Our Team
Norm Jones, PhD
Norm is the founder, heart, and soul of SSGI. He is a season higher education executive and consultant. Norm Jones serves as Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer at Amherst College. In this role, he works with campus partners to advance practices and programs that foster diversity, inclusivity, and accessibility. He oversees the Office of Diversity and Inclusion, which includes: Faculty Diversity and Inclusion Officers, Office of Inclusive Leadership, Queer Resource Center, Women’s and Gender Center, Multicultural Resource Center, Center for International Student Engagement, and Office of Campus Diversity & Student Leadership. Working with the dean of the faculty and the chief human resources officer, he plays a key role in recruiting and retaining diverse faculty and staff. He ensures that the college is an active participant in national and international conversations around inclusive excellence.
Prior, he served as associate chief diversity officer and deputy director at Harvard University. There, Jones created an office of diversity and inclusion, contributed to a university-wide strategic plan for diversity recruiting, streamlined and eliminated inefficiencies in business processes in his department, and served as a mentor for managers in Harvard’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences Mentoring Program, among other things. Prior to that, he worked at Dickinson College in Carlisle, Pa., for nearly 13 years. He was first hired there as director of student development, and rose through the ranks to associate vice president and dean of institutional diversity.
He has also served over the years as a consultant on many outside projects, collaborating with such high-profile organizations as Salisbury Behavioral Health, Inc.; the Greater Carlisle Area Chamber of Commerce; Payne Theological Seminary; Ahold USA, Inc.; Carlisle Regional Medical Center, and many other public and private sector organizations. He has served as a guest lecturer and presenter for the American Council on Education, Jack Kent Cooke Foundation, National Association of Black School Educators, Association of American Colleges and Universities, Philadelphia Futures and the Posse Foundation.
SSGI Inc. was created to assist organizations of all sizes and industries to capture the value of strategic DEI thinking and training. Experienced Organization Development (OD) and Diversity & Inclusion (D&I) professional with proven track record in systems change, process improvement, risk mitigation, and diversity training/development.