Mathews Center Welcomes Two New Board Members
At its regular meeting on February 6, 2026, the DMC Board of Directors voted unanimously to accept the nominations of Jeremy L. Arthur and Dorothy Walker to join the Board.
Jeremy L. Arthur serves as the executive director of the Government & Economic Development Institute at Auburn University, an organization that provides guidance, training, professional development, leadership, community development, research, and civic engagement endeavors across Alabama. He held previous positions with the Economic Development Institute at Auburn University, as president of the Prattville Area Chamber of Commerce, and president and CEO of the Chamber of Commerce Association of Alabama.
Arthur is a two-time Auburn University graduate and is currently a Ph.D. candidate in Public Administration & Public Policy. He has served a number of organizations, including Voices for Alabama’s Children, Main Street Alabama, the Alabama Small Business Commission, the Ending Childhood Hunger in Alabama Task Force, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation Board of Trustees, and Committee of 100. He is the 2021 recipient of the Jamie Wallace Award, which is the Chamber of Commerce Association of Alabama’s highest recognition of service to the industry.
“I am truly honored to join the DMC Board of Directors,” Arthur said. “As a fifth-generation Alabamian, my love of and support for the great State of Alabama runs deep. When I first began my professional career, I had the privilege of working together with David Mathews at The Kettering Foundation on several community projects. That work sparked my desire to continue my efforts to improve Alabama, one community at a time. I look forward to working under the mission of the DMC to build capacity through civic engagement.”
Dorothy Walker has nearly 30 years of experience working in historic preservation, cultural resource advocacy, planning, outreach, research, grants and project management. She currently serves as a program officer for the U.S. Department of the Interior as the lead manager for Historically Black Colleges and Universities grants. She retired from state service in 2024, after a career at the Alabama Historical Commission that included nearly a decade as site director for the Freedom Rides Museum, where she planned the first permanent exhibition. Walker also secured donation of a 1950s-era Greyhound Bus of the same vintage as the bus in which the Freedom Riders rode. Walker also previously served as cultural heritage manager for Alabama State University’s National Center for the Study of Civil Rights and African American Culture.
A native of the Black Belt, Walker holds a BA from Jacksonville State University and a MA in Historic Preservation from Savannah College of Art and Design. Her areas of preservation interests and historical scholarship include Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Rosenwald and Equalization Schools, and Alabama’s Civil Rights Movement. She is a member of the Alabama Historical Association and a charter member of the Harper Councill Trenholm branch of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History.
Walker said she is eager to serve on the Board and to help increase awareness of the DMC’s mission. “I have spent my career supporting similar projects and look forward to this opportunity to help educate others about the important role our past has in the present and in the future, especially during this year which overlaps the 65th anniversary of the Freedom Rides with the 250th anniversary of the founding of our nation.”
The staff and Board of the DMC extend a warm welcome to our newest members and look forward to their many contributions during their terms of service.