Doris Terry Williams is Director of Capacity Building for the Rural School and Community Trust (Rural Trust), based in Arlington, Virginia. Formerly the Annenberg Rural Challenge, the Rural Trust is the premier national nonprofit organization addressing the crucial relationship between good rural schools and thriving rural communities. Williams guides and oversees the organization’s work with a network that has numbered more than 700 rural schools and communities in 35 states, strengthening their capacity to improve together and to make rural places good places to live, work, and learn. She has led the Trust’s Stewards Program as it transitioned from grants making to capacity building; overseen the development and field testing of an assessment system for place-based, project-based, and service learning in partnership with the Educational Testing Service (ETS) and Rural Trust field sites; and designed a rural school leadership development initiative for the Deep South. In addition, she leads the Rural Trust’s efforts at rural high school reform, its Rural Teacher Development Center, and its Education Renewal Zones initiative.
Previously Assistant Dean and Associate Professor at the North Carolina Central University School of Education and Director of University-School Partnerships, Williams led the institution’s teacher education program reform.
Williams co-founded, and subsequently directed, the North Carolina Center for the Study of Black History. She established two programs for young people in Warren County, N.C.: the Warren Service Corps; and the Warren Summer Scholars Program. She has also been lead consultant and trainer for several state and national school and community reform efforts, and has authored a community economic development training manual for the Southern Initiative of the Algebra Project. Williams’ experience also includes ten years as director of a regional adult literacy program and 12 years of service on the Warren County Board of Education, five as Board chairperson.
Williams holds an EdD and MEd from North Carolina State University and an AB from Duke University.