Author: Caroline Olsen-Van Stone
Since October, the administration has involved student leaders in the search for the newest addition to Occidental’s administration, Assistant Dean of Students for Student Life. Tamara Rice has been selected as the Assistant Dean of Students. Dean of Students Barbara Avery contacted her last Monday to offer her the position, and she accepted.
Since the Assistant Dean of Students for Student Life must work closely with students, they were very involved in the selection process. “Their [student] insight is very helpful,” Avery said. ASOC President Ryan Bowen (senior) was selected by Avery in October to lead the student interviews of potential candidates.
The position search was announced last August, after former Assistant Dean of Student Life Earic Peters left the position in July.
Bowen conducted phone interviews of the first respondents to the search in October. These phone interviews yielded one candidate whom the administration and Bowen thought was qualified for the position. At that point, the College needed to attract more applicants, so they put the search on hold until the end of January 2008, when they re-announced the open position. Four applicants were selected by the administration with the help of Bowen to visit Occidental and meet with student leaders and administrators for three weeks at the end of March and beginning of April.
Each of these visits was a long process for the candidate. The typical day for a candidate’s visit began at 8 a.m., and wasn’t over until after 10 p.m. The student interviews were “pretty informal” Jessica Harris (senior) said. They were typically lunch meetings that were divided into 30 minutes of questions from students to candidates, and 30 minutes of the applicant asking questions of the students. Harris, a student Programming Assistant in the Office of Student Life, as well as a member of O-Team and Greek Life, met with all four of the candidates who visited Oxy. Harris, Bowen and OSL student staff member Riley Steiner (senior) are graduating in May, but remained committed in meeting with every candidate. “This position really matters to the students,” Harris said.
Bowen invited “student leaders” from the Senate, OSL and ASOC to be a part of the student interviewing process. These students “would be the people they [the new Assistant Dean of Students] would be working with,” he said. “It’s in their best interest for students to be involved.”
Harris and Bowen agreed that the position is challenging. “It’s a tricky role,” he said. “They have to be an advocate for students and part of the administration.” Harris explained that they “have huge shoes to fill.”
Though students have an impact on the decision, Dean Avery ultimately made the final decision. She announced the new dean to the Oxy community via e-mail on Wednesday, April 16.
Student interviewers wondered if their involvement would have an impact on the end result. “I didn’t know if my voice would be heard,” Harris said. Avery explained that one student who took part in every student interview for the Assistant Dean for Community Life search had a great impact on her decision to hire the Assistant Dean for Community Life and Director of the Intercultural Community Center Brandi Jones last year. “It was really him who sold me on Brandi Jones,” she said. “Their [students’] insight is very helpful.”
Both finalists this year impressed students and administrators. “All said both could do the job,” Avery said. Bowen agreed. “I was very impressed with both of them,” he said. “Both were very qualified.”
Rice has previous experience in student life, and worked as a student affairs administrator at Purdue University in Indiana. Currently, she is working on completing her Doctorate at Bowling Green University in Ohio. She will begin her duties as Assistant Dean of Students for Student Life on June 2, 2008.
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