Arig al Shaibah is McMaster’s inaugural Associate Vice-President, Equity and Inclusion and she is an adjunct associate professor in the Department of Sociology and has a teaching affiliation with the Arts & Science Program.

In addition to overseeing the Equity and Inclusion Office, she is responsible for championing inclusive excellence and leading the development and implementation of institution-wide strategic equity, diversity and inclusion priorities at McMaster.

Prior to arriving at McMaster, Arig held the roles of Vice-Provost (Student Affairs) and Acting Executive Director (Human Rights & Equity) at Dalhousie University, and, before that, Assistant Dean (Student Life and Learning) at Queen’s University. Arig also held adjunct faculty affiliations with Queen’s Interdisciplinary Studies Program and Gender Studies Department , as well as Dalhousie’s Sociology and Social Anthropology Department.

Arig holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration and a PhD in Education (Cultural and Policy Studies). Her doctoral research involved a study of the perspectives of senior-most administrators with respect to the barriers to and enablers of educational equity in higher education. Her areas of research interest are intergroup relations, race and racism, social inequality, as well as questions of how to foster inclusive leadership and mobilize organizational EDI change.