 |
OPEN DOOR: Powers wants to meet
students who wouldn’t ordinarily come to her
office. |
Rod Searcey |
New dean of students Maureen Powers
arrived on campus just in time for New Student Orientation—and
it was a great way to start learning the campus culture.
“Students
were going crazy at the beginning of the various events
in MemAud, cheering for their residence halls,” she
says. “That’s always what you hope for—that
new students will bond to the institution and to each other.”
In
her first weeks on the job in September, the former vice
president for student affairs at the City College of New
York (known as “the Harvard of the proletariat,” she
jokes) was going dorm to dorm to get a feel for each one
and sitting down with directors of the student community
centers. Powers follows in the footsteps of Greg Boardman,
now vice provost for student affairs, and interim dean
Christine Griffith, who continues as associate dean of
student affairs and director of the Graduate Life Office.
A
former senior student affairs officer at five institutions,
Powers says the biggest issue in student affairs today
is mental health. “Counseling directors nationwide will
tell you their caseload over the last 10 years has more
than doubled,” she
says. The Americans with Disabilities Act “rightly protects
students who have mental health concerns—young people
with great ambition who are hard working but have a constraint
they have to cope with.”
Powers is certain she’ll
meet students in elected positions, as well as those who “have
found their way into some kind of dilemma or trouble.” But
she also wants to get to know students who wouldn’t ordinarily
come to her office.
“I’m very interested in those students who are
busy going on about their schoolwork and their lives, who don’t
find a reason to come here,” she says. “I need
to go to them.” |
