In Memoriam: Frank Sidney Jones, 1928-2022

Frank Sidney Jones, professor emeritus of urban studies and planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, died late this past summer. He was 93 years old.

Professor Jones spent his early years in Greensboro, North Carolina, where his father was president of Bennett College. He was a graduate of Phillips Andover Academy in Massachusetts and went on to enroll at Harvard College, where he was the first African American manager of the university’s football team. He later graduated from Harvard Business School.

Professor Jones served as an assistant dean at Harvard Business School and worked for the Scott Paper Company. In 1968, he was named executive director of the Urban Systems Laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1971 he was named Ford Professor of Urban Affairs and became the first African American to achieve tenure at MIT. Professor Jones was the founding director of the Project on Technology, Race, and Poverty. He was also instrumental in the creation of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Professors and Scholars Program at MIT.

“Professor Jones epitomized so much of what we aspire to here in the department of urban studies and planning in our ongoing efforts in support of an antiracist transformation and the mobilization of our research, teaching, internal culture, and external partnerships toward excellence, justice, and diversity,” says Chris Zegras, professor of mobility and urban planning and current department head. “While the world has lost a pioneer, his legacy lives on in our department, as well as across and beyond the Institute.”

Professor Jones retired in 1992.

Related Articles

Leave a Reply

Get the JBHE Weekly Bulletin

Receive our weekly email newsletter delivered to your inbox

Latest News

Leadership Support for the Mental Health of Black Male Student Athletes

As a society, we celebrate the success of the most popular Black male student-athletes. Their success deserves our attention. Similarly, the Black male student-athletes who are not successful need our full attention as well.

Higher Education Gifts or Grants of Interest to African Americans

Here is this week’s news of grants or gifts to historically Black colleges and universities or for programs of particular interest to African Americans in higher education.

Online Articles That May Be of Interest to JBHE Readers

Each week, JBHE will provide links to online articles that may be of interest to our readers. Here are this week’s selections.

Recent Books of Interest to African American Scholars

The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education regularly publishes a list of new books that may be of interest to our readers. The books included are on a wide variety of subjects and present many different points of view.

Featured Jobs