Kris Tucker is the Acting Director of ADA Operations and Customer Service at New Jersey Transit – Access Link and an alumna of the College of New Jersey where she studied English literature and Journalism. She’s also the daughter of Trenton, New Jersey’s first African American police chief, Ernest A. Williams, and the granddaughter of Berline Williams, one of the plaintiffs in the landmark Hedgepeth Williams school desegregation case. In this conversation, Tucker discusses how her family background shaped her thinking about the value and uses of her education, how her African American Studies classes expanded her worldview, and the centrality of the College’s Educational Opportunity Fund program, her Delta Sigma Theta sorority chapter, and administrators such as Robert Alston, James Boatwright and James Chambers to her success as an African American woman studying on a predominantly white campus.
Tucker said these experiences instilled a deep concern for the most vulnerable members of her community, and a commitment to social justice. She has exercised that commitment through work with and on behalf of people with disabilities, particularly in her roles with New Jersey Transit. As she has moved into positions of increasing levels of responsibility, the skills that she first honed in such classes as Interpersonal Communications, then taught by Dr. Anntarie Sims, proved to be critical to her effectiveness. These skills have been especially important since the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Conversations with Creatives is a series of interviews of alumni of the Journalism and Interactive Media programs at The College of New Jersey, conducted by Associate Professor of Journalism and Professional Writing, Kim Pearson. The entire series is available at https://kimpearson.net/tag/conversationswithcreatives/
