When a significant portion of your early school years are experienced with the city’s only HBCU (historically black college/university) as a backdrop, being asked to help steer that institution’s growth and advancement is, well, epic.
Dr. Adriane Johnson-Williams – as of July 26 – is LeMoyne-Owen College’s new Special Assistant to the President for Strategy and Planning. Her presence means that the college has shifted gears in its pursuit of Destination 2023, which is President Dr. Andrea Miller’s blueprint for the renaissance of the historically liberal arts college.
Dr. Miller, who launched Destination 2023 as Destination 2020 in 2016, did not have to talk her into taking on the challenge.
“I’d been learning a lot about (Dr. Miller’s) plans and learning a lot about her, and I was thrilled to be able to work for a black woman. I haven’t worked for a black woman since I was 23 years old,” Johnson-Williams said.
“And, the opportunity to come back to this neighborhood that is the foundation of everything I’ve become, and contribute to bringing her vision to life, was one that I could not walk away from.”
As a member of Miller’s cabinet, Johnson-Williams will focus on Destination 2023’s five strategic priorities: faculty and academics; enrollment and retention; graduation; post-graduation placement; and endowment.
What will she be doing?
“It’s my job to organize the larger effort across the college, to look at … to work with people, to collaborate across functional areas, to make sure we engage all the stakeholders, students included,” Johnson-Williams said.
“And understanding what the challenges are, understanding what the trends are, and then developing strategies and plans to improve outcomes.”
She holds a Ph.D. in Educational Policy Studies from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Master of Education in Secondary Education from The George Washington University, and Bachelor of Arts in Economics and French from Wellesley College.
Johnson-Williams comes to LOC after concluding work as a program officer at Pyramid Peak Foundation, where she led philanthropic efforts to address poverty and youth development.
She is also the former director of Collaborative Action with Seeding Success, a Shelby County collective impact effort focused on improving cradle-to-career outcomes for local youth.
As a child, young Adriane was fascinated with a TV show called “Facts of Life,” which featured a boarding school. The idea of such a school drove her to the Levi Branch Library near her home. Aided by a librarian, she came up with a list of five such schools; one was the Foxcroft School in Virginia.
Financing the education at Foxcroft was tricky.
“My parents got another mortgage, and my mom scraped together quite a bit, and the people from my church helped to support different kind of expenses,” she recalled. “And, there were people who gave money to the school specifically for students like me to take advantage of the full experience, like going to the Kennedy Center and international travel and those kinds of things. I took advantage of those.”
In short, the community invested in her. That type of investment will be among the things she will be looking to stimulate and/or tap into in her new role.
“It’s actually been a part of what I try to simulate in every job, this idea of helping or promoting the idea that we are all responsible for the children and youth in our community,” Johnson-Williams said.
“Any time there is an opportunity to help support an effort that brings people together around young people, to institute a policy to support young people, I am working on that, and I have been throughout my career.”
She returned to the Memphis area in 2012 “doing work that really does put me in touch with a lot of the nonprofit community. And, particularly work around collaboration and organizational effectiveness and organizational improvement. That put me in the path of
Dr. Miller, and we’ve gotten to know each other for the better part of a year.”
Emphasizing that LeMoyne-Owen College is “ushering in a new era,” President Miller said Johnson-Williams has the knowledge, experience, passion and leadership ability needed to guide improvement of strategic outcomes across the college’s core focus areas.
“I am committed to ensuring that our College and our students are better positioned to reach new heights and for long-term success. This positioning requires having effective leadership at all levels, vigorous academic programming that prepares students for 21st century careers and adequate resources to support continued growth and advancement,” Miller said.
“The hiring of Dr. Johnson-Williams signals a milestone that has been reached in our ongoing efforts to build capacity and strengthen our organizational structure. …
“(She) is not only committed to helping LeMoyne-Owen evolve as an institution of higher learning, she also has vested interest in giving back to the community that set the foundation for her personal evolution and in helping youth who are now students in our community reach their highest potential and excel.”
Johnson-Williams said the LOC leadership team is in “sprint mode” relative to Miller’s Destination 2023 plan for transforming the historically liberal arts college.
“In a very short period of time, I will need to get all of the baseline data, and determine, ‘Where are we?’ And, ‘what direction have we been going in?’
“And get people together – the faculty, staff, students – to look at those trends and say, ‘We don’t want to be here. We want to be here,’ and get to work.”
