Dr. Paul K. Baker is currently Executive Director of the Contemporary Art Museum (CAM) in Raleigh, NC. CAM is a museum that prides itself on developing the careers of emerging arts and exposing nationally known artists to the region through exhibitions and programming. Artists that have shown at CAM include Kennedi Carter, Clarence Heyward, Alena Mehic and Adam Narcross among others. Baker has launched a new initiative, Art in Educational Spaces, that will place short term art exhibitions in schools and libraries in underserved communities. Previously he served as the Director of the University Galleries North Carolina A & T State University where he still serves as a tenured Professor of History in the Department of History and Political Science. With over 25 years of experience in higher education, Dr, Baker has served in administrative and faculty roles at North Carolina Central University, Saint Augustine’s University, UNC-Chapel Hill, and Fayetteville State University.
Baker was selected as an Oxford Roundtable Fellow at Oxford University, Oxford, England where he lectured on Race Policy, a Gilder-Lehrman Fellow at Yale University in the Center for Slavery and Abolition, Ford Fellow at the University of Virginia in the Carter G. Woodson Institute and a Fellow in the UNCF Leadership and Coaching 360 Institute. He also received his archival certification from the Modern Archives Institute at the National Archives. His research has been in the areas of African American Historical Preservation; the impact of Victorian Era culture on race, resistance and gender issues on African Americans; and leadership styles in museums, libraries and cultural institutions.
Devoted to service, Dr. Baker currently is a member of the Board of Directors for ArtsGreensboro and appointed member to the UNC System’s Committee on American Art. He has served on the boards of the Raleigh City Museum, South Carolina African American Heritage Commission and was appointed by Governor Beverly Perdue to the Board of Directors for the North Carolina Museum of History. He is a member of Kappa Alpha Psi Fraternity, Inc.
A native of Fairmont, North Carolina, Baker received the B.A. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Art/African American Studies, M.A. from North Carolina State University in Public History and a Ph.D. from North Carolina A & T State University in Leadership Studies from the School of Education. He completed Harvard University’s Management Development Program and Cornell University’s Program in Policy Development.