Bio


Dayo Nicole Mitchell is a Senior Associate Director with Stanford Introductory Studies (SIS), under the Vice Provost for Undergraduate Education (VPUE). She is the program director for Sophomore College (SoCo) and also works closely with the program in Civic, Liberal, and Global Education (COLLEGE). COLLEGE is Stanford's first-year liberal education requirement, taught by a team of Stanford faculty and teaching fellows. Sophomore College is a three-week residential program in the September intersession focusing on experiential learning beyond the classroom, offering 18-20 classes each year. Rising sophomores concentrate on a single class in a living-learning format for three weeks.

Before moving to SIS in 2017, Dayo served as an Academic Advising Director with Undergraduate Advising and Research (UAR, now Academic Advising), helping students of all majors and classes navigate Stanford. Her focused projects as an advisor included working on advising websites, academic skills coaching, honors theses, and the Mellon Mays Undergraduate Fellowship.

Dayo arrived at Stanford in 2011, after several years as faculty in the Clark Honors College at the University of Oregon. While at the honors college, she developed experience with university admissions, undergraduate research, and diversity, equity, and inclusion work, as well as doing general advising for honors college students across all majors and schools. Dayo is trained as a historian of slavery and the British empire in the Caribbean and taught courses in world history and the history of the Atlantic world. Her research focused on the politics of race and citizenship in the nineteenth-century. She has lived in California, New England, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Oregon, with extended stays abroad in England and Trinidad & Tobago. Her name is pronounced "DAH-yo", not "day-oh".

Current Role at Stanford


Senior Associate Director for COLLEGE and Sophomore College--Stanford Introductory Studies

Education & Certifications


  • PhD, University of Virginia, History (2005)
  • MA, University of Virginia, History (1999)
  • BA, Williams College, History (1997)

2021-22 Courses