UMB Staff
Bill Joyner, JD, MSW, has deep and enduring ties to the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) — a place that has shaped his academic journey and professional purpose.
He began his UMB career in 2011 as an admissions specialist at the School of Nursing. Driven by a passion for service and equity, Joyner pursued a Master of Social Work from the School of Social Work, graduating in 2014. He soon took on a new role with UMB’s Office of Community Engagement, where he launched and led innovative local purchasing initiatives. Under his leadership, the University’s spending with minority- and woman-owned businesses in Baltimore rose from just 0.1 percent to more than 15 percent in just three years — a transformative leap toward inclusive economic development.
Never one to stop growing, Joyner earned his law degree from the Francis King Carey School of Law in 2020. That same year, he briefly stepped away from UMB to work with the Baltimore Police Department before returning in 2022 to serve as director of UMB’s Office of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion.
By the end of 2022, Joyner was named assistant vice president of community engagement and partnerships. In this leadership role, he oversees both the Office of Community and Civic Engagement — recently renamed to reflect its expanded mission — and the Community Engagement Center (CEC). Together with his team, Joyner works hand in hand with West Baltimore residents to co-create programs, services, and partnerships that reflect community priorities and build lasting impact.
As the Office of Community and Civic Engagement marked its 10th anniversary, CATALYST sat down with Joyner to learn more about what inspires his work, how his office is supporting Baltimore’s neighborhoods, and what personal item he treasures most.
What are the most impactful community and civic engagement programs your office sponsors?
Two examples of deeply impactful programs are the financial services offered at the CEC by the Maryland CASH Campaign and the services at the CEC Health Suite.
The CASH Campaign provides free tax preparation for people who earn no more than $64,000 per year. Having expert tax preparation helps people ensure that they’re maximizing the amount of their tax refund. This service is typically expensive and is often cost-prohibitive for the people who need these services the most. UMB and the CASH Campaign jointly raise the $70,000 needed to bring the service to our neighbors at the CEC. Between 100 and 250 people every year receive these free services from the Maryland CASH Campaign’s staff and volunteer accountants and tax attorneys. This effort results in $1.5 million to $2 million in tax refunds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in Earned Income Tax Credits and Child Tax Credits.
The CEC Health Suite is managed by School of Nursing faculty member Kelly Doran, PhD, RN, FAAN, and her team of public health nurses based in the CEC. The team provides health education, care coordination, and wellness promotion services to individual neighbors in West Baltimore.
When interacting with our neighbors, the relationship begins with asking about the neighbor’s health goals. Those community-identified goals set the agenda for how our nursing team approaches the work. Our nurses consider the whole person and their environment, not just their physical condition. They work with partners to address social, behavioral, economic, and other challenges such as housing and transportation. Despite the nurses’ caseloads bursting at the seams, our neighbors report that the Health Suite Team has successfully addressed more than 93 percent of our neighbors’ health goals.
These activities don’t just happen in the CEC. Our team consistently goes out into the community to meet our neighbors, including at apartment complexes, senior living facilities, and community events. They also include nursing students in the work they do, so that UMB can prepare the next generation of health professionals to holistically and ethically meet the needs of communities like the ones surrounding UMB’s campus.
Why was it important for your office to add “Civic” to its name?
A critical element of community engagement is civic engagement, which focuses on engaging the community activities and democratic processes that explore and reinforce our identities as contributors to our local communities and the larger society. Like community engagement work generally, UMB has been doing civic engagement work for decades — notably Student Affairs’ student civic engagement work — and UMB acknowledged that infrastructure should be laid for Universitywide coordination and deeper investment in this work for all constituencies inside UMB and in our surrounding communities. This is especially important during a period like now when public trust in institutions is declining, faith in government agencies is eroding, and people increasingly feel disengaged from the democratic processes that shape American life. UMB can help change that.
You have two advanced degrees from UMB schools and have worked here for most of the past 10-plus years. Why did you return to UMB in 2022 and what do you like the most about working here?
UMB is my professional home because it provides me opportunities to do things I’m good at, improve things I’m not yet good at, and spend my time confronting issues I actually care about. It also helps that I live near campus in Southwest Baltimore, and UMB has been consciously and strategically investing in improving quality of life in my neighborhood and others near campus. I feel beyond fortunate that I get to lead the office coordinating that institution-wide effort.
The people at UMB have also shown that they genuinely care about my well-being and my success. They believe in me and my ability to advance the institution’s mission. And they’ve demonstrated that by investing in my education, training, and social support. No other workplace has provided me this level of kindness, mentorship, and positive reinforcement. It motivates me to prove them right and show that I really am grateful to this community.
UMB’s core values also align closely with my personal values — especially Equity and Justice. I have personally felt UMB’s uncommon dedication to providing two of the most important resources needed to sustainably climb out of poverty: education and opportunity. From tuition remission to Live Near Your Work, UMB provides financial supports that help us take advantage of opportunities that would otherwise be out of reach. The University provides mentorship and professional development opportunities that many employers can’t or won’t provide to entry-level employees.
Even more uncommon is the level of community and social support within the institution. The encouragement and coverage I received from my supervisor and my teammates when taking evening classes at the law school four nights a week changed the trajectory of my career and my life. A component of my job was participating in community meetings, almost all of which happen during the evening Monday through Thursday. Even though I had tuition remission to help cover the financial cost, a potential barrier was finding a way to maintain UMB’s participation in community affairs. My supervisor and teammates —Ashley Valis, Lisa Rawlings, Brian Sturdivant, and Camille Givens-Patterson— helped make sure that work was sufficiently covered to allow me to go to law school for three whole years. Many people don’t have the privilege of such a caring work community.
Those are some of the reasons I think UMB is special, and I’d love to spend my career here, making a difference for my neighbors in Baltimore.
What would people be surprised to learn about you?
I barely passed the seventh grade. That’s an adventure I typically only share during happy hours.
I’m a twin. I have been sharing resources like space, food, and even major life milestones literally since my time in the womb. I think that had a major influence on my approach to work, life, and relationships in important ways.
What is your most prized possession, and why?
When I graduated college, my mother wrote me a note about how proud of me she is. It is hard to fully convey how much my mother sacrificed to raise me. To this day, my eyes water when I read that note.
