Delia Fernández-Jones has been appointed Associate Dean for Equity, Justice, and Faculty Affairs for the College of Arts & Letters, effective on Jan. 1, 2024.

This is a new position in the College and is part of the Dean’s leadership team working closely in an advising capacity with the Dean, as well as the other Assistant and Associate Deans. The position has oversight of equity and inclusion issues with a focus on faculty and academic staff affairs in order to further embed them within the values, principles, goals, and objectives of the College of Arts & Letters.

“I’m very excited to dedicate myself to creating and sustaining equitable policies and initiatives and making the College of Arts & Letters a more accessible place to work and learn overall,” Fernández-Jones said. “I have long admired the ways the Charting Intellectual Pathways for Leadership framework challenges inequity in academia at its core. I look forward to finding ways to ensure that we are living up to those values in policy and action.”

Through a transformative justice framework, Fernández-Jones’ work will be centered on creating and sustaining equitable relationships and policies, as well as deepening the commitment to a Culture of Care and Charting Pathways to Intellectual Leadership model in the College. This includes fostering a workplace and culture that recognizes, values, and sustains an equitable and inclusive environment and a sense of well-being and belonging for all faculty, students, and staff.

In addition to this new Associate Dean position in the College of Arts & Letters, Fernández-Jones is an Associate Professor of History and a Core Faculty Member in the Chicano/Latino Studies program, both in the College of Social Science. Fernández-Jones started at MSU in 2015 in the Chicano/Latino Studies program, and since 2022 has served as the Undergraduate Coordinator for the program where she developed relationships and policies to further undergraduate education and student success.

As a historian and scholar of Latinx Studies, Fernández-Jones has drawn on her lived experiences as a Latina in Michigan and extensive primary source research to document and theorize Latinx placemaking in the Midwest. She is the author most recently of the award-winning book, Making the MexiRican City: Mexican and Puerto Rican Migration, Activism, and Placemaking in Grand Rapids, Michigan, published by the University of Illinois Press in 2023.

Since 2021, Fernández-Jones has also been Director of the Womxn of Color Initiatives (WOCI) at MSU, which is open to faculty, graduate students, undergraduate students, and community members. WOCI is an effort to organize events, community, and support for womxn of color and their allies in the MSU and Lansing communities.

“With my work in both the Womxn of Color Initiative and Chicano/Latino Studies, I worked to identify the needs of underserved populations at MSU and find creative ways to meet them,” she said. “This has given me ample experience with assessing systems and policies that are rooted in hidden and unconscious biases that disproportionately harm some groups more than others.”

Fernández-Jones added: “As part of the Womxn of Color initiative and in my broader scholarship, I have worked to reshape the fabric of the University into a place where womxn of color have access to holistic and culturally validating support and resources that will allow them to thrive.”

“I have worked to reshape the fabric of the University into a place where womxn of color have access to holistic and culturally validating support and resources that will allow them to thrive.”

Delia Fernández-Jones

In addition to her work at MSU, Fernández-Jones is part of several public history initiatives related to Latinxs in Michigan and the Midwest. In 2018, she was appointed by the Governor of Michigan to the Michigan Historical Commission, which advises the Director of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and approves Michigan Historical Markers, and she was reappointed for another four-year term that began in 2022.

She also is a collaborator in the Kutsche Office for Local History, Grandville Avenue Arts and Humanities, and the Latino Community Coalition in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and created “Telling Our Stories,” a public humanities initiative, which seeks to reshape the narrative of Michigan and belonging while centering the importance of the humanities.

“I am pleased to appoint Delia Fernández-Jones as Associate Dean for Equity, Justice, and Faculty Affairs. Hers is a new position in the College of Arts & Letters that builds on our Culture of Care and supports an inclusive environment in which everyone is empowered to do their most creative and meaningful work,” said Christopher P. Long, Dean of the College of Arts & Letters. “Delia’s background and expertise in transformative justice and Latinx Studies will serve her well in this position as she seeks to create a community of belonging and flourishing for faculty across the College.”

Fernández-Jones has both a Ph.D. and M.A. in History from Ohio State University. She received a B.A. in History from Grand Valley University.

Written by Beth Bonsall