Finding a New Point of View
Hazel Morrow-Jones knows the best solution is often found with a fresh perspective.
“I am excited about the possibility of new challenges and opportunities in my new role,” Morrow-Jones says. “I am particularly anxious to have the chance to ‘pay forward’ for all of the support that I have received, not just from The Women’s Place, but from all those women who have gone before me and whose work has made my career possible.
“President (E. Gordon) Gee has often said that he wants Ohio State to be one of the best places in the nation to work. Policies and programs that make the university a good place for women to work make it a good place for everyone,” Morrow-Jones notes. “The Women’s Place’s commitment to fostering the best in the university community helps to create the conditions that will allow everyone — faculty, staff and students — to do their best, most creative work.”
In her associate dean position at the College of Engineering, Morrow-Jones worked with the college executive committee, the graduate studies committee chairs and the Graduate School on a variety of important activities during her period as associate dean, including the doctoral program reviews, development of the Masters of Global Engineering Leadership program, graduate fellowships, graduate recruitment and international relations.
Her interest in international relations and global learning is perhaps most evident in the Knowlton School of Architecture’s Dresden Exchange Program, in which Ohio State students travel to Germany, and, in turn, students from the Technical University of Dresden come to the United States. For more than 10 years, Morrow-Jones, who will retain her professorship at Knowlton, and two colleagues have coordinated the program.
“The goal of the study abroad and exchange program is to give students the experience of being in a foreign place and working with foreign peers, because it opens their eyes so thoroughly to their own situation,” says Morrow-Jones. “It just makes them so much more aware that they start looking at everything in a slightly different way.”
The students aren’t just visiting; they work together to address similar city and regional planning problems.
“Planning is about planning solutions. The more you think outside the box, the better that solution is going to be, simply because you know you chose it for good reasons,” Morrow-Jones says.
The Dresden exchange program is a perfect illustration of one of Morrow-Jones’ greatest goals: “What I’ve spent my time and career doing is trying to help people, usually students, but in later years faculty and staff, to accomplish the things they want to accomplish.”
Katelyn Vitek is a student communications assistant for the College of Engineering.
