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2008 GSEP Psychology Graduation
Psychology students in the Graduate School of Education and Psychology will celebrate their 2008 graduation on Saturday, May 17. The ceremony begins at 10:30 a.m. at Alumni Park on the Malibu campus. Molefi Kete Asante, professor in the Department of African American Studies at Temple University, will receive an honorary doctorate. Monica Rivera-Mindt, a clinical neuropsychologist and faculty member at Fordham University, will be honored as a Distinguished Alumnus.
About Molefi Kete Asante
Molefi Kete Asante is a professor of African American studies at Temple University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In addition to being a teacher and noted scholar, he is also a prolific author, poet, dramatist, painter, and in 1995, was made a traditional king of Tafo, Akyem, Ghana.
Asante assumed the chair of African American studies at Temple University in 1984, and created Temple's first Ph.D. program in African American studies in 1987. He has directed more than 130 Ph.D. dissertations
during his long academic career. Prior to his appointment at Temple, Asante served as professor and chair of the Communications Department at State University of New York at Buffalo. He also worked to train journalists in Zimbabwe in the early 1980s.
One of the nation's most distinguished contemporary scholars, Asante has published 66 books and more than 300 articles for journals and magazines. He has the distinction of being one of the 10 most widely cited African Americans.
Widely acclaimed for his scholarship and visionary thinking, Asante is the founder of the theory of Afrocentricity. The Utne Reader named him one of the "100 Leading Thinkers" in America, and Transition magazine regards him as the "most important professor in Black America." He is the recipient of the
National Communication Association's Douglas Ehringer Award for Rhetorical Scholarship and was inducted into the Literary Hall of Fame for Writers of African Descent at the Gwendolyn Brooks Center at Chicago State University.
Asante received his bachelor's degree from Oklahoma Christian College in 1964. He went on to earn his master's degree in speech from George Pepperdine College in 1965, and received his Ph.D. from UCLA in 1968 at age 26.
Asante resides in Elkins Park, Pennsylvania, with his wife Ana Yenenga.
About Monica Grace Rivera Mindt
Monica Grace Rivera Mindt is a clinical neuropsychologist, researcher, and assistant professor of psychology at Fordham University located in New York City. She is also serving a joint appointment as assistant professor at Fordham's Latino American and Latino Studies Institute. Additionally she is principal investigator on a $1 million National Institute of Mental Health grant program studying the socioeconomic barriers to medication adherence for Hispanic HIV-positive patients in New York City.
Rivera Mindt has held her psychology appointment with Fordham since 2002, and her joint appointment in Latino studies since 2003. She also serves as a part-time assistant professor at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in Manhattan. In addition to her work on Hispanic HIV-positive patients, she conducts research on HIV antiretroviral therapy effects. She has directed several doctoral and master's theses and teaches at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.
Rivera Mindt actively participates within the larger psychological profession serving on committees of such organizations as the National Academy of Neuropsychology and the American Psychological Association.
Rivera Mindt has received numerous teaching awards including the Northeast Consortium for Minority Faculty's Early Career Development and Pilot Projects Research Training Awards. She mentors ethnic/racial minority students and postdoctorals who are pursuing neuropsychology study, and has also been active in community revitalization projects.
In 1992 Rivera Mindt received her bachelor's degree in psychology from California Polytechnic University, Pomona, and earned her master of arts in psychology from Pepperdine University in 1994. She received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Nebraska in 2000. Rivera Mindt did her clinical residency at the University of Washington School of Medicine, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, San Diego.
Rivera Mindt resides in New York, New York, with her husband Alex Mindt.
