portrait of Beth Douthirt-Cohen

Beth Douthirt-Cohen

Executive Director, Diversity, Equity, Inclusion Frederick Community College

For almost 20 years, Beth Douthirt-Cohen (she/her/hers or they/them/theirs) has developed educational environments as tools of social and political change. Currently, Beth is the Executive Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion at Frederick Community College in Frederick, Maryland, where she is responsible for strategic planning, assessment, benchmarking, and faculty/staff leadership and development. Previously, she was the Deputy Chief Diversity Officer at the University of Maryland (UMD) where she was responsible for strategic diversity, equity, and inclusion planning as well as various prejudice reduction efforts and educational initiatives to further social justice, including UMD’s Intergroup Dialogue program. Beth is a part of the Calico Hill Collective, a group of social justice educators who seek to further justice, healing, and processes of truth and reconciliation across all dimensions of identity and intersections of oppression in our homes and communities. Beth has her undergraduate degree in from Barnard College of Columbia University, her MEd from Harvard University, and her PhD from UMD. Beth teaches graduate level courses in educational policy, research methods, and social justice education. Her research examines how relatively privileged populations enact solidarity across identity differences and the role of education in that process.