Director's Profile

Daphne Muse has served as the director of the Women’s Leadership Institute (WLI) at Mills College since 2004. In her role as director, she works with student fellows at the WLI Roundtable providing co-curricular programming and projects that enrich learning, inquiry, and scholarship while supporting local, national, and global activism focused on women.

She is the award-winning author of four books and more than 300 articles, essays, and commentaries, many of which focus on women and children’s rights. Her work has been published in the San Francisco Chronicle, Black Scholar, San Jose Mercury News, and the Washington Post; and has been aired on NPR, Radio One, and Pacifica stations across the country. In 2004, Ms. Muse was selected as a Forever New Frontiers Radio Essayist and commissioned to write an essay on Pulitzer prize-winning poet Gwendolyn Brooks. Presidential historian Doris Kearns-Goodwin, astronomer Sir Martin Rees, and U.S. Poet Laureate Billy Collins are amongst some of the essayists so honored. From 1975–83 and 1991–93, she also served on the English and ethnic studies faculties at Mills College.

Ms. Muse’s activism dates back to 1962, where as a high school senior and organizer in Washington, DC, she joined with High School Students for a Better Education in speaking before a congressional committee on the separate and unequal status for blacks in public schools. As a student at Fisk University, she worked with the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and continued to work as an organizer and advocate for social justice in the academy and community. Ms. Muse is the recipient of numerous awards from local and national organizations including Black Women Organized for Political Action, Girl Scouts USA, the City of Oakland, and the Junior League.

Daphne Muse
510.430.3196
dmuse@mills.edu