Home » New director chosen to lead UK Martin Luther King Center

New director chosen to lead UK Martin Luther King Center

Jason Brooks

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Sept. 5, 2018) — The University of Kentucky has chosen Jason Brooks to direct the UK Martin Luther King Center.

Jason Brooks is currently assistant dean of students for diversity, equity and inclusion at Emporia State University, in Emporia, Kan. He will join UK on Sept. 24.

“I am very excited to have Jason join our campus community as the new director of the MLK Center,” said Sonja Feist-Price, UK’s vice president for institution diversity. “He is extremely knowledgeable about issues involving diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging, and Jason’s leadership skills, strategic vision and interpersonal skills will be instrumental in helping us broaden the scope of the MLK Center while also maintaining a community of belonging and engagement for African-American and Latinx students.

“The MLK Center is one of the most important offices in our campus community that helps to prepare students to become global citizens, irrespective of their identity. The MLK Center director plays an important role helping to achieve the university’s goals.”

Serving the entire university, UK’s MLK Center director is responsible for strategic oversight of many of the most integral institutional initiatives focused on diversity, inclusion and belonging that impact thousands of students, faculty, staff and other community members each year. The director plays a key role in the recruitment, retention and graduation of our diverse student populations and collaborates with faculty and staff to support a welcoming and sustaining campus climate.

Working from the most state-of-the-art inclusion-focused center in the country, the MLK Center director regularly interfaces with and contributes to national social justice dialogues. With the vision and temperament to collaborate effectively and efficiently with other institutional diversity directors and key stakeholders across the campus and commonwealth, the director fosters new and expanded intercultural and cross-cultural dialogues. The position supervises a full-time professional team of three with a sizable budget and has flexibility to incorporate scholarship and teaching related to the director’s discipline.

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