Adrienne Jones spoke with undergraduate Khilan Walker about her experience leading a Bass Connections project team for two years. Here are excerpts from their conversation.

Why she got involved in this area of research

I am from a really small town in North Carolina, and I have always thought a lot about people’s opportunities for economic mobility based on where they may be located spatially. And I’ve always had a particular interest in Black Americans in the rural South, because that’s my lived experience but also because a lot of researchers aren’t really thinking about this particular group of folks that is near and dear to my heart.

When Professor Gassman-Pines approached me about the potential to roll onto this project in Durham County around driver’s license suspensions and how they may pose barriers to self-sufficiency, it was really of interest to me. 

Centering the community partners

Our DEAR [Durham Expunction & Restoration, which aims to restore suspended licenses by waiving unpaid traffic tickets and fines] partners have been fantastic to work with. They have been really generous with providing us data and contact information, and sharing about the origins of the program. They want to know how things are going, what are the directions in which they may need to pivot, and they have been really open to hearing about some of the pitfalls that people experience. 

We couldn’t do this work if the folks in our community weren’t so kind as to offer us their time and their expertise about their own lived experience. We are trying to be mindful about centering them and their voices in the work that we’re creating, and also thinking critically about ways that we can share back and involve community members, not to be extractive but also, ‘Here is what we learned. How does this resonate with you all? Does this accurately reflect your experiences?’

Leading a team of students

This project was also an opportunity for me to have some teaching, mentoring and supervision experience working with students at all levels. It’s helping me to think not only about research, but then how do we teach research? How do we translate some of the things that we’ve been thinking about to people who may not have the same level of training or understanding of the project? 

This work has become a huge part of my life, and I’m really excited to see where it takes us in the next couple of years.

Adrienne Jones is a joint degree Ph.D. student in Public Policy and Sociology. Broadly, she is interested in the relationship between, and experiences with, employment and inequality. She was recognized for outstanding mentorship of students on her Bass Connections project team in 2022, and her team won the 2023 poster competition for “Freedom to Move: Durham Driver’s License Access and the DEAR Program.”

May 2023