The 2004-2005 academic year will begin with the offices of campus and student life facing multiple openings and with familiar administrators spread across the country, allowing the open positions to be tailored to fit both President Ruth Simmons' Plan for Academic Enrichment and administration needs.
Margaret Jablonski, dean for campus life, has left the University to become the vice chancellor of student affairs at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services David Greene has worked to select an interim dean to replace Jablonski.
Project Director Kate Wolford RUE '06 wrote in an e-mail to The Herald that Greene has tentatively selected an interim dean following a search process and after thorough consultation, but the appointment, due to the high level of the position, is awaiting Corporation approval.
Two other departures from the Office of Student Life include Salvador Mena, the assistant dean for student life, and Myles McPartland, who was in charge of non-academic judicial procedures, residential counselors and student activities.
Mena is leaving to earn a Ph.D. at the University of Maryland, and McPartland will be focusing on home life to care for a newborn child, Wolford said.
Fran Lo '97, who coordinates leadership programs at the University such as Brown Outdoor Leadership Training and Women Peer Counselors, will also leave to work at the University of Washington.
While all of these openings could imply a restructuring of the complicated bureaucracy of student life and campus life, Wolford told The Herald, Greene did not give any indication that there would be a major overhaul of administrative positions.
The departure of so many administrators around the same time was coincidental, not indicative of any conflict and merely part of the natural cycle of job shifting for administrators in higher education, Wolford said.
With regards to any reconstruction of the bureaucracy of campus life and student life, Senior Associate Dean of Student Life Jean Joyce-Brady said, "I wouldn't say that there's an immediate plan."
If there are any plans for reconstruction or reorganization, Joyce-Brady said that would be up to the interim dean, and that Greene would select an individual to fulfill those needs.
Rather than any elimination or consolidation of positions, there are ongoing searches to fill both Mena's and McPartland's positions, Joyce-Brady said.
Mena's position will be an assistant dean position, and McPartland's previous position of coordinator will become an assistant dean position, with a focus on judicial procedures and Latino student life, Joyce-Brady added.
Greene's position - which has some overlapping responsibilities with that of the vice president for student life - was created by President Gordon Gee in 2000. Gee aimed to streamline Brown's administrative bureaucracy but left the University before the reorganization was complete.
When Greene's predecessor left the University in June 2003, President Ruth Simmons had initiated a reorganization process to evaluate the efficiency of all non-academic departments.
Herald staff writer Amy Ruddle '06 can be reached at aruddle@browndailyherald.com.
