January 2020 | Emmitt R. Jolly Joins Shaker Heights Board of Education
Emmitt R. Jolly, Jr. will be sworn in as a member of the Shaker Heights Board of Education at the Board’s regular meeting on Tuesday, January 14. He was elected to the Board in November 2019 and succeeds retiring two-term Board member William L. Clawson.
Dr. Jolly and his family moved to Shaker Heights in 2009 from California, where he had been working as a postdoctoral fellow in molecular parasitology at the University of California, San Francisco. Since then, he has been an assistant, and then tenured associate professor of biology at Case Western Reserve University. Dr. Jolly’s research focuses on the parasitic schistosome worm, which causes schistosomiasis, a global disease affecting over 200 million people across 76 countries.
Dr. Jolly says he was motivated to run for the Board of Education because his children have had a good experience at the schools and because he believed that the District has opportunities for improvement, specifically around issues of educational equity. “I want to help ensure that we have educational opportunities for all students --- and this doesn’t have to occur at a loss to our top programs,” Dr. Jolly said.
In addition, Dr. Jolly hopes to help fortify student-teacher/teacher-student relationships. “It’s important that we help teachers, students and all staff feel that the District is here for them and to really look at this through a holistic perspective,” he said.
Dr. Jolly says his professional work requires him to consider problem-solving through both long- and short-term lenses and that he hopes to apply that skill to his work as a Board member. “In the end, we have to take the long view of where our school system is going to go, considering projections in terms of income and stability, but I also understand that people need short term solutions and rewards,” he said.
Throughout his career, Dr. Jolly has served on several boards, many with a focus on serving underrepresented populations. In California, he was on the board of directors of Building Diversity in the Sciences, which supports underrepresented groups of students in the pursuit of STEM careers, and was a co-founder of the Association of Underrepresented Minority Scholars. More recently, he has served as an external advisory board member for the Minority Health and Health Disparities Research Center of Dillard University and Louisiana State University and as an external advisory board member at the Fisk University MARC U*STAR Program, an undergraduate scholarship opportunity with the goal of increasing the number of students from underrepresented groups who pursue Ph.D. degrees and research careers in the biomedical, behavioral or mathematical sciences.
Shaker Heights Board of Education President Jeffrey Isaacs says that Dr. Jolly will be a welcome addition to the Board. “Dr. Jolly’s tremendous professional and board service experience, his perspective as a Shaker Heights Schools parent, combined with his work on so many diversity and inclusion initiatives makes him an ideal team member,” said Mr. Isaacs. “We look forward to incorporating his insights as the Board continues to move the District forward on behalf of all Shaker Heights Schools students.”
Dr. Jolly earned his undergraduate degree in biology from Tuskegee University and his master’s and doctorate degrees in biochemistry and molecular biology from the University of California, San Francisco. He lives in the Mercer neighborhood with his wife, Cleveland Clinic physician Dr. Stacey Jolly, and their two children, Sedona and Ezaiyah, who are both students at Shaker Heights High School.