Who is Terri Givens?
Terri Givens is a political scientist, author, speaker, and consultant known for her work on race, immigration, and inclusive leadership. She is the author of Radical Empathy, The Roots of Racism, and Immigration in the 21st Century. She is an in-demand expert with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC News), Bloomberg, and other international outlets.
Currently a professor at the University of British Columbia, Terri has held leadership roles at McGill University, Menlo College, and the University of Texas at Austin, advancing strategic initiatives on international studies, equity, and curriculum. She has delivered 70+ keynotes and workshops since 2020, helping organizations build more inclusive and empathetic cultures.
Terri’s service extends well beyond academia. She is deeply committed to community service and creating change in the communities where she lives. She has supported and led many nonprofits and currently serves on the board and executive committee of her alma mater, Gonzaga Preparatory School.
Upcoming Talks & Events
Meet Gateway Athletes: A Live Q&A for Families and Supporters
Monday, October 19, 2026 | 4:00 PM PT / 7:00 PM ET
Live online (link sent after registration)
Gateway Athletes helps student-athletes from underserved Bay Area communities reach college and beyond. We start in middle school. The program combines athletics, academics, mentorship, and family support, and we stay with kids for the long run.
Join founder Dr. Terri Givens for a live Q&A. She was a Division I athlete at Stanford and raised two athlete sons, and she built Gateway Athletes to give families the support she couldn’t find.
It’s open to:
- Parents who want to know if Gateway is right for their child
- Volunteers and mentors looking for a way to show up for young athletes
- Sponsors and funders who want to invest in a pipeline that works
Excellence Without Exhaustion
Saturday, October 3, 2026 | Panel 1:30–3:30 PM PDT
Terri joins a panel at Nueva’s community event for Bay Area Black families. She’ll share how Gateway Athletes helps student-athletes build a path to college through sports, school, and mentorship. There’s also a keynote from USF’s Mohammed Soriano-Bilal, lunch, and activities for kids. All ages welcome.
Gateway Athletes Launch Event
Tuesday, September 15, 2026, 3:00 pm EDT
Join founder Dr. Terri Givens — Stanford D-I track alum, former Provost at Menlo College, and author of Radical Empathy — in conversation with Mike Palmer for a live hour on why the pathway for student-athletes has to start long before college.
Gateway Athletes is a wraparound program for rising 8th-grade student-athletes in underserved Bay Area communities: academic preparation, mentorship, family engagement, athletic development, and accountability that doesn’t end when a kid ages out of the program.
Elizabeth Dougherty and Marisa Solis with Terri Givens
Saturday, July 25, 2026, 4:00 pm
Elizabeth Dougherty and Marisa Solis are veteran editors and book coaches who have guided hundreds of non-fiction books from idea to publication. Together they cofounded Book Structure Pros and co-authored The Complete Expert-to-Author Guide, a step-by-step roadmap for turning professional expertise into a clear, compelling non-fiction book.
In this conversation at Kepler’s Books, Dougherty and Solis join Terri Givens—Professor of Political Science at UBC and author of Radical Empathy: Finding a Path to Bridging Racial Divides and Reckoning: Creating Positive Change through Radical Empathy—to talk through every stage of writing a non-fiction manuscript, from initial idea to finished book proposal.
Ibram X. Kendi in Conversation with Terri Givens
Monday, April 13, 2026, 7:30 pm
Ibram X. Kendi is one of the world’s foremost historians of racism and a leading antiracist scholar. Eleven of his seventeen books have been New York Times bestsellers, including the international bestseller How to Be an Antiracist, which was named essential reading and one of the best books of the year by multiple publications. He makes a rare appearance in Vancouver for one night only with his latest pivotal work of nonfiction, Chain of Ideas: The Origins of Our Authoritarian Age.
In this unmissable conversation with Terri Givens—Professor of Political Science at UBC and the author of Radical Empathy: Finding a Path to Bridging Racial Divides and Reckoning: Creating Positive Change through Radical Empathy—Kendi offers an unsettling but indispensable global history of how great replacement theory brought humanity into this authoritarian age—and how we can free ourselves from it.
Reckoning: Creating Positive Change through Radical Empathy
Anti-racist movements have continued to grow worldwide after the death of George Floyd in 2020. Following the BLM protests, many promises were made to deal with the impact of structural discrimination. While this led to more talk than action, there has also been meaningful change, some of which has gone under the radar. The US media focused primarily on the backlash that resulted in book bans and laws against having DEI offices in universities.
In contrast, this book, a follow-up to Terri Givens’ best-selling book Radical Empathy: Finding a Path to Bridging Racial Divides, highlights the promises which were delivered. It focuses on hope and taking action and creating a positive environment including the use of the radical empathy approach to empower ongoing change.
Terri’s Books
Terri’s Latest Interview
