Car­ol Quash

Dr Leti­tia Williams has built her life around the adage, “to whom much is giv­en, much is re­quired.” So her re­cent el­e­va­tion to vice pres­i­dent of the Di­vi­sion of Stu­dent Af­fairs at Mor­gan State Uni­ver­si­ty in Bal­ti­more, Mary­land, and her com­mit­ment to the re­spon­si­bil­i­ties of her new role came as no sur­prise to those who know her.

The Bish­op Anstey High School and Uni­ver­si­ty of the West In­dies alum­na told WE in a phone in­ter­view that her plan is to con­tin­ue cre­at­ing an en­vi­ron­ment that en­sures that more Mor­gan stu­dents are suc­cess­ful in ed­u­ca­tion.

Her du­ties in­clude en­sur­ing that stu­dents have the sup­port they need for suc­cess in­side and out­side of the class­room, which she ex­plained, “It’s about re­mov­ing bar­ri­ers that can pre­vent stu­dents from be­ing suc­cess­ful, and it’s about prepar­ing them to be ca­reer-ready. I re­port to the pres­i­dent, and I have 11 de­part­ments that I su­per­vise that re­port, at this time, di­rect­ly to me.”

She firm­ly be­lieves in the Mor­gan mis­sion, which fo­cus­es not on­ly on grad­u­at­ing stu­dents who do well fi­nan­cial­ly, but al­so about giv­ing them the op­por­tu­ni­ty to have a qual­i­ty high­er-ed­u­ca­tion ex­pe­ri­ence and get a de­gree that aims to change the tra­jec­to­ry of their lives and that of their fam­i­lies. She said it is about con­tin­u­ing to do the work of ed­u­cat­ing stu­dents in a way that is eq­ui­table while still help­ing them reach and ex­ceed all of the suc­cess mark­ers from a de­gree – in­tel­lec­tu­al abil­i­ty, cre­ativ­i­ty, an abil­i­ty to make mon­ey, an abil­i­ty to in­no­vate.

“This work is to cre­ate a di­vi­sion of stu­dent af­fairs that works with the uni­ver­si­ty to en­sure that we grad­u­ate stu­dents who are sec­ond to none.”

Williams is a Ful­bright fel­low, hav­ing ap­plied for the fel­low­ship on the en­cour­age­ment of her for­mer His­to­ry teacher. She left T&T with her hus­band, Wes­ley, to study in the US in 2000.

“I went to the best school in the world, Bish­op Anstey High School,” she said with a chuck­le.

“It pre­pared me for a lot. Then I went back and taught his­to­ry there.”

The for­mer Pe­tit Val­ley res­i­dent said her in­tent was to study law, but when she did not get in­to the pro­gramme, she de­cid­ed to do com­mu­ni­ca­tions. That dis­ci­pline, too, evad­ed her.

“I went up to Ja­maica to do com­mu­ni­ca­tions. When I got there, I was told the course was full, so I start­ed do­ing his­to­ry there. I had al­ways loved his­to­ry, and de­cid­ed to stick with that and went back to Trinidad to fin­ish my de­gree…I be­lieve that God or­ches­trates my life, and it was what it was sup­posed to be.”

Williams took up her first po­si­tion at Mor­gan in No­vem­ber 2022, as the as­so­ciate vice pres­i­dent and dean of stu­dents. Pri­or to that, she held se­nior po­si­tions at the Uni­ver­si­ty of the Dis­trict of Co­lum­bia, the Uni­ver­si­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go and the Uni­ver­si­ty of Mary­land, Col­lege Park, from which she grad­u­at­ed with a PhD in Ed­u­ca­tion Pol­i­cy.

“When I came to Mor­gan, I found a very strong de­part­ment, but I al­so found a place where the un­der­stand­ing of the role of stu­dent af­fairs and what it means for stu­dents to be suc­cess­ful could have been el­e­vat­ed.”

She worked with the vice pres­i­dent and pres­i­dent on a strate­gic goal to change that.

“We cre­at­ed the co-cur­ric­u­lar learn­ing frame­work, which is a guide for stu­dents in terms of how they can ac­quire skills as they live at the uni­ver­si­ty. We start­ed a cen­tre for eq­ui­ty and in­no­va­tion in stu­dent af­fairs, which is a kind of hub for de­vel­op­ing, test­ing, and dis­sem­i­nat­ing in­no­v­a­tive prac­tis­es that we were de­vel­op­ing. And we worked with an­oth­er of our cen­tres to cre­ate an AI vir­tu­al as­sis­tant.”

This, she said, was ex­cit­ing be­cause it was the first time she had been list­ed as a cre­ator on any type of in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty dis­clo­sure.

“We worked with fac­ul­ty to de­sign sur­veys that we need­ed, and we launched the Stu­dent Sup­port and Out­reach Ser­vices of­fice to kind of strength­en our case man­age­ment func­tion. And we did a com­pre­hen­sive re­view of the struc­ture of the di­vi­sion and the staffing needs that re­sult­ed in some bet­ter or­gan­i­sa­tion­al align­ment and ex­pand­ed ca­pac­i­ty in terms of staffing and so on.”

Williams has al­so served as in­ter­im vice pres­i­dent at Mor­gan.

She was ap­point­ed to the new po­si­tion af­ter the uni­ver­si­ty did a com­pre­hen­sive na­tion­al search for can­di­dates to fill the post she now holds.

“I’m glad it wasn’t that I was just giv­en the po­si­tion, but was se­lect­ed from a na­tion­al pool.”

She be­lieves she is a born ed­u­ca­tor, hav­ing be­gun her teach­ing ca­reer just af­ter com­plet­ing her un­der­grad­u­ate stud­ies, and con­tin­u­ing when she moved to the US to study.

And just as she is com­mit­ted to her role in ed­u­ca­tion, the moth­er of one takes her fam­i­ly re­spon­si­bil­i­ty very se­ri­ous­ly, as she does her ser­vice to God.

“My daugh­ter, Nao­mi, is now a ris­ing ju­nior in col­lege, so even though I spend less time with her as she’s striv­ing for her in­de­pen­dence, she is a top pri­or­i­ty. And my hus­band and I, we’ve tak­en up some hob­bies to­geth­er.”

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, she is an avid read­er, writes po­et­ry and de­vo­tion­als, and sings in church.

“When I was younger, I sang in a group. And then I was a head­line for a gospel con­cert in Mar­tinique. So I sang for re­al…But now, I sing when I go to church; I’m in the choir and on the wor­ship team. And it’s al­ways gospel.”