As it has for the last three years, the Mary Lou Williams Center for Black Culture opened the fall semester without a permanent director. Duke administrators remain hopeful, however, that a director will be in place by the spring semester.
The search committee identified three finalists for the position, but only one candidate, Leon Dunkley, was invited back to campus for a second interview. In a move that caught administrators off guard, he accepted a teaching position at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York before attending the second interview.
Maureen Cullins, search committee co-chair and dean of campus community development, maintains that despite the lack of a director, the search committee is performing up to par. "Personally, I'm encouraged that we're as far as we are," she said. "I feel confident that we will soon have someone in place."
Filling the vacancy is a symbolic necessity, said President Nan Keohane, who has repeatedly stressed the importance of both the center and its director.
"I'm disappointed, as is everyone else involved, that the search has not yet yielded the right outcome," she said. "But I know that the efforts will be rekindled this fall and we look forward to a good conclusion."
Cullins said the committee will meet Thursday for the first time since last semester and plans to bring the remaining two finalists back to campus for interviews as soon as possible.
According to Cullins, the search committee had always intended to bring these finalists back for second interviews, but only Dunkley's was possible because administrators' summer vacations made scheduling difficult. As a result, she said, the committee had planned to bring the remaining finalists to campus this fall.
This is a shift from previous statements made this summer, in which Cullins said a director would be installed before students returned to campus in late August.
Although both remaining finalists have academic appointments at other universities through this year, Cullins said the two are "absolutely" still interested in the position. Ideally, one of the candidates would leave his or her current post one semester early and assume the directorship by the spring semester, she said.
"We hope for January," Cullins said. "If we do [the interviews] soon enough, there is a strong possibility."
Although Cullins is uncertain about the specific contracts of the two finalists, she does not expect to have to continue the search beyond this fall. "I don't think we're going to run into that problem," she said.
The directorship has remained vacant since the 1995 death of English Professor Ed Hill, who served as the center's director from its 1983 founding. The first national search was abandoned in 1997 due to concerns about funding and the quality of the applicant pool.
Administrators appointed C.T. Woods-Powell as the interim director last August, pending a second national search.
As the center operates this semester without a director, artist-in-residence Philip Shabazz will be responsible for programming and events, which he and Powell did jointly last year.
"The focus of last year was programming and 85 to 90 percent of what we did was programming," Shabazz said. "Probably this semester there won't be as much activity. Obviously without a director things are not going to run 100 percent, but it's not going to be dormant."
According to Keohane, it is important that the center stay operational despite the absence of a director. "The Mary Lou Williams Center is a crucial part of the cultural life of Duke University, especially for African-American students, and it is important to have a good leader for the center," she said. "Much good work has been done under C.T. Woods-Powell's leadership last year, and we are confident that the center will continue to do some interesting things in the semester ahead while we await a permanent appointment."
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