Louisville native Dr. Jabani Bennett is an interdisciplinary visual artist, yoga instructor, community-engaged educator, leadership consultant, dancer, and mama. She is also the first Black and openly queer director in the University of Louisville Women’s Center’s 30-year history.
The Women’s Center at the University of Louisville (UofL) was founded in 1991 and continues to serve as a resource and space of belonging for women, femmes, and gender-expansive individuals within and outside the UofL community.
Dr. Jabani Bennett
“The students are always the teachers in my book about which community-engaged practices to implement in a space,” she says. “I am not the expert, and I come to the students openhearted and ready to learn.”
By following the students’ lead, Bennett strives to integrate healing-centered leadership approaches, pleasure activism, and her love for the arts into the center’s programming.
“The aim for active listening to students, staff, faculty, community members, and UofL stakeholders anchors my work in making impactful connections, and my team’s efforts in student coaching and leadership development, cultural programming, and resource-sharing,” says Bennett.
Her new role is transformative because she is returning home to the center in many ways. In the early 2000s, Bennett worked at the center as a graduate student event coordinator under the second director, the late Mary Karen Powers.
