Guilford is creating a new office for ensuring student success and has a new leader to run it.

Ayesha Swinton this week began her new role as Director of the Office of Transformation & Inclusion, which reports to the President. The new office replaces the Division of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

Under Ayesha’s leadership, the office will engage and collaborate with Guilford students, faculty and staff to enhance inclusivity and diversity across the campus, in its curriculum, through professional development, and in recruitment and retention practices.

All of these initiatives are part of Envisioning Guilford 2027, the College’s new strategic plan that will be rolled out this fall.

Ayesha says what she loves most about Guilford is that students, faculty, staff and administrators are not content with the status quo.

“The world is changing and diversity is ongoing and ever-changing,” she says. “So often people working with diversity stop and say ‘we did it right’ not knowing that there’s so much more to do. I love that Guilford is so willing to move forward and not stand still.”

Ayesha comes to Guilford from Greensboro Day School, where she worked the past 11 years, the last three years as the school’s Director of Diversity & Belonging. She joined GDS in 2012 as an upper school Spanish teacher, served as National Honor Society Advisor and founded and advised the Student Diversity Leadership Council. 

Ayesha received an undergraduate degree in Romance Languages at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2002. She earned her master’s in Spanish Leadership from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro in 2010 and a doctorate in Education from UNCG in 2018.