Benedicta Akley-Quarshie

Dr. Benedicta Akley-Quarshie is the Coordinator Senior for Equitable Student Engagement and Success at the Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts. Dr. Akley-Quarshie provides co-curricular empowerment and support to underrepresented and minoritized students in the Herberger Institute for success and retention. She is also a drama therapist, theatre educator, and applied theatre researcher who works and conducts arts-based and mixed-method research with youth experiencing incarceration, minoritized higher education students, and historically, persistently, and systemically marginalized populations. Her research interests are community-based and inclusive student engagement initiatives in higher education, youth agency and adultism in applied theatre spaces for justice-involved youth, architectural imperialism in post-colonial Ghanaian theatre, and Drama therapy practices for youth experiencing incarceration.