Ronald Mason Jr.

Ronald Mason Jr.
President of University of the District of Columbia
Incumbent
Assumed office 2015
President of Southern University
In office 2010–2015
Preceded by	Ralph Slaughter
Succeeded by	Ray Belton
Personal details
Born	New Orleans, Louisiana, U.S.
Residence	Washington, D.C.
Alma mater	Columbia University
Profession	Academic administrator

Ronald Francis Mason Jr. is an African American lawyer and university administrator, serving as the ninth president of the University of the District of Columbia (UDC). He took office in July 2015. This is Mason's third presidential appointment. He was previously chief executive officer at the Southern University System of Louisiana (2010-2015) and Jackson State University (2000-2010). Before his administration at Jackson State, Mason held several executive appointments over a 17-year tenure at Tulane University, including general counsel, vice president for Finance and Operations and senior vice president and general counsel.

Early life

Mason was born the eldest of six children in Los Angeles, California, on January 15, 1953. He grew up in New Orleans, Louisiana, where his family has lived for at least six generations.

From kindergarten through sixth grade, he attended the St. Catherine Catholic School, operated by the Sisters of the Holy Family, an order of African American nuns. The school closed in 1963 when the property was sold to Tulane University as the site of its future hospital. Mason's education continued for one year at St. Joseph's School as part of the first group to integrate the previously all-white school.

Education

In 1965, Mason entered Jesuit High School in New Orleans as the first African American admitted to its highly selective pre-freshman class. He has spoken publicly about the culture shock and sense of isolation he experienced upon enrolling at Jesuit with a small cadre of other young Black boys. At the time, he initially questioned his decision to attend the school and whether he should follow others who started as freshmen the same year and transfer to the all-Black boys' school, Saint Augustine, across town. His father urged him to travail through the challenges and persist with his decision. Upon graduation from Jesuit High School, Mason left Louisiana for the first time and attended Columbia College of Columbia University in New York City. He received his B.A. in History in 1974 and a J.D. from Columbia Law School in 1977.

Career

After earning his law degree, Mason returned to his home state to begin his career as house counsel at the Southern Cooperative Development Fund (SCDF) in Lafayette, Louisiana, headed by Rev. A.J. McKnight. As the finance arm of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, SCDF organized and financed limited equity cooperatives across 17 Southern States. There he met Dr. Eamon Kelly, an officer with the Ford Foundation who served on SCDF's board and would become president of Tulane University. In 1980 Mason resigned from his position at SCDF. Although SCDR no longer employed him, Mason was unanimously elected by the member cooperatives to serve on the SCDF Board of Directors.

Mason practiced law with the David Dennis Law Firm the following year. Dennis was the former Mississippi field director for the Congress of Racial Equality during the height of the Civil rights movement.

Tulane University

In 1982, Mason became the first in-house counsel for Tulane University under president Dr. Eamon Kelly. As the first African American appointed to senior administration at Tulane, Mason eventually became the senior vice president and general counsel, responsible for the business operations and legal affairs of the largest employer in the City of New Orleans. Mason's leadership contributed to the transformative nature of Kelly's administration at Tulane. The New Orleans Times-Picayune wrote that Mason "brought a kind of corporate model to the job of running the business end of the school [Tulane]."

In addition to serving as principal legal adviser to the president, senior officers, academic deans, and the administrative board of the Tulane Educational Fund, he played a significant role in bringing the Amistad Research Center—one of the largest collections of manuscripts, documents, and artwork relating to the experiences of African Americans and other minorities—to the university. He also served as principal investigator on a Ford Foundation grant to explore the issue of racism in higher education.

Kelly and Mason championed efforts to boost diversity at Tulane. Towards the end of their collaboration in 1998, the undergraduate population was almost 10 percent Black—one of the highest levels of all comparable universities.

Among his many accomplishments, Mason enabled the Amistad Center, a Black history archive and research center, to be located at Tulane. He also established the Tulane/Loyola/Xavier Week for Peace (from which he received its Lifetime Achievement Award upon his departure). Mason led the investigation that terminated the Tulane Basketball program for two years; and established racism awareness training for Tulane leadership in collaboration with civil rights icon Reverend C.T. Vivian.

Along with his responsibilities at Tulane, Mason was civically engaged in the City of New Orleans, overseeing two Empowerment Zone for the City and Co-chairing a Committee to redesign the New Orleans public education governance structure.   

In 1996, Mason negotiated a deal between Marc Morial, then mayor of New Orleans and Henry Cisneros, then U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, for Tulane University to assume management oversight of the Housing Authority of New Orleans (HANO), known at the time as the worse public housing authority in the nation. Over four years, from 1996 to 2000, Mason sat as the federal Executive Monitor, a one-person Board of Directors of HANO, while simultaneously serving as senior vice president of Tulane from 1996-1998. In addition to helping to improve HANO, Mason also started the innovative Campus Affiliates Program assigning Tulane students and faculty to work with public housing residents.  

In 1998, Mason took a leave from his position as senior vice president and general counsel at Tulane to establish the Tulane-Xavier National Center for the Urban Community (NCUC). NCUC was a partnership between Tulane and Xavier Universities to work with low-income residents of New Orleans.

While serving as executive director of NCUC, Mason continued to serve as HANO Executive Monitor and served on the Executive Cabinet of Xavier University President Dr. Norman Francis, who would remain a long-time mentor. Mason received the Mayor's Medal of Honor from the City of New Orleans for his work at HANO and his transformational leadership at Tulane University. Upon his departure, the Times-Picayune said, "If there is another monitor, that person need only look to Mr. Mason's record for inspiration."

Jackson State University

Southern University of Louisiana System In 2000, Mason became the president of Jackson State University (JSU) in Jackson, Mississippi. During his ten-year tenure, Mason oversaw dramatic improvement in capital facilities and student outcomes at JSU, some of which had been fueled by the State of Mississippi finally settling the 25-year Ayers case in 2002, which dedicated $503 million to the state's public, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) to address decades of unequal state funding. Jackson State's share was combined with creative financing to help the physical transformation of the JSU campus and surrounding neighborhood in West Jackson.

While at JSU, Mason created the Mississippi Learning Institute, an innovative partnership between the federal government, the Mississippi Department of Education, Jackson Public Schools (JPS) and JSU. The partnership hinged on a Pre-K -16 professional development school hosted by the JPS feeder pattern surrounding the university. The initiative was evaluated as highly successful.

Mason helped organize the Mississippi Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement during his time in Mississippi. It is a national organization of former civil rights workers who meet annually in Jackson, Mississippi. Many of its members donated their papers and video histories to the Margaret Walker Center at JSU. In 2008 Mason was made an honorary member of the organization.

Southern University of Louisiana System

Mason became the Southern University System president in 2010 and served five years in that role. Mason guided the Southern System, the only HBCU system in the nation, through financial exigency and an organizational restructuring that combined the offices of the president and the chancellor of the main campus in Baton Rouge.

While at Southern, Mason created a national initiative called the Five-Fifths Agenda for America, which focused on reclaiming and developing Black male human capital. The focal points of the initiative were Centers for Undergraduate Student Achievement, designed to break the cycle of violence and the school-to-prison pipeline that characterized the coming of age for many young men in New Orleans at that time. The first such center was piloted at Southern University New Orleans with the support of the State of Louisiana and several foundations.

University of the District of Columbia

Mason became the ninth president of the University of the District of Columbia (UDC) in July 2015. He is currently the longest-serving president in the school's history. He has championed a platform for strengthening and promoting UDC's exceptional status as the only public university in the nation's capital and the only exclusively urban land-grant university.

Under Mason's leadership, the university expanded its information technology infrastructure and launched specific initiatives to build UDC's brand among DC Public Schools, its primary feeder institutions. In 2021 the university received its most significant financial gift of $2.3M from an anonymous donor in support of its strategic plan, the Equity Imperative.

On July 21, 2022, Mason announced that the 2022-2033 academic year would be his final year as president and that he would be stepping down at the end of his contract on June 30, 2023.

Public Service

Mason has served in many leadership roles over the years, including two terms on the National Association for Institutional Quality and Integrity, multiple terms on the Boards of the Thurgood Marshall College Fund and has chaired the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Education. He has also helped to advise three U.S. presidents through the President's Board of Advisors on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Mason formerly served on the Board of the American Council on Education and served on the board of the American University of Nigeria. He is currently a board member for Digital Promise and serves on the Educational Testing Service HBCU Advisory Committee. Mason is also the Vice-Chair of the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area.  

Awards

• 2013: Southern Christian Leadership Conference Award for Educational Leadership
• 2009: Benjamin E. Mays Educator of the Year
• 2008: Columbia University John Jay Award for Distinguished Professional Achievement
• 2008: TMCF Educator of the Year
• 2000: City of New Orleans Medal of Honor 1999: Tulane/3Xavier/Loyola Lifetime Achievement Award