Tahia Bell-Sykes, MM

Tahia Bell-Sykes’ path into equity and education was forged early — and intentionally.  Before stepping into higher education administration, she worked at a residential school for at-risk youth (deaf students & girls), an experience that would become foundational to everything that followed.  It was there that she first witnessed the intersection of systemic inequity, educational access, and the urgent need for adults to show up fully for young people whom institutions had often failed.  That calling has never left her.  In 2007, she joined Cambridge College as an Admissions Counselor in the School of Education, beginning what would become nearly two decades of institutional leadership, teaching, and advocacy rooted in the belief that belonging is not a benefit — it is a right. 

Over the years, Bell-Sykes grew into progressively senior roles serving as Program Manager across the School Nursing, Licensure Operations, and Educational Leadership, and ultimately as Undergraduate Administrative Manager overseeing multi-departmental strategy, operations, and high­-performance teams. Holding a Master of Management degree from Cambridge College she brought both scholarly grounding and practical fluency to her work – advising institutional leadership, managing complex program portfolios, and maintaining the dual focus on operational excellence and equity outcomes that defines her leadership style.  

Since 2017, Bell-Sykes has served as Adjunct Faculty and, beginning in 2025, as Senior Faculty at Cambridge College at Bay Path University — teaching across early college, undergraduate, and graduate levels with a breadth that reflects the full scope of her expertise, Her courses span Principles and Processes of Adult Learning, Themes in Sociology, Introduction to Social Justice, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion in Criminal Justice, Diversity in the Workplace, Leading Antiracist Schools, Foundations of Social Justice, Visualizing Social Justice, Multicultural Diversity Issues in the Workplace and Classroom, and Strategic Business Planning, among others.  She designs her courses around culturally responsive pedagogy and universal design for learning, ensuring that content is not only academically rigorous but accessible and transformative for every student in the room. 

As Principal Consultant in Equity, Inclusion & Belonging since 2019, Bell-Sykes has partnered with institutions to design, implement, and evaluate EIB training systems, workshops, and organizational change strategies. Her specialties — Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion; Social Justice, Multicultural Diversity in professional and educational settings — are not merely academic interests but active areas of practice, shaped by years of engagement with the communities most affected by systemic inequality.  She brings particular fluency in anti-racism, gender equality, LGBTQ+ inclusion, xenophobia, and intersectional oppression, and is known for translating complex frameworks into programs that are both intellectually grounded and practically actionable. 

Her equity work extends well beyond the classroom and consulting spaces.  As a founding member of Mass Against Police Brutality and former Team Lead for Criminal Justice Equity Advocacy, she has led teams of advocates in reviewing cases for systemic bias, developed public awareness campaigns, and helped shape reform-oriented community strategy in environments where institutional trust required careful, sustained rebuilding.  A Community Sign Language Interpreter, she brings a deep, personal commitment to accessibility and inclusive communication across every dimension of her work. 

Bell-Sykes’ specialties — DEI and belonging, social justice, multicultural diversity in the workplace and classroom — are informed by her abiding interests in criminal justice, sociology, education, community engagement, and activism. She approaches inclusion not as a compliance exercise but as a moral and organizational imperative: examine inequity at every level, amplify voices at the margins, and build environments where every individual is not just tolerated but genuinely seen.  Her conviction is as simple as it is enduring – include all, exclude none.