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Biography
A Duquesne employee for more than 50 years, Dr. Judith Griggs directs Duquesne University’s Robert and Patricia Gussin Spiritan Division of Academic Programs and the Michael P. Weber Learning Skills Center. She also serves as the University’s Mediation Officer, while teaching a service learning course for Duquesne’s School of Education.
Early in her career Dr. Griggs taught at Westinghouse High School and worked as head teacher and then director of the Street Academy and Ebony Prep, alternative schools under the auspices of the Urban League of Pittsburgh.
Dr. Griggs received her Ph.D. in Curriculum and Supervision from the University of Pittsburgh, her Masters of Arts in English from Carnegie Mellon University, and her Bachelor of Science in Education, secondary English, from Cheyney University.
Dr. Griggs is the recipient of several awards, including most recently the Duquesne University 2023 Diversity and Inclusion Award.
Additional awards include the Sister Thea Bowman Foundation award; the City of Pittsburgh DiverseCity 365 Living Legend Award; “Dr. Judith R. Griggs Day” on April, 29, 2010, in the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, declared by Mayor Luke Ravenstahl; the Jerome Bettis Bus Stops Here Foundation Community Service Award; the New Pittsburgh Courier’s Woman of Excellence: Education Category Award; and the Pittsburgh Post Gazette’s top 48 Educational Leaders recognition.
She is a member of the Holy Family Institute Board of Trustees and of the POWER Board of Directors. Dr. Griggs is married to Phillip Griggs, and they have two daughters—Enjay Griggs, who is a pharmacist and resides in Pittsburgh, and Inuka Griggs Ivaska, who is an actress and resides in Bloomfield, NJ. Both are graduates of Duquesne University. She has two granddaughters, Mahogany Love, age 8 and Remington Ellis-Jack, age 4. She is a member of the Mt. Ararat Baptist Church.
In one of my writings I declared that “I strive to root my work in ethical leadership. I believe that ethical leadership results from the conscious ordering of one’s steps in life based upon values. These values ideally shape what individuals choose to pursue in life and how; and they serve as the ‘border collie’ for one’s comportment as one moves through the world, ideally in an ongoing growth process.”
My view, moreover, is that the critical underpinning of ethical leadership is values rooted in love or goodwill. Equally as important is the willingness of individuals to risk their approval status within a community to engage in activities they judge to represent the right actions to take, not necessarily those that bring approbation and support from the masses. Oft times these actions transform the cherished culture of a place to embrace in better ways more of God’s people.
What most shaped my life is my father, Samuel Love Ralph, and my mother, Carrie Lee Chitty Ralph, taking me to church each Sunday and, as I grew into my teenage years, their having me to know that “without Sunday morning church service there would not be a Saturday night party.” These two were my greatest and wisest teachers.