Biography
Dr. Darrick Smith is an Assistant Professor of Educational Leadership at the University of San Francisco and Co-Director of the School of Education’s new Transformative School Leadership (TSL) program. His research interests are culturally responsive discipline practices; critical pedagogy; transformative school leadership, and social justice schooling. Dr. Smith is the founder and former Director of the TryUMF (pronounced "triumph") program in Oakland, CA and formerly served as the Co-Director/Principal of the June Jordan School for Equity in San Francisco.
He has served as a trainer and administrative coach in local school districts as well a Center Director under the Foundation for California Community Colleges- the system for which he still consults as a trainer for the statewide Professional Learning Network. Nationally, Dr. Smith also currently serves as a national consultant for the Now is the Time Technical Assistance (NITT-TA) Center funded through the U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and was recently an advisor to The "Centre of Reflexive Education and Intrapersonal Development" project in Warsaw, Poland.
Dr. Smith’s pathway has led him to speak at a number of national and statewide conferences on issues of educational reform as well as work in California’s correctional facilities while maintain his lifelong dedication to resistance efforts in the Greater Bay Area of Northern California. Such experience has shaped both his research agenda and his pedagogy for the last 20 years.
- Education
- EdD, Educational Leadership, San Francisco State University, CA
- Experience
- Center Director, LearningWorks -Foundation for the California Community Colleges
- Co-Principal, June Jordan School for Equity, San Francisco, CA
- Founder/ Executive Director, Trying to Uplift My Folks (TryUMF), Oakland CA
- Research
- Culturally responsive discipline practices
- Critical pedagogy
- Transformative school leadership
- Community colleges & equity
- Selected Publications
Smith, D. (2018). “Social Justice Educators: A Note on Your Authority and Power”. Peak Magazine. Visionary Futures. Retrieved from http://peakmag.net/visionary-futures/
Smith, D. (2017). "Thoughts on Equity and The California Community Colleges". Handbook of Multicultural Education in the 21st Century.
Smith, D. (2017). “A Critical Perspective on the use of the Trauma Narrative in American Education.”IN: Symbolic Violence in Socio-Educational Contexts: A Post-Colonial Critique.
Smith, D. (2016). A Humanizing Approach to Improving School Disciplinary Culture. Bank Street Occasional Papers Series.
Smith, D. (2015). Disciplinary Third Spaces: A Case Study of a School for Social Justice. The International Journal of Pedagogy, Innovation and New Technologies
Yeh, C., Smith, D., & Borrero, N. (2014). Into the Field: Anti-colonial and Indigenous Perspectives and Strategies for Counseling Interventions. Handbook of Multicultural Counseling (4th ed.). Sage Publications.