Amer Ahmed is an individual with an eclectic personal and professional experience. As a teacher, student, spoken word poet, Hip Hop activist, consultant and college administrator, he channels his diverse experiences into work geared towards effective change serving to create mutual benefit for all. Born in Springfield, Ohio to Indian Muslim immigrants, Amer has dedicated his life to engaging and facilitating diversity across human difference.
As an undergraduate student at Miami University in Ohio, he studied Anthropology and Black World Studies enhanced by powerful study abroad experiences in South Africa and Nepal. Amer’s education, world experiences and his Indian-Muslim-American upbringing helped him understand the need for respect and dignity of all people. He went on to Indiana University for his graduate studies in Anthropology and African American/African Diaspora Studies.
During his time in Bloomington, Amer was an Associate Instructor, PR Officer for the Muslim Student Union (during 9/11) and also became integrally part of strengthening Diversity and culture on campus through a fast-growing student non-profit organization named Hip Hop Congress (www.hiphopcongress.com). Amer now serves as Co-Chair of the Board of Directors for Hip Hop Congress, which has become the largest grassroots Hip Hop organization in the United States. Following his graduate studies, Amer was employed as Director of Intercultural Programs at Loras College in Dubuque, Iowa and later at Concordia College in Moorhead, MN. His education, global experience and prominent role in the Hip Hop Congress assisted him in addressing pressing issues of Diversity on these campuses.
In addition, Amer is also opening up important discussion and dialogue regarding Islam in a post-9/11 context both in the world and in the U.S. In Amer’s career he has consistently expanded the discussion on Dialogue to address all forms of marginality that impact how individuals experience institutions and society at large. He has become engaged in the field of Intercultural Communication drawing from the work of Dr. Milton J. Bennett and others who focus on a developmental approach to Intercultural competency. Such approaches have been useful in his work in Organizational Assessment and Development, Workshop facilitation, Public Speaking, Leadership Development and Student Support.
Amer is continuing this work at the University of Michigan – Ann Arbor where he serves as Associate Director of Multi-Ethnic Student Affairs. Amer strives to be an inspiration to young people who see purpose in the pursuing of their ideals. He stresses the need to identify one’s own talents, abilities and the importance of articulating them effectively in order to reach positions in which we can enact what he calls “Realistic Idealism”. Today, his work continues to prove that the millennial generation has an opportunity to shape its own future through passionate energy and a dedication to create effective positive chang
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