Deanna Durham

Deanna F. Durham currently serves as Social Work Program Director and Associate Professor.  She is in her 20th year of teaching at Eastern Mennonite University (EMU).  In addition to directing and teaching in Social Work she regularly teaches a Senior Seminar forcused on equity and inclusion and leads Intercultural experiences locally (Local Context Intercultural Program) and will lead a May course at the U.S./ Mexico border in 2024 with EMU students.  Here main areas of interest and scholarship focus on race, gender, intersectionality, immigration and healthy masculinity.

Deanna worked and lived in Washington, D.C. from 1982 – 1997 and continues to take every opportunity available to take students to not only DC but any city.  While she lives on a family farm and loves digging in her vegetable and flower gardens, cities continue to excite her and she loves people watching as well as wondering where the service industry workers live and have they been displaced by gentrification.  

Deanna and her family lived in El Salvador for over 4 years serving as the Country Directors for Mennonite Central Committee 1997 – 2001. Leading EMU cross culturals with U.S./Mexico border components has been an ongoing commitment and a deep relationship with Fronter de Cristo, a Presbyterian bi-national ministry in Douglas, AZ and Aqua Prieta, Mexico had been established.  Helping students see with their own eyes the myriad of complex challenges in border communities is a major focus of her summer courses.

In every course I teach students are asked to consider the complex intersection of race, gender, religion, class, sexuality, privilege and power. How do we create institutions, communities and families where respect, empathy and welcome are centered?  Locating ourselves, sharing our stories and listening deeply to one another is at the core of my teaching pedagogy.

*Baccaulaureate speaker 2017 commencement, “Speaking of Eating”

Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community - Racial Equity Advisor     2020 - present

*Senior Seminar:  Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging

*Senior Seminar:  Suffering and Loss 2017 - 2022

• Committee on Diversity and Inclusion (2015 – present)
• Faculty Senate Member (Fall 2016 – 2019)
• Cords of Distinction (Fall 2007 – present)
• Faculty Advisor

Intercultural Cultural Leadership

• Spain Summer 2022
• Guatemala/Spain Spring 2019
• Summer 2007 – present: Local Context May session focused on Mennonite Brethren, African American and new immigrant history in the local community