'The Best of Us' - Associate Dean Jones Earns 2025 Public Service Award
You can find him demystifying prostate cancer’s effects at local churches, spot him at weekend community health fairs taking blood pressures, and see him chatting amiably outside UVA Health’s new mobile health van, his crisp, white oxford shirts rolled up at the sleeves and a pair of blue latex gloves covering busy hands.
Quick to laugh and skilled at small talk, nurse scientist Randy Jones, associate dean for partner development and engagement, and the Jeanette Lancaster Alumni Professor of Nursing, is as deft gently pricking fingers for blood sugar checks as he is lecturing to graduate students, hob-knobbing with UVA Health leaders, and chatting with middle schoolers considering careers in healthcare.
Jones makes it look easy. But his uncanny ability to bridge divides belies the power and strength of his approach.
“He’s the best of us,” said associate professor Malinda Whitlow, Jones’s colleague, “and his nursing truly goes beyond our four walls.”
“It takes incredible skill to tie a big, unwieldy organization together in ways that embolden, strengthen, and unite us. Randy does that and makes it look easy."
Marianne Baernholdt, the Pew Charitable Trusts Dean at UVA School of Nursing
In addition to being an endowed professor, associate dean, and a NIH-funded nurse scientist who studies treatment decision-making for prostate cancer, Jones is now the 2025 recipient of UVA’s Award for Excellence in Public Service. It’s the latest accolade for Jones, who’s earned three degrees from UVA School of Nursing and been a cornerstone of the School’s approach to research, advocacy, and community engagement.
Celebrated as a Fellow of the National Black Nurses Association Academy of Diversity Leaders and the American Academy of Nursing (AAN), over the last five years, Jones has been tapped to be a member of the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine’s National Cancer Policy Forum, served as an advisor to the AAN’s Institute for Nursing Leadership, and been a National Institute for Nursing Research lecturer. Awarded a $2.2 million NIH grant in 2017 to develop a decision tool to guide men with prostate cancer, he’s also earned funding from the American Cancer Society, the American Nurses Foundation, and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and speaks to audiences around the country about the importance of treatment decision making tools and of encouraging family members to be part of the process, especially for communities of color. Named the Southern Nursing Research Society’s Researcher of the Year in Minority Health, the National Black Nurses Association’s Institute of Excellence Scholar, and a Robert Wood Johnson Nurse Faculty Scholar alumnus, Jones was selected by his peers for UVA’s Armstead Robinson Faculty Recognition Award in late 2024.
Jones’s latest award, though, is for work close to home, including helping organize and staff regular community health clinics in Charlottesville and creating day-long immersion experiences for youngsters in the Starr Hill Pathways program who are considering careers in medicine and nursing. Jones’s combination of apt people skills and willingness to role model, and often with his 10-year-old daughter in tow, warmly sets him apart.
“You are building bridges between the University and the community,” said Louis Nelson, UVA vice provost for academic outreach, “but also building bridges within the University,” which ultimately help “dismantle the silos that often divide and disempower us.”
“It takes incredible skill to tie a big, unwieldy organization together in ways that embolden, strengthen, and unite us,” said Marianne Baernholdt, the Pew Charitable Trusts Dean at UVA School of Nursing. “Randy does that and makes it look easy, even though we know it’s not. His vision and natural leadership are standout attributes. I am proud and grateful to call him my colleague.”
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