Dawna Jones is a jack of all trades. She’s president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP, was chair for the Carolina Black Caucus, worked as an adjunct instructor in the UNC Higher Education program and served as the assistant dean of students UNC.
This month, she began a new position as the Director of the Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture at Duke University. Named after the legacy of jazz musician Mary Lou Williams, Jones described the center as a home-base for “all things Black” at Duke.
“We run the gambit on everything Black,” Jones said. “We’re calling it an all-Black everything and an opportunity for Duke’s community to really come together around what it means to be Black at a predominately white institution”
Dawna Jones (Photo via Chapel Hill-Carrboro NAACP.)
Earlier this year, Jones advocated for UNC to grant tenure to journalist and potential professor Nikole Hannah-Jones. She spoke out against the inaction of the UNC Board of Trustees to initially delay granting Hannah-Jones the traditionally tenured Knight Chair position. Jones said however, that controversy was not the sole reason for her choice to take the position at Duke.
“This opportunity came to me, I was not looking for it,” Jones said. “While I can’t say my move was directly related to the Nikole Hannah-Jones circumstances, I will say like many other Black faculty and staff members at Carolina, I had my share of challenges.”
After tenure was granted to Hannah-Jones, she ultimately decided to instead work at Howard University. Jones said she wishes Hannah-Jones the best in her position as the university’s inaugural Knight Chair.
For Black faculty and staff still at UNC, however, Jones said the Hannah-Jones controversy was one example of the larger issues faced.
“What I hope that people are still thinking about as this Nikole Hannah-Jones situation has resolved,” said Jones, “[is] I want folks to remember that not all of the challenges that staff specifically are experiencing at Carolina are about the Board of Trustees or the Board of Governors.”
She said some concerns from UNC faculty and staff stem from leadership who cannot lead or supervise across differences, comparing it to fitting a square peg into a round hole.
According to Jones, once leadership does learn how to better lead across differences, she believes the experience of working at Carolina should improve.
While Jones is continuing her next chapter at Duke, she said she’s excited for building community with her new position.
“I want to bring in the Durham community,” Jones said. “I want to have more opportunities for students and alumni to engage with one another. We’re already looking ahead to homecoming – having a big open house where we want folks to come on home and reconnect with the center if they’re not already connected but give our students an opportunity to really build their networks outside of just the university’s walls.”
Photo via Duke Today/Duke University
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