Committee closes in on cultural center director

The end may be in sight for the Mary Lou Williams Center director search committee.

After a three-year quest, the committee hopes to fill the position "well before the end of the year," said Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs Maureen Cullins, co-chair of the search committee and dean of campus community development. In the next two weeks, the search committee will interview three finalists, and plans to make a decision shortly thereafter.

Although Cullins did not divulge the names of the three finalists, she did say they were are all qualified for the directorship on multiple levels.

"All have either academic or practical experience with African Americans or the African-American Diaspora," Cullins said. "In addition to scholarly work, they all have experience programming [events]."

The three candidates all currently hold academic appointments at other universities, but to the committee's best knowledge, said Vice President for Student Affairs Janet Dickerson, all are available for the spring semester.

Each finalist will spend at least a day on campus meeting with students, faculty and administrators, in addition to representatives from the Durham Arts Council and from cultural centers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University.

"We expect to get some significant feedback," Cullins said. "We're looking at the fit of the candidate for the position."

All three contenders were among six semi-finalists who came to the University for initial interviews last spring. Initially, only one of those semi-finalists, Leon Dunkley, was invited back for a second interview this summer but he decided to accept a teaching position at Brooklyn College of the City University of New York instead.