the Mission Services Committee, board member of Foundation 2, a crisis and intervention center, and Board member of Mediation Services of Eastern Iowa. He was appointed by the president of the University of Iowa to serve on its Disability Policy Advisory Council (DPAC) in 2019. He is a past recipient of the Association of University Centers on Disabilities’ Multicultural Award for Leadership in Diversity (2015) and a graduate of the National Leadership Consortium on Development Disabilities (2014).