Daphne Williams Ntiri

Daphne Williams Ntiri

Daphne W. Ntiri, Ph.D., has been privileged to hold faculty, administrative and consultant positions in the international, academic and public sectors. She is currently a Distinguished Service Professor in the Department of African American Studies, Wayne State University, where she has served for more than three decades. An experienced scholar/researcher, Ntiri’s skill set seamlessly straddles the fields of Adult Education and Literacy, gender empowerment, Third World studies and African American studies.

She is endowed with a keen and analytical mind and is able to recognize patterns within obscure cultural forces and, from these, to fashion powerful theoretical and pedagogical narratives that find ready application in both the classroom and in her publications. Her scholarship is enriched by the continuous cross-pollination between academia, research and service to the community that covers Africa, the African diaspora and beyond. Such service has been recognized and celebrated with dozens of distinguished awards, notably two Fulbright Scholar awards, the International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame, the Distinguished Service Professor, Career Development Chair and the Arthur Johnson Individual Community Leadership.

She earned her first Fulbright scholarship to the University of Ouagadougou in 2015, to be followed by another Fulbright scholarship to the University of Namibia nine years later. Through these, she has advanced the causes of Adult Learning, Higher Education, gender empowerment, African American scholarship and sustainability in the academy. In 2015, she was awarded an IFESH fellowship to the University of Djibouti to overhaul the global and culture studies program. A visiting faculty invitation to Uppsala University, Sweden, in 2017 enabled her to uncover the impediments facing marginalized communities such as Somali women and their literacy status in a Western society.

Professor Ntiri has a robust international research history. Under the auspices of the United Nations (UNESCO), she served as a consultant on adult education/literacy and gender promotion in Paris, France; Dakar, Senegal; and Kismayo, Somalia, in the 1980s and 1990s. This was before she launched her long-term adult literacy initiatives at Wayne State University with the support of state, federal and foundation grants amounting to more than $8.75 million. Such funding enabled the creation of departmental sub-units targeted at the community and promoted adult education instruction and research, while also enhancing institutional capacity-building.

Ntiri is committed to creating campus environments that promote learning as a transformative experience for students, more so adult learners around the metro Detroit area. She is a prolific and highly funded scholar and a tireless advocate for the underserved. Over the course of her career, she has authored more than 40 peer-reviewed articles and chapters and edited eight books. Her most recent edited book is Literacy as gendered discourse: Engaging the voices of women in global society, by Information Age Publishing.

Dr. Ntiri is a native of Sierra Leone. She received her undergraduate degree from Fourah Bay College, the University of Sierra Leone and master’s and doctorate degrees from Michigan State University. She completed a predoctoral fellowship at the International Institute for Labor Studies/International Labor Office (ILO) in Geneva, Switzerland.

Research interest(s)/area of expertise

• African American studies
• Adult education and literacy
• Gender and third world studies
• Transformative learning

Research

• African Americans Older Adults' Health and Aging Literacy 
• Literacy of immigrant African women within the context of Transformative Learning
• Adult Literacy and urban communities

Education

• Masters & Ph.D., Michigan State University
• Bachelors, Fourah Bay College

Awards and grants

Awards

• Fulbright Scholar Univeristy of Namibia
• Distinguished Service Professor
• International Adult and Continuing Education Hall of Fame award
• Fulbright Scholar, University of Ouagadougou
• Pearls of Hope Foundation, Woman in Education Award
• Arthur L. Johnson Individual Community Leadership Award
• Lifetime Achievement Award, Adult Education, Michigan Department of Education/Labor and Economic Growth
• Women of Wayne Award
• President’s Award for Excellence in Teaching
• College of Lifelong Learning Teaching Award
• WSU Alumni Association, Faculty Service Award
• Invited Delegate, 26th Annual Legislative Conference,  U.S. House of Congress, Literacy Issue Forum  
• WSU Career Development Chair Award

Grants (funded research selected)

• Principal Investigator (09/2024). EDUCON/1^st International Adult Learning conference. Namibian Ministry of Education, Arts and Culture: Directorate of Adult Education. $12,000
• Principal Investigator (09/2024-06/2025). Adult Literacy Opportunity Fund  Michigan Adult, Community &Alternative Education Association (MACAE). $72,000
• Principal Investigator (09/2009-06/2025), Workforce Investment Act/Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIA/WIOA) Improving Academic Excellence and Expanding Job Opportunities for Urban Populations. Workforce Development Agency, Michigan Department of Education. $1,3066,411
• Principal Investigator (09/2021-06/2025). Diversity, equity and inclusion with a focus on adult women learners. Community Foundation for Southeast Michigan/Beulah Friedman Foundation. $150,500
• Principal Investigator (09/2021-06/2024). Diffusion of digital innovations for the advancement of adult learners. Dollar General.  $55,013
• Principal Investigator (09/1995 - 01/02), Michigan Covenant with Adult Basic Education: Expanding Adult Education for Teachers and Prospective Adult Educators, Michigan Department of Labor & Economic Growth. $1,183,713
• Co-Principal Investigator (1993 - 1996), Council for Excellence in Adult Education (CEAL) to promote professional Adult Education Research and Professional Priorities, Michigan State Department of Education. $1,125,000
• Principal Investigator (09/2009-06/2015), Workforce Investment Act/Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act (WIA/WIOA). ABE/GED training. Detroit Literacy Coalition. Workforce Development Agency, Michigan Department of Education. $105,230.00
• Principal Investigator (1994 -1996), Participatory Literacy Education Project (PLEP), United Way of America/Knight Foundation WSU/Detroit Literacy Coalition to research and design theme-based literacy training for ABE instructors and tutors. $112,000
• Principal Investigator (1997/8), Family and Intergenerational Literacy, Ameritech to Detroit Literacy Coalition to provide technology equipment and materials to increase internet access to Detroit disadvantaged communities via the Detroit Public Library. $30,000
• Principal Investigator (1997/8), Family and Intergenerational Literacy, Brittan Communications Inc. (BCI) of Texas to Detroit Literacy Coalition to provide technology equipment and materials to increase internet access to Detroit disadvantaged communities via the Detroit Public Library. $10,000

Selected publications

Editor (books)

• Literacy as Gendered Discourse: Engaging the Voices of Women in Global Societies, by Daphne W. Ntiri (Ed.). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing (2015)

Refereed journal articles and chapters

• Literacy of immigrant African women within the context of Transformative Learning. In Literacy as a gendered discourse: Engaging the voices of women in global societies, by Daphne W. Ntiri (Ed.). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing
• Adult Literacy reform through a womanist lens:  Unpacking the radical pedagogy of Civil Rights Era educator:  Bernice V. Johnson.  Journal of Black Studies. 45(1), 159-166
• Toward a functional and culturally salient definition of literacy. Adult Basic Education and Literacy Journal, 3(2), 97 -104
• With Stewart, M.  Transformative Learning Intervention: Effect on Functional Health Literacy and Diabetes Knowledge in Older African Americans. Journal of Geriatrics and Geriatric Education, 30(2),100-113
• Access to Higher Education for Nontraditional Students and Minorities in a Technology-based Society, Urban Education, 36(1), 129-144.
• Older College Students as Tutors for Adult Learners in an Urban Literacy Program. Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, 43(1), 48-57
• Problem of Access to Higher Education within the Context of Adult and Lifelong  Learning in the U.S.A" in Lifelong Learning and Institutions of Higher Education in the 21^st Century. Werner Mauch and Renuka Narang (Eds.). Hamburg: UNESCO Institute for Education and University of Mumbai, pp. 104-111. unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000113877
• Africa's Educational Dilemma:  Towards an Integrated Model of Roadblocks to Universal Literacy for Social Integration and Change. International Review of Education, 39(5), 357-372
• Circumcision and Health among Rural Women of Southern Somalia as part of a Family  Life Survey. Health Care for Women International, 14(3), 215-226

Other qualifications directly relevant to courses taught

• Invited Faculty Researcher, University of Uppsala, Centre for Gender Studies, Sweden
• Fulbright Scholar, University of Ouagadougou
• IFESH Scholar, University of Djibouti
• United States Congress - Literacy Issues Forum
• UNESCO consultancies - France, Senegal and Somalia
• Research Fellow, International Institute for Labor Studies, Switzerland

Citation index

• ResearchGate
• • Research Interest Score  102.8
  • Citations 198
  • H-Index 6

Courses taught by Daphne Williams Ntiri

Winter Term 2025 (future)

• AFS2600 - Race and Racism in America
• AFS3610 - Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Foreign Culture: The Africans

Fall Term 2023

• AFS2600 - Race and Racism in America
• AFS3610 - Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Foreign Culture: The Africans

Winter Term 2023

• AFS2600 - Race and Racism in America
• AFS3610 - Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Foreign Culture: The Africans

Winter Term 2022

• AFS2600 - Race and Racism in America
• AFS3610 - Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Foreign Culture: The Africans
• SOC2600 - Race and Racism in America