Introducing Our Crew
Bringing you more than 50 years combined experience in higher education, and lifetimes of hands-on experience, our trainings are steeped in compassion, scholarship, experience and activism.
The Minnesota Group is led by its Co-Founders:
Charlotte A. Kunkel, Ph.D.
Founder & Director
Email : char@minnesotagroup.org
Born and raised in central Minnesota, I grew up in a big farm family. As a farm girl, I value my roots and the soil that is nurturing and life giving. I love the water and lakes of Minnesota where I learned to swim and fish. I know that life is always changing and adapting, just like the soil and waters. Attending St. Cloud State expanded my horizons, literally. I studied abroad in college, traveling throughout Europe and Russia. In college I learned to more skillfully question everything human. I continue to study, travel, and explore, and to push myself to get comfortable with discomfort. As a trained sociologist I have learned about the great complexities and peculiarities of social systems. In graduate school I worked with some amazing women (thank you Carol and Elease) who helped me to become a community educator and activist. I am passionate about teaching in and out of the classroom. As a white identified cisgendered woman rooted in the lands and lakes of Minnesota, I bring to this team a love of humanity, a deep appreciation for our interconnectedness and interdependence, humility in our/my faults, and the audacity to think we can change.
Ron Ferguson, Ph.D.
Founder & Director
Email : ron@minnesotagroup.org
Hailing from St. Croix, Virgin Islands, my life has been an adventurous, cross-cultural journey. During my trek to the mainland United States, I have experienced all the challenges and opportunities that come with moving to a new location. Although it was tough leaving my family and moving to an unknown place (Midwest), I was excited about the possibilities that came with being a driven, first-generation college student from the Caribbean. While I loved learning and living in my new home, I faced several hardships along the way due to the ever-present realities of bias and bigotry. Thankfully, with the allyship of friends and educators, I was able to access a community of support and develop a deep passion for studying sociology, particularly interested in the impact of structures and systems on the lived experience. I have focused my scholarship on understanding the experiences of diverse students and closing academic equity gaps. Standing on the shoulders of many (thank you, Terry and Kathleen), I have now made Minnesota my home. I seek to leverage both my lived experience and training as a sociologist, to create positive systemic change. My hope is that I continually “pay it forward” and be an agent of healing and hope!
Jyoti Grewal, Ph.D.
Founder & Director
Email : jyoti@minnesotagroup.org
As a transnational global citizen, it has been my privilege to live in different countries. Born of, and raised by, parents who began their lives as colonized subjects and then served free India, I received a legacy from them of service: serving justice and ensuring dignity of all as the end goal of all actions. As an ethno-religious minority, I lived on the margins in India, and then in the United States, a layer “of color” was added to my identity. Without much thought to the contrary, I embraced it all. I wasn’t seeking comfort; I sought and found experience of the human condition. My mentors at Stony Brook (thank you, Joel and Naomi) taught me how to live with grace and dignity in a challenging world, and to make waves when called to do so. Living and working in the United Arab Emirates I learned of the possibilities that come with multiple peoples and cultures living together, and cultural dynamics intersecting and influencing each other. Minnesota is my home, the place for which I am every day thankful to the First Nations peoples. Trained as a historian, one has a panoptic vision of the world and its denizens. The lived reality of a transnational gives me strength to imagine transformation with Char and Ron. Because we believe we can always become more connected.