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Each month, Get to Know… will feature two members of UT System Administration’s talented and diverse staff as they offer insights into their lives in and out of the office. Each new edition will be published here. This week,
Tonie Jones
Marketing & Communications Manager
University Lands
What are your primary job responsibilities?
I oversee organization-wide branding, design marketing and promotional assets, maintain the University Lands website and social media channel, produce annual reports, internal and external presentations and ad hoc reports; plus, I serve as media liaison and manage and coordinate special events.
What do you most enjoy about your job?
Without question, it is the people I work with. Along with their knowledge and skills in their respective roles, they are passionate about the work they do and University Lands’ mission. And they are quite a supportive bunch. Whenever I reach out with a question or need help with something, they do not hesitate to quickly respond and provide whatever assistance is needed. This sentiment extends to the other teams I've had the pleasure of working with within the UT System. Shout-out to the UT System teams in the offices of Communications and Media Relations, Talent and Innovation, Governmental Relations and the Board of Regents. All the people I work with here make my job a truly delightful experience.
What is a fact about you that may surprise your colleagues?
I read and listen to copious amounts of news. I subscribe to Apple News+ so I have access to seemingly unending news stories from countless news outlets in the palm of my hand, and I will go down a rabbit hole of reading news story after news story. It happens the same way every time. I click on one interestingly worded headline, then, in an instant, it is two hours and several news stories later. And I usually only listen to the Houston Public Media radio station when driving in my car, that is until my daughters start complaining that the news is boring and ask if I can put on music. Ironically, I do not watch local news broadcasts at all. I think that's because I prefer being able to select what news I ingest so I can get a more balanced mix of the hard, heavy news and the lighter, feel-good news stories. And Houston Public Media’s mix of segments and stories are just so all-encompassing and unique that there is always something interesting on.
What do you do to disconnect or de-stress?
While I would love to say I do something healthy like yoga or journaling (both of which I've tried countless times), when I want to disconnect, I usually like to watch an interesting documentary and eat dark chocolate. Disappointingly, I recently heard a story on NPR that most dark chocolate contain metals, which was absolutely heartbreaking for me because of how much I love dark chocolate and the sheer amount of dark chocolate I eat -- and I mean on a daily basis. But really, how harmful can consuming lead and cadmium be? I don't think I want to know.
Who is currently playing on your Spotify playlist?
I have two young daughters, ages 7 and 9, who have taken over my Spotify playlists, so I currently have a heavy rotation of songs from the "Clean TikTok Hits 2023/2022" playlist which includes the likes of Harry Styles, SZA, and Meghan Trainor.
