Dean Sabrina Thomas
Associate Dean
Sabrina L. Thomas, a member of the faculty at North Carolina Central University (NCCU) and an expert on the historical significance of black dolls as a reflection of race and race relations within United States culture, has been named an associate Trinity College academic dean. She will advise students majoring in economics and psychology and head the Prebusiness Advising Office.
Trinity College Dean Robert J. Thompson, Jr. announced that Thomas will assume the responsibilities of Associate Dean Martina J. Bryant, a member of the Trinity College administration since 1977, who is retiring at the end of June. Thomas will also take on Bryant’s duties as coordinator of readmission for students returning after withdrawal and of the Domestic Exchange Programs with Howard University and Spelman College. She will also continue Bryant’s role as liaison with the Duke University Black Alumni Connection (DUBAC), an alumni organization that mentors and supports current and prospective students, and for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund Fellowships for Aspiring Teachers of Color.
Bryant, who is an adjunct associate professor in the Program in Education, where she directs the Early Childhood Education Studies Certificate Program, will work part time until the end of the academic year.
“Transitions such as this make us very aware of the important role Martina Bryant has played at Duke,” Dean Thompson said. “Her long and distinguished career makes her impossible to replace. With Sabrina Thomas, we couldn’t have found a better successor.”
Thomas, a graduate of Tuskegee University (BS, psychology), the University of Rochester (MS, early childhood education and psychosocial development), and the University of North Carolina at Greensboro (Ph.D., human development and family studies), will also hold an appointment as an adjunct associate professor in the Program in Education.
A native of Macon, GA, Thomas held teaching posts at Georgia Southern University, Columbia University, and the Borough of Manhattan Community College before coming to NCCU in fall 2000. While at Columbia, she was a project administrator in the Department of Pediatrics at New York’s Harlem Hospital.
At NCCU, Thomas was an associate professor and coordinator of undergraduate studies in the area of child development and family relations. She won several teaching awards, including a University of North Carolina system-wide award for teaching excellence, and was listed in Who’s Who Among America’s Teachers.
Thomas won a $40,000 2005 National Endowment for the Humanities Research Award to support her study of the history of black dolls and ways in which black women in the early 20th century coped with issues of race and race relations within the context of their doll play. She is completing revisions for a book, Black Dolls As Racial Uplift 1900-1970, an account of the first efforts by black entrepreneurs to influence racial identity and identification through the mass production and distribution of black dolls.
In 2002, Thomas won a J. William Fulbright Scholarship to study family policy in China. She also won a 2002 American Association of University Women publication grant.
Thomas, who is married to Lee D. Baker, associate professor of cultural anthropology and African and African American studies at Duke, said her new position is “a culmination of all my past career responsibilities and at the same time offers a new challenge for me to gain a deeper understanding and appreciation of higher education administration and the processes by which curricular and academic policies are created, implemented, and amended. I am particularly attracted to and excited by the possibility of working with academic departments and mentoring students on globalization and service-learning initiatives, such as DukeEngage.”
