Off to Oxford

IHL Board appoints Jones chancellor of Ole Miss

The day began like any other for Dr. Dan Jones and his wife, Lydia – up at 5:30 a.m. followed by quiet time and prayer together.

But June 15 was no ordinary day. At the end of it, after daylong meetings with students, faculty, staff and alumni, Jones became the 16th chancellor of the University of Mississippi.

Members of the Board of Trustees of Institutions of Higher Learning (IHL) announced his appointment at 4:24 p.m. on the Oxford campus.

Jones thanked the board for its confidence in him, for the support of “all of you who love Ole Miss,” especially outgoing Chancellor Robert Khayat.

“His leadership was transformational, and I beg you to stay involved in the life of the University,” he said to Khayat.

He also challenged members of the University to move forward on the momentum provided by Khayat’s tenure.

“As long as Mississippi is at the bottom of nearly every list, we cannot be satisfied with where we are.”

The new chancellor, who assumes duties on the Oxford campus July 1, has had quite a career trajectory from country boy and preacher’s son. When Jones describes his hometown, it is with this caveat: “If I say I lived in Vicksburg, you can rest assured that it was ‘somewhere outside of ’ any town around.”

His father was a Baptist minister who was pastor of several churches in rural Warren County and his mother taught in the public schools. “The only family life center was our front yard.”

Jones has practiced medicine in Laurel and in Pusan, Korea. He is a national authority on hypertension and immediate past president of the American Heart Association. After a delayed start in academic medicine, he rose to become UMMC’s vice chancellor for health affairs.

It is an uncommon career path. But leadership, medicine and service have been common threads in his professional life.

“My mother and father both lived a life of servant leadership, and I have tried to follow their examples,” he said.

Jones succeeds one of the most beloved and effective leaders in the history of the University.

“Robert is a dear friend, and I will cherish his advice as I begin my new role. One of the biggest challenges the University will face is not having him.”

Jones says he won’t replicate Khayat’s style, only his focus on moving the University and the state forward.

“I’m not as big as he is, nor as charismatic, but we share a deep respect for one another and a love of the University and this state.”

The new chancellor has been the vice chancellor of UMMC since 2003. He succeeded Dr. Wallace Conerly, who held the post from 1994.

At the Medical Center, he recruited and led a team that restructured the clinical enterprise, expanded the Medical Center’s commitment to minority scholarships, rural medicine and the elimination of health disparities, re-invigorated research programs and raised $53 million for scholarships, endowed chairs, facilities and programs.

“The Medical Center has had an office for the chancellor for the last two decades. I’m sure I’ll use that office more than any other chancellor before me.

“What we’re doing here is critically important and brings immense fulfillment in my life. The idea that I could still have a leadership role at the Medical Center made my decision to seek this post much easier.”

Jones, 60, is a graduate of Mississippi College and completed medical school and residency at UMMC. He practiced internal medicine in Laurel before going to Korea as a medical missionary. It was in Korea that he developed an interest in hypertension, and when he came back to Mississippi in 1992, it was as director of clinical hypertension at UMMC. Very soon thereafter, he began his work with the American Heart Association and its Greater Southeastern Affiliate and became national president in 2007.

Nancy Brown, CEO of the American Heart Association, traces Jones’ affiliation with the national organization back 20 years, “when he began volunteering.” It was during his leadership of the AHA’s strategic planning task force that “his leadership began to shine very brightly.”

Brown said Jones “can get a group focused with the right facts they need to make decisions. He motivates and inspires people to do great things.

“This is a fast-paced organization with the scientific arm, the public and consumer constituencies and grass-roots groups . . . all with varying interests. Only a strong leader like Dan could make people feel good all the time about the contributions they’re making, at all levels, even when the outcomes weren’t exactly what they wanted. He’s just a marvelous leader.”

Teresa Humphrey, senior VP for field operations for the Greater Southeastern Affiliate of the AHA, has known Jones since he first volunteered at the state level, where he was “actively involved and always accessible. He always went above and beyond what we expected.

“He was also one of the first in the national leadership of our organization to express concern over childhood obesity.”

At UMMC, Jones directed clinical studies in hypertension funded by the National Institutes of Health, and during this period played a pivotal role in creating the Jackson Heart Study. As the only large-scale study of cardiovascular risk factors in African-Americans, Jones had to overcome the understandable reluctance of African-Americans to participate in research and to build consensus between the three participating institutions – Jackson State University, Tougaloo College and UMMC. Neither had ever collaborated in such a massive undertaking.

Jones has demonstrated that he is a quick study, capably mastering the challenges of leading both the AHA and UMMC. As national president of the AHA and its national spokesperson on hypertension, Jones is no stranger to the spotlight and national attention.

“Now I’d like for that light to shine on the people at the University who make it a wonderful place,” he said.

Jones and his wife, Lydia Channell, live in Hazlehurst. Their daughter, Jennifer, and her husband, Jaime Flechas, live in Oxford. Son Jason and wife Tiffany live in Clinton.

“I’m so excited about the next part of our lives together,” Lydia Jones said. “I thought we were where we’d be until we retired, but this is such a wonderful opportunity. And I have faith in Dan’s ability to do this. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t be here.”

-By Janis Quinn

2009-06-22 00:00:00 3529