DAVID S DEREZOTES portrait
  • Chair, Senate Advisory Committee on Diversity (SACD), Academic Senate
  • Co-Chair, University Anti-Racism Committee
  • Chair of Faculty Learning Community, "Teaching in a time of pandmic, protests, and polarization", Ctle Ctr Teach & Learning Ed
  • Professor in MUSE, MUSE
  • Associate Instructor, College Of Social Work
801-585-3546

Research Summary

My scholarship is interdisciplinary, and emphasizes model- building of practice approaches that address the interrelationships between: (1) Race, equity, diversity, and inclusion (REDI) work (2) Individual and community well being and mental health practice (3) Peaceful conflict resolution and collaboration-building (4) Spirituality and religiosity (5) Environmental sustainability (6) Human global survival and well being

Education

  • MSW, Social Work, San Diego State University
  • PhD Psychology, Psychology, International College, Los Angeles, California.. Project: Dialogue and Buber
  • Special Education Certificate, Graduate Program, Drake University, Des Moines
  • PhD, Social Welfare, University of California, Berkeley

Biography

DrDave Derezotes recognizes and appreciates the privilege and response-ability of working as an academic at the University He strives to use his privilege as an opportunity to be of service to the local and global communities.

DrDave has three home towns; Chicago (born on South Side), San Diego (lived there for 10 years where he earned MSW from San Diego State U) and San Francisco-Berkeley (lived in Haight-Ashbury and later returned to Bay Area to earn PhD at UC Berkeley).

He is Director of the Peace and Conflict Studies (PCS) Program in the College of Humanities and Professor in the College of Social Work (CSW), now in part-time retirement. He also serves as a Fellow and Faculty Learing Community Chair at the University Center for Teaching and Learning Excellence (CTLE) and as a MUSE Professor, in Undergraduate Studies.

He currently is Chair of the Senate Advisory Committee for Diversity (SACD).

DrDave served as Director of the "Transforming classrooms into inclusive communities" (TCIC) project with CTLE for three years, where he created and led a diverse team of facilitators who worked with instructors across campus, to help them transform challenging classroom conversations into opportunities for learning about diversity and developing inclusive communities. In his fourth year of TCIC he facilitated a Faculty Learning Community for the Fellows.

Since 2016, Dr. Derezotes has served as Community Host for the weekly "Radical Middle" program on KRCL radio, which seeks to help identify common positions that people share, across the differences that often may divide us, and frequently responds to media requests the University receives, regarding news events and other community challenges. This year he presented a daily series of reflections on KRCL that used insights from the world's wisdom traditiosn to help us heal and transform during the pandemic.

He also works with University Neighborhood Partnes (UNP) providing supervision and consultation to social workers who serve under-served and minoritized populations, including our growing immigrant and refugee populations and co-directed a project funded by UNP called Transforming Neighborhoods into Inclusive Communities (TNIC) foir two years.

As a professor at the CSW, he is interested in helping students develop both artistic and scientific factors in micro, mezzo, and macro practice, and utilize all ways of knowing in informing practice (including using both what is called “practice-based evidence” as well as “evidence-based practice”). His work recognizes that humans are "ecobiopsychsocialspiritual" beings who best develop and make contributions to society when all these dimensions of being human are valued and addressed. Teaching and mentoring of students and practitioners is especially important to him, and Dr. Derezotes strives to incorporate experiential learning in the classroom and community.

As Director of the Peace and Conflict Studies Program in the College of Humanities, Dr. Dave is currently working on many service projects, including  dialogues on race, gender, and religion on campus and in the community. He has been involved in the community-based  “Bridging the Religious Divide” dialogue project, which has provided opportunities for community healing though dialogue for almost two decades in Salt Lake City.

On campus, he facilitates a number of Racism, Equity, Diversity and Inclusion (REDI) programs that currently includes a semester long Whiteness, Privilege and Critical Praxis class that he helped develop several years ago, designed for white-identifying staff and faculty to do anti-racism work. He als hosts a monthly social justice series for Utah Humanities that is open to the public and offers a community dialogue about topics related to racial justice, climate change, the health of our democracy, and the elections. With his colleague, Dr. David Parker, Dr. Derezotes has provided Equity, diversity, and inclusion trainigns for a number of campus units as well as for a number of community programs. 

Much of Dr. Derezotes' scholarship has been model-building, in which he focuses on the Ecobiopsychosocialspiritual approaches to practice and considers the interrelationship between individual and community human well being, spirituality, and ecosystem health. He has published 6 textbooks, including “Transforming historical trauma through dialogue” (Sage, 2014). His most recent text is actually a novel ("The eternity dialogues: Understanding global transformation", Cognella, 2020) set in 2050 that describes how a secret group of Great Grandmothers helps save humanity from climate chaneg and nuclear war. This experimental novel is accompanied by a website that offers students more traditional learning tools. Dr Derezotes has been using the novel in his classes and evaluating the outcomes. All University earnings are donated to the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA).

Finally, on days when he is not working, DrDave can often be found somewhere in the desert, often on the Colorado Plateau, where he loves to wander and wonder in the wild beauties of Utah. May we all appreciate and protect our natural treasures and work together to reverese the climate change that threatens all of our descendants.

Selected Works

  • David Derezotes & I am sole author (2019). The eternity dialogues: Understanding global transformation. Vol. textbook, Cognella. Published, 06/2019.
  • Derezotes, D.S. & Engar, R. (2016). Spirituality and women’s health. In Frost, C.J. & Digre, K.B., eds. The 7 Domains of Health: Multidisciplinary Considerations of Women’s Health in the 21st Century. Dubuque, I Iowa: Kendall Hunt Publishers. Published, 12/01/2016.
  • Derezotes, D.S. Cheney, S., & Cheney, G. (2016). Transforming conflicts over sustainability through dialogue. In. P. Kellett (Ed.) Conflict Transformation. Vol. II. Boston: Lexington. Published, 12/2016.
  • Derezotes, D.S. (2016) Ecopsychology: Adding “Eco” to the Biopsychosocialspiritual perspective. In Turner, F.J. (Ed.) 6th Edition ). Social Work Treatment: Interlocking Theoretical Approaches. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Published, 12/15/2016.
  • Derezotes, D.S. (2018). Four organizing principles in peace and conflict studies: consciousness work, systems theory, ecobiopsychosocialspiritual lifespan development, and experiential learning. . (pp. 12). International Conflict Resolution Education.. Accepted, 08/31/2018.
  • David S. Derezotes & Edited by Muriel Schmid (2017). 29-46The use of dialogue in transforming religious conflict In Religion, conflict, & peacemaking, An interdisciplinary conversation. (pp. 29-46). University of Utah Press. Published, 12/01/2017.
  • Derezotes, D.S (2019). Using an ecobiopsychosocialspiritual approach to understand and transform human interaction with anthromes and biomes.. The Encyclopedia of the World's Biomes. Amsterdam, Netherlands and New York.Elsevier.. Published, 06/01/2019.
  • Derezotes, D.S. (2019). . Flying Jewel: A single-parent mom moves in. (accepted for publication in Spring, 2020) in Catalyst. Accepted, 12/01/2019.
  • David Derezotes & In Batton, J., Shedd, J., Smith, D. & Warters, W. (2018). Organizing Principles in Peace and Conflict Studies. . (pp. Chapter 11). Conflict Studies Collaborative, https://conflictstudies.org/books/manual-pcs-v2/. Published, 01/06/2018.
    https://conflictstudies.org/books/manual-pcs-v2/