Dennis Williams poses in his office in the Computing and Communications Center. Charles Harrington/University Photography
Dennis A. Williams, director of the Learning Skills Center, a senior lecturer in writing and a Cornell alumnus, will leave the university at the end of March to become the director of the Center for Minority Student Affairs and professorial lecturer in English at Georgetown University. He begins his new post April 1.
Williams received a bachelor's degree at Cornell in English in 1973 and a master of fine arts degree in creative writing at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst in 1976. He spent 10 years at Newsweek magazine (five as national affairs writer and five as education editor) before returning to Cornell in 1985 to teach writing in the Writing Workshop and the Learning Skills Center, which provides a broad range of academic support programs for undergraduates and is aimed at student retention. Williams has been the director of the Learning Skills Center since 1992.
In these and many other roles, Williams has been an eloquent spokesman for Cornell's African-American community. As a student, he wrote a column for the Cornell Daily Sun, was a frequent contributor to the literary black student publication Watu and was a charter member of Ujamaa Residential College his senior year, when the residence hall opened.
As an alumnus Williams has been president of the Cornell Black Alumni Association, and as a faculty member he has served on University Council and as associate dean for admissions and financial aid. He also is well-known to the greater Ithaca community, having led several local educational programs, including a 1993 forum on racism at Boynton Middle School.
In Ithaca, Williams also found time to pursue his love of fiction writing, completing a semi-autobiographical novel titled Crossover and a second novel, Somebody's Child, currently awaiting publication. With his father, author John A. Williams, he also co-wrote an unauthorized biography of Richard Pryor.
But Williams said his greatest rewards at Cornell have come from teaching and from directing the Prefreshman Summer Program, an intensive, six-week academic orientation program for minority and low-income students, including those in Cornell's Higher Education Opportunity Program.
"My favorite moments at Cornell have come at the end of each prefreshman program, when we have a banquet for the graduates," he said. "It's like a very special commencement ceremony."
At Georgetown, Williams will continue leading a prefreshman summer program for minority students, there called the Community Scholars Program. He also will continue pursuing his love of teaching, in his classes on fiction writing, and his concern for neighboring communities, by directing a Georgetown outreach program in the Washington, D.C., public school system. The Syracuse native added that he and his family look forward to returning to a large city.
In assessing race relations on the Cornell campus over the past two decades, Williams said, "I don't think things have changed all that much, and that's been a little frustrating. More than relations between whites and people of color on campus, though, what I am concerned about is the relationship that people of color have with the Cornell community as a whole -- the way we see ourselves and position ourselves. It saddens me a bit that it has been 27 years since I first came here and people of color still don't see themselves as being entirely at home; we're still fighting for acceptance on a variety of levels. There is still a sense that our existence here is somewhat precarious, and while on some levels I don't think that's true, the perception is important."
Williams said he believes the future of minority students at Cornell cannot be separated from the quality of education the university provides. To that end, he said, he hopes that the Learning Skills Center "will become an even stronger advocate for undergraduate education by continuing to pay special attention to the needs of minority students."
David S. Yeh, Cornell assistant vice president for student and academic services, said he will miss Williams' "deep commitment to undergraduate education, not only for minority students, for which he has certainly been a spokesman, but for all students."
Susan H. Murphy, vice president for student and academic services and a fellow Cornell graduate from the class of 1973, worked closely with Williams when she was the dean of admissions and financial aid.
"Dennis has been a trusted friend and a treasured colleague for the 12 years he has worked at Cornell," she said. "He is someone whose judgment I have always valued highly. He has been deeply committed to making Cornell a better place; he obviously cares about his students and makes sure that others do, too.
"We are sorry to see him depart his alma mater, but we wish him the very best in his new ventures at Georgetown," she added. "And I look forward to having him continue as an active Cornell alumnus. As I told him, I'm not going to let him get away!"