“Managing Stereotype Threat” Talk: Join in a conversation with Rufus Elmer Jones, Jr., Co-Founder and President of the James Weldon Johnson Foundation. Jones will share his personal stories in highly competitive corporate and not-for-profit organizations and discuss a challenge endemic to many new candidates seeking jobs in academic and industry circles alike: “Stereotype threat.” Candidates are often unaware of the capacity for stereotype threat to negatively impact their pursuit of professional success. Stereotype threat involves an individual undermining his or her own performance at a given task because of widespread beliefs that the social group in which he or she identifies – including groups organized by race, gender, nation or age – does not “naturally” perform well at that task.

Rufus Jones Executive Summary: Rufus Elmer Jones, Jr. has at different times in his life, held roles as an educator, entrepreneur, musician, songwriter, and Wall Street trader. Rufus has over thirty years of relationship management and sales trading experience in highly complex, competitive organizations, working on behalf of institutions and individual investors while cultivating his passion as a musician/singer/songwriter/lecturer. Jones is a respected leader with a customer service mindset who values a commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion as a component to excellence while working on behalf of institutional and individual investors, public and independent schools, corporate and governmental organizations, and students and their families. Jones believes that the current social justice movement in the early 21st century of the U.S. is both a fight for equal justice under law and for equal access to the “economic highway to power.” Jones’ mission includes increasing the number of entry lanes to the economic highway to power for African Americans and their allies.

Learn more about Rufus Jones at rufusjonesmusic.com and jamesweldonjohnson.org

Learn more about stereotype threat from Dr. Claude Steele and Dr. Joshua Aronson and by reading “Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotype Affect Us and What We Can Do.”

Read and learn about 12 Empirically Validated Strategies to Reduce Stereotype Threat

PERSONAL STATEMENT AND MISSION

By Rufus Elmer Jones, Jr

2016 - 2021

“The economic highway to power has few entry lanes for Negroes”

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., “Black Power Defined,” 1967

“Eliminating racism as a barrier to academic and career success is possible. Movements need music, art and literature to fight for equal justice under law and for equal access to the economic highway to power.” 

Rufus Jones, President, James Weldon Johnson Foundation, 2017, 2021

My vision is rooted in both the science of achievement and in my own history navigating a world that is often alien and foreboding to people who look like me. My experiences--educational, professional, and philanthropic--have left me with a deep sense of mission for this work, as well as a range of perspectives on how to accomplish it. My personal journey, as a child in Memphis, Tennessee, boarding school student at Phillips Academy, undergraduate at Harvard University, a teacher at The Dalton School, a trader on Wall Street, and as a professional musician, have left me with indelible memories of the difficult pathway for American black boys and girls to prosperity and happiness. It is a hard road for many and I want nothing more than to help young scholars navigate their own pathway to prosperity and happiness, and in the process, to help others become a leader in making diversity work, a model and inspiration for communities, universities and corporations seeking to do the same.

This vision includes making use of scientifically grounded “best practices” for creating an environment that brings out the best in students and workers and the faculty and middle managers engaged in their development. Specifically, this means getting intimate with, understanding, and attending to the unique challenges faced by students and workers depending on their background. It also includes implementing a strategy to increase the supply, or pipeline, of underrepresented college-ready students prepared for competitive admission to colleges. I envision selecting and thoughtfully nurturing a pool of children into a college-ready cohort of young men and women prepared to rise to the challenges of college and to enjoy—rather than simply endure—the academic rigors of a top university. I understand the experience of being the target of prejudice, low expectations, and social exclusion. I am intimately familiar with the research on achievement gaps and how to address them. I am connected to communities that care deeply about elevating the education and prospects of students of color and other disadvantaged groups, and who have the resources and connections to help. I have studied the situation at universities (i.e. NYU) and I am familiar with many untapped resources and pools of talent at universities that could be elegantly harnessed at little or no cost to improve our students’ experience and learning. I am a tireless worker who relates well to people of all kinds and have spent years working to support young people. I believe myself to be extremely well qualified to make a difference in the lives of our young scholars and professionals, and the faculty and managers who work with them.

One reason for this conviction: I am blessed with—and have been sustained by—a powerful family narrative and a network of teachers, friends, and colleagues who continue to provide support and expertise. My mother integrated Memphis State University as one of the “Memphis State Eight” in 1959, and went on to become a public school teacher. My father was a graduate of Michigan State University and later built Jones Big Star supermarket into a four-million dollar business after purchasing the franchise in 1968. My parents showed me the value of resilience, knowledge, entrepreneurship, and human connection. Role models and mentors are powerful forces in a student’s life; they often make the key difference in who fails or succeeds, in part by creating a narrative of overcoming strong odds. Having received vital mentoring, inspiration, and networking—and a success narrative—along the way, and knowing the literature of its importance, I am convinced that teaching our students how to form and maintain relationships with mentors, how to network, ask for help when needed, and how to advocate for themselves and others are critical tools for success. I also believe that if we want our students to be happy and successful in school and in the wider world, they need to learn these skills (seldom taught in the classroom) as early as possible - well before arriving at college.

Preparation, hard work, and “grit,” I have learned, are necessary but not always sufficient for students of color. Consider the finding that black students with excellent grades and test scores are nonetheless several times more likely than their white counterparts to drop out of undergraduate school in their first year, even if they have financial resources. Academic skills, hard work, and financial support matter, but without a strong psychological attachment to a supportive home or community, without an achieving identity, students often flounder and drop out. The institutions and companies where I have studied and worked (Phillips Academy, The Dalton School, Latin School of Chicago, Harvard University, University of Tennessee MBA Program, AutoZone, Goldman Sachs) are stalwarts of excellence with distinctive cultures, but all of us, especially people of color, face pressures and predicaments that are strong enough to derail us, yet are invisible enough to be overlooked by teachers, administrators, classmates, and co-workers.

Studies of “stereotype threat,” show that the uneasy feeling one faces when confronted by cultural stereotypes serves to widen the achievement gap and keep young students of color and women from pursuing their potential, even when given advantages in enrollment. This phenomenon is paradoxically most disruptive to the students who care the most about doing well. My many encounters with such threats included the stereotype that “black boys don’t do well in school” and cues like confederate flag “art” in a corporate headquarters. NYU’s Joshua Aronson has done extensive research showing how this uneasiness can result in reduced test performance, school engagement, and lower GPA. Yet his research also shows a variety of methods for reducing stereotype threat and increasing student resilience to it, thereby improving everything from test scores to GPA to happiness in college, to academic self-concept, and “belongingness.” It was in fact this research on these issues that drew me to NYU. He has shown that threats, if addressed wisely by educators, can be transformed into advantages. Adversity builds character; we must not bubble wrap our students. But adversity is valuable only if we survive it. If it leads students to drop out, academic adversity is destructive.

In the fall of 2016, while working in my current job as a senior equity trader, I emailed Dr. Aronson and met with him to discuss his research and the possibility of my coming to NYU to pursue a Ph.D. program under his direction. My initial plan was to obtain a doctorate and then return to Wall Street to combat social challenges emerging from stereotype threats. Dr. Aronson reasoned that my formal education and business career in the retail and financial sectors gave me sufficient social capital, leadership skills and a personal view of the steep hill that black men face in the business world to transition directly to a position in the pipeline programs. After our meeting, he introduced me to Vice Provost Dr. Charlton McIlwain. Both challenged me to sketch the outlines of a pipeline program for NYU, which we discussed over a week later. The NYU College Prep For Career Success (“NYU College-Career Academy”) remains our working blueprint for transforming the experience at NYU.

Launched in 2018, New York University’s College and Career Lab (CCL) is a free five-week intensive summer program designed to empower rising seventh- and eighth-grade students from New York City area public schools to aspire to, prepare for, and achieve academic, college, and career success. The James Weldon Johnson Foundation has initiated a partnership with CCL under the leadership of Dr. McIlwain to assist in scaling the CCL Model beyond NYU and securing funding for expansion. James Weldon Johnson, the first African-American professor at NYU, was hired in 1934 as a professor of Creative Literature. So, this partnership with NYU is natural for us.

My current field of financial services is a major source of employment for more than 2.9 million people in the US, but it remains a virtual desert for people of color. A 2013 report by the United States Government Accountability Office highlighted the challenges to recruiting and retaining people of color and women. Industry representatives found recruitment difficult because of “a limited supply (or “pipeline”) of minority and female candidates.” Most academic departments complain of similar pipeline issues. “We would love to hire a black male assistant professor but there simply aren’t any in the pipeline.…” I believe we need to go beyond standard practices in our effort to address these “supply” issues. We must focus on recruiting students from communities underrepresented in higher education and industry. But we must also incorporate science tested approaches to reducing stereotype threat and improve college-identification - the degree to which students feel comfortable and “identity congruent” with college. This process must begin earlier than we have traditionally thought.  Stereotype threat emerges at age 10 and identity forms in important ways, even earlier.  We simply cannot wait until high school to develop our pipeline.

According to the final report of the NYU Ad Hoc Advisory Task Force on Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion, there are 50+ college-access pipeline/student success programs at NYU. Most of these programs operate independently, without sharing resources, insights, or exploring synergies. My approach includes raising outside funds to support our efforts; developing a proprietary, integrated suite of technology and web-based platforms to support student-faculty-administration-partner connectivity; and reporting our progress by supporting high quality empirical research that evaluates, validates, constantly improves, and disseminates our work to the scientific and education community.

I welcome the opportunity to bring my experiences to your community, and I look forward to talking more about my thoughts in person. It is a great time for me to partner with you in a joint venture because of its history of supporting all students regardless of background, its commitment to advancing a more inclusive university, and its diverse campus locations. The growth of access-pipeline programs, aligned with network-based data-driven research and social psychological interventions, are impressive. They represent collaborative and interdisciplinary vehicles to increase the number of entry lanes to the academic and “economic highway” to success.

I am convinced that working in the academic and professional communities with committed and generous faculty and middle managers that we can be a beacon of light for others. I cannot wait to get started.

radio

Connections Radio Show, AM950: The Progressive Voice of Minnesota: What is the Artist’s Voice for Justice? April 24, 2021.

Connections Radio Show features “Transcription 8:46 Blues" a new song recording by Rufus Jones Jr with words by George Floyd and photos by Laura Migliorino. "Transcription 8:46 Blues" is the first single from Rufus Jones Jr's album, "Articles Blues," and it is available now on all major digital music streaming services. Rufus Jr is from Memphis and learned the blues and soul music while growing up in his family’s business, Jones Big Star, located across the street from Stax Recording Studio. In “Transcription 8:46 Blues” Rufus Jr uses his voice and music as a vehicle to hear George Floyd’s words as he narrates his own killing in the police body-camera transcript. If “Strange Fruit” was a song written to eliminate lynching, then Rufus Jr wrote "Transcription 8:46 Blues" to eliminate police brutality. Listening to George Floyd’s words through music may influence the senses differently than reading the transcript and Rufus Jr would like nothing more than for all the learning styles and senses to be used by listeners to fight for equal justice under the law. Photography by Laura Migliorino. Laura who grew up in the Minneapolis neighborhood said: “8:46 photos were taken where George Floyd died, over a period of weeks afterwards. The intersection quickly became a living memorial, a place for grieving, protesting and creating community.” Rufus Jr believes this social justice movement is both a fight for equal justice under law and for equal access to the economic highway to power. Movements need music.

TALK

Managing Stereotype Threat In Tech: Rufus Jones, New York University, 2018: “Managing Stereotype Threat in Tech” at NYU hackNY Fellows Program on June 5, 2018 in New York City.

Part 1 of 4: Introduction, 12 Empirically Validated Strategies to Reduce Stereotype Threat, Background, Personal Narrative

Part 2 of 4: Stereotype Threat Definition, Research, Audience Sharing and Participation

Part 3 of 4: A Rufus Jones Story: The Blue - Green Company Experience, White Angels, Sales & Profits

Part 4 of 4: Stereotypes and “Fake News,” Advocacy and Risk, The Bottom Line and Interventions, Performance