Recently appointed Associate Dean of Residential Life Mary Liscinsky said that, despite students' imperfections, she hopes her three-year-old daughter will one day be as inquisitive as the Dartmouth undergraduates she has met.
"I love the fact that [the students] question so much," she said. "We can have real conversations and agree to disagree on some issues. The students have a certain amount of drive."
But Liscinsky said she would not want her daughter to emulate some of the flaws of Dartmouth students.
"They sometimes get caught up in one ideal of success," she said. "If there's one thing they don't question, it is what success means to them."
Molding Liscinsky's daughter may be more challenging than shaping the future of the College's Office of Residential Life -- Liscinsky said her daughter's raising is both her proudest accomplishment and a draining task.
"I want to raise my daughter to question a lot of things," she explained. "I am learning how exhausting that is, and how limited my knowledge is. So we find out the answers together."
In addition to child-rearing, Liscinsky, who lives in Rutland, Vt., said she enjoys running, knitting and reading. She said she ran the Cherry Blossom 10-mile in Washington, D.C. two weeks ago, but spends most of her time working.
Liscinsky said she is excited about her new position in ORL and intends to follow in the footsteps of Mary Turco.
Turco "put us on this great path and really formed a strong office of residential life," she said. "I would like to continue the work that she started so that when the permanent dean steps in, he can step into the well-functioning office."
Liscinsky said she plans to emphasize life-safety improvements in the residence halls during her tenure as dean of residential life. She said the lives of Dartmouth students are her top priority, and it is important an adequate number of safety measures and escape routes are available in dormitories, and that residents know how to reach these exits during an emergency.
Liscinsky predicted ORL will complete life-safety improvements and will "decompress" small dorm rooms in the near future.
"Some of the rooms are a little tight," she said. "I'd like our residential facilities on the same par as everything else Dartmouth has to offer."
Like Turco, Liscinsky also has plans to encourage student involvement in ORL, one way being by creating a student judicial board.
ORL plans to create the judicial board next year "to allow students to have the opportunity to educate their peers on what is appropriate behavior," she said.
"We want to continue involving students in the decision-making process for everything that we do," she said.
Liscinsky said the office's ad-hoc housing committee with student members has already suggested some of ORL's most effective improvements.
Additionally, Liscinsky said she wants to continue working with the Principles in Action for a Civil College Community Committee created by Turco.
She said the PACCC will investigate how students live and treat each other in the residence halls.
Liscinsky joined ORL as an Area Director in 1989 but left in 1992 to work at the Living/Learning Center at Indiana University. She returned in 1996 as assistant dean of residential life.
