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.”
