New dean at UMass works against urban poverty

Yawu Miller

Adenrele Awotona was trained as an architect, but never quite took to the discipline as well as many of his colleagues. While other architects balanced their interest in rebar and concrete with their interest in the people who live, work and shop in their buildings, Awotona was more exclusively interested in the people.

After serving as director of graduate programs in architecture, urban development and urban studies at the University of Newcastle and as the dean of the School of Architecture at Southern University, he headed north for UMass Boston where he is the new dean of the College of Public and Community Service.

“I’ve always been interested in development from the social sciences angle, not so much from the angle of economics,” he said, interviewed in his office at UMass Boston. “I’m more interested in grassroots organizing, in the economically weak members of society.”

In CPCS, Awotona may have found his perfect match. In a university that was founded to serve an urban mission of bringing higher education to the working class public, CPCS is perhaps the most radical arm. The college was founded to provide research and advocacy for its surrounding communities.

CPCS focuses on non-traditional students and allows work experience to count as course credits. According to a CPCS web page, “the college’s curriculum and practice are centered on the study of urban reality and positive social change.”

Since Awotona arrived in July, he has set about the task of acquainting himself with the city, not by surveying architectural points of interest or the built environment, but rather by sitting down with as many activists, social service agency heads and community stakeholders as possible.

“It was important for me to very quickly understand the context of the community in which I am working,” he said.

So far, Awotona has been well-received by community members, according to Horace Small, who heads the Union of Minority Neighborhoods.

“I get the sense that he wants to take the department to a whole new level,” Small said. “This could be an entity that could help educate people about how to be active and engaged in their community.”

Awotona takes the reins at CPCS after a period of great turbulence. Under former Chancellor Jo Ann Gora, former Dean Ismael Ramirez Soto resigned the post after he was unable to negotiate a contract for the position. Soto and others in CPCS were openly critical of Gora, often airing their grievances in the media.

The protests were quieted after Gora left in 2004 to head Ball State University in Indiana.

CPCS faculty have taken a wait-and-see attitude with their new dean, according to one professor, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

“I think everybody is hoping he will be good for us,” the faculty member said. “We’ve been battered. We feel that this administration doesn’t understand us. We feel like we could be easy prey if [Awotona] doesn’t support us.”

Awotona, who has appointed CPCS faculty as liaisons to different communities in Boston, says he is working well with the faculty and is committed to using the college for the betterment of the Boston community.

“I strongly believe one of the best ways to address urban poverty is through education and training,” he said.

Awotona says he plans to step up recruitment at CPCS, working with community colleges to help channel students into the school. He has met with the ant-poverty group ABCD and its Urban College.

“I want to work in partnership with the various agencies to move our communities forward to a better standard of living.”

While keeping a focus on local issues, Awotona is maintaining a focus on international development issues, utilizing contacts he has developed during his decades-long career in academia, working with the United Nations and the European Union. A conference he is organizing on post-war Iraqi development is drawing academics from countries including Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and England.

“In my first life, I did a lot of work internationally,” Awotona commented.

Ultimately, the solutions to poverty in the United States and in Iraq are linked, according to Awotona.

“There’s no way you can address local issues without linking them to international issues,” he said. “Whatever we do here affects people elsewhere.”