Aaron Jones grew up in the neighborhoods of Inglewood, Hawthorne, and South Central L.A. His father drove a forklift. His mother worked at the county social services office. Both parents wanted Jones to get a degree but, since neither had been to college themselves, they didn’t know how to get him there—or what he could expect when he did.
So, when Jones was hired as an African Black Caribbean (ABC) retention specialist at UC Santa Cruz in 2016 and asked to start a program to help ABC students transition to college life, he relied on his own experiences.
Jones, now interim director of the Educational Opportunity Programs (EOP) on campus, organized Black Academy, a six-day orientation program for African Black Caribbean students to help them find their paths through college. Mentors were paired up with new students and sessions were offered to cover basic questions like how to sign up for classes and buy books. Lists of campus resources were handed out. There was socializing and panels to discuss Black identity and how to deal with things like microaggressions that might occur. Friendships formed as students spent the orientation period housed together in the Rosa Parks African American Theme House on campus. This fall will be Black Academy’s sixth year.
“We front-load information so the unfamiliar world students walk into will become a bit more familiar,” said Jones, who, as a first-generation student at UC Riverside, arrived at his dorm room not even knowing he needed to bring his own sheets.
The Academy also includes periodic gatherings during the year so new and older members can connect.
The results have been impressive.
According to Jones, while UC Santa Cruz’s retention rate for all students after the first year ranges from 70–80 percent, the same retention rate for students who went through Black Academy is 90–95 percent.
For Jones, while programs like Black Academy and EOP aren’t the only safe place on campus for ABC students, “it’s that students find someone in these places that will help them feel safe and gives them the energy (and help) to go out and interact with things that might not be positive,” Jones said.
It’s also about listening and bringing change to the campus.
Jones, for instance, has created a research fellowship with the Chancellor’s Office, the African American Resource and Cultural Center, and the Black Student Union that engages undergraduate ABC students to investigate campus experiences relating to housing, policing, and being a Black Muslim on campus, among other topics. It’s a way, Jones said, for the campus to better understand needs.
What drives Jones, who completed his doctorate in higher education leadership from Azusa Pacific University in 2019, is a desire to help students not face the same struggles he did as a first-generation Black student and to make sure students are given every chance to succeed, he said.
He also is pushed by the need for more change.
“I really do value the work we do and the difference we make, but there is always more to be done and I think that’s another motivator for me,” he said. “It takes people like me, but it also takes campus leadership to really integrate these structures and turn things around…. We have to re-examine the whole way we do this work.”
