Congratulations to Dr. Byron Craig, recipient of the 2024 David A. Strand Diversity Achievement Award.
Established by Illinois State President Emeritus David Strand in 1994, the award recognizes a current Illinois State University faculty or staff member who is instrumental in extraordinary curricular or program activities that assist the University in responding to its commitment to diversity.
Craig recently was appointed interim chief equity and inclusion officer, and he is dedicated to the work of equity, diversity, inclusion, and access (EDIA) at Illinois State. Both his scholarly and public careers have positioned him to critically examine how issues of race and racism impact the lives of people of color that intersect with sexual identity, gender, religion, and other social and cultural constructs in our public culture.
Since coming to Illinois State, Craig has actively participated in EDIA issues. In the School of Communication, he serves as a member of the Anti-Racism, Social Justice and Coalition Building Committee and as faculty advisor to the Black Communication Association RSO and Drag Royalty. He continues to serve on the President’s Council for Diversity and Inclusion as the chair for the Sub-Committee on LGBTQAI2+ Policies and Procedures and on the media committee. From 2021-2023 he served as co-president of the Queer Coalition.
Craig is an active scholar who, in his scholarship and research, focuses on race, racism, and citizenship in American democracy. He has examined the American rhetoric of race in his research agenda on anti-Blackness, the violence of whiteness, and post-racial ideologies in American discourse, including in media representations and visual imagery.
In his upcoming co-edited scholarly publication, Rupturing Rhetoric: The Politics of Race and Popular Culture since Ferguson, he contributes two chapters addressing issues of anti-Blackness and the violence African Americans have endured in the American public culture. His other work focuses on how we might take stock of the (post) racial order in American society through the lens of rhetorical studies and scholarship. Outside of ISU, Craig serves on the Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Globalism committee at the Bloomington-Normal YMCA, where he leads 45-minute indoor cycling classes.
Craig earned an M.A. in African American and African Diasporic Studies and a Ph.D. in Rhetoric and Public Culture (in Communication and Culture) from Indiana University – Bloomington.
