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DURHAM -- L. Gregory Jones loves his job. The dean of the Duke University Divinity School says he loves his faculty and staff colleagues and the students he works with on a daily basis.
But he also loves challenges.
That's why he will be stepping down as dean at the end of the academic year to become the university's senior advisor for international strategy effective March 1.
"I've long had a passion and concern for international engagement, and I am excited about the opportunities and challenges for Duke on the international stage," said Jones, who has led the divinity school for 13 years. "I believe very deeply in interdisciplinary collaboration and helping to engage the university internationally offers some real challenges for thinking freshly about teaching and learning."
Duke has recently announced that it will collaborate on a university complex, initially housing a Fuqua School of Business campus, in the Chinese city of Kunshan, and already has a significant presence in several other nations.
"As Duke expands its global presence, the need for imaginative leadership and prudent judgment is essential," said Duke President Richard Brodhead. "I am certain that Greg's accomplishments in this arena will match the considerable legacy he has built at the divinity school" as Duke "embarks on its next phase of international engagement."
Jones succeeds R. Sanders Williams, who is leaving the university to become president of the J. David Gladstone Institutes in San Francisco, as senior advisor. But while moving into what he called a new arena, Jones said he would not leave his friends and colleagues at the divinity school behind.
"I will continue to work with some leadership education programs at the school," he said. "It's important for my vocation as a pastor to work with them."
An ordained United Methodist minister in the Western North Carolina Conference, Jones will continue to serve as professor of theology in the divinity school. His tenure as dean includes the start of the Doctor of Theology program as well as completion of the Westbrook Building and Goodson Chapel in 2005 -- the first expansion of the divinity school since the early 1970s.
Richard Hays, the George Washington Ivey Professor of New Testament at the divinity school, will serve as dean for a two-year term while a national search is conducted for Jones' successor.
