As the orchestrator of four years of planning and construction on the newly renovated Collis Center, Dean of Student Life Holly Sateia has worked on building a sense of College community with plaster and paint as well as through committees and coalitions.
Whereas divisive campus issues can seldom be resolved in a single committee meeting or panel discussion, Sateia said she found it a welcome change to attend meetings that had a more immediate impact on the campus.
"I would go to Collis building committee meetings, and we would decide to move a door or put up a window - things were very concrete," Sateia said.
"I could see the impact of things we discussed right away, whereas on those other issues, you just work as hard as you can, and hope to make a difference," she said. "That was a nice contrast to the rest of my job."
As well as being director of Collis Center, Sateia's role as dean of student life includes overseeing such diverse groups as the Programming Board, Student Assembly, the Dartmouth Outing Club, Dartmouth Broadcasting and the Debate Team.
"Frankly, she's one of the hardest working people I've ever met," Student Programs Coordinator Linda Kennedy said.
Before beginning a long day of scheduled meetings and last-minute preparations for this weekend's grand opening of the Collis Center, Sateia ventured out of her new second-floor office. Her goal: milk for her morning coffee.
Stepping over a pile of leftover construction materials in the freshly painted hallway, Sateia opened a side door and started downstairs to the Collis Cafe which was already busy with students.
"I know all the shortcuts," Sateia said, smiling.
The importance of community
Sateia emphasizes again and again the importance of the extensive campus-wide collaborative effort in the long process of re-creating the campus center.
"The campus center is not a building that simply is the responsibility of one organization," she said. "One of the rewards of this project was working with so many different departments. Everyone wanted the best for this place."
Yet, in the midst of collaboration and compromise, Sateia does find personal rewards for her leadership.
"I think [Collis] will enhance students' lives," she said. "It is personally rewarding for me to see it being used as much as it is already; to see the building lit up at night and to see students coming and going is an incredible reward for me," Sateia said.
Dean of Students Lee Pelton described Sateia as "the moving force behind [the Collis Center]."
"Every building at Dartmouth has a history ... and Holly has been part of the history of Collis," he said. "She handled all of that with grace and intelligence and maturity which should be recognized."
The principle of inclusion
In her almost two decades at the College, Sateia has focused her concern on co-education, race relations, first-year student programs - issues integral to her personal goal of making the Dartmouth community a comfortable place for all of its members.
She arrived at the College in 1974, in the aftermath of perhaps the greatest challenge to community coherence in the College's history: the advent of co-education.
Initially hired in the admissions office to help recruit women applicants, Sateia did not simply help shape each class of entering undergraduates, but worked to make sure the College provided opportunities for its changing student body.
"When I first arrived, it seemed like women were guests," she said. "But it was easier in the early days to organize as women at Dartmouth. There were so few that if you had a meeting, everyone would come."
Sateia served as chair of a women's caucus from 1981 to 1983, which provided a forum for issues such as co-education and child care. She was also president of New Hampshire women in higher education and administration, a state-wide organization, in 1982 and 1983.
"I think that the principle that informs her work ... is a principle of inclusion," Pelton said. "She has worked very hard to enable groups with different needs and perspectives to feel that they have a share in a common community."
Sateia said she has always been concerned race relations, and has attempted to tackle this issue in all her positions at the College, "whether it fits into the job description or not."
Examples of these efforts include the recruitment of minority applicants for admission, as well as the more recent goal of designing a campus center to meet the needs of all campus groups.
"I see myself as an advocate for students, and in that way, my position hasn't changed that much since I arrived at the College," Sateia said.
Sateia's interests for the future also include work on various programs examining first-year students' experience at the College.
"I hope we can address the serious issues about community that we still need to address here. There are so many things we haven't done," she said.
Sateia credits her upbringing for the importance she places on diversity.
"I grew up in a family that really did embrace community," she said. "My mother and father raised me to be aware of what you can learn from other people."
"I hope that's the way I'm raising my children - not to be afraid of difference, to embrace it," she added.
Sateia has two daughters, aged 10 and 14. Although she admits that her job's long hours can be a challenge for family life, she said the fact she can bring her daughters with her to campus events "is one of the benefits in working on a college campus."
"As far as I'm concerned, this college provides wonderful role models for my family," she said.
Sateia's husband, Michael Sateia '70, is a professor of psychiatry at the College and director of the Sleep Disorders Center at the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center.
"He's very connected to the College, and has been very supportive of my work [on Collis]," Sateia said. "He thinks it's wonderful."
Sateia sees her work on the Collis Center as a natural progression of her vision for the College.
"The part that I'm enjoying most about the building so far is students coming in and using it in ways I never imagined," Sateia said.
"The college center is traditionally the hearthstone of the campus," she said. "I see the building as a place where we can celebrate our community. If I see that happening here, I'll be happy. I am extremely proud of the community we are."
