Dr. Freeman Hrabowski III, president of the University Maryland, Baltimore County, has been a mentor in the program and was presented with the 2014 Council of Fellows/Fidelity Investments Award. (Photo courtesy Tim Trumble/ACE).
At 37 years old, Dr. Joseph L. Jones has accomplished more than some seasoned college educators twice his age.
As the founding director of the Social Justice Initiative (SJI) at Philander-Smith College, the Black political scientist, whose groundbreaking research focuses on the intersection of race, gender and politics, currently oversees service learning programs and other initiatives aimed at redressing inequities in society at the Little Rock, Arkansas, historically Black institution.
It’s a cabinet-level position that “interfaces with everybody” and reports directly to the president, says Jones, who held teaching stints at Clark-Atlanta University and Johnson C. Smith University before returning to his alma mater in 2011.
The job, he says, has now prepared him for the next step in his relatively young career: to become the president of an HBCU.
“I want to be a college president,” he says with confidence during an interview with Diverse. “I want to take the reins of an institution and help push things forward.”
Despite prestigious faculty fellowships at Stanford and Harvard University and a promising career in the classroom, Jones says that he’s now ready to lead an HBCU.
And his timing may be opportune, given the flurry of resignations, firings and retirements in recent years of HBCU presidents. Some have clashed with their boards, fallen short in increasing student enrollment, or simply found the task of raising funds to support financially strapped institutions simply too overwhelming.
