In response to the Initiative and the perceived need for more permanent resources in residence halls, the Office of Residential Life created four new "community director" positions this year.
The new staff members are full-time employees of ORL who live in the Choates, River, Ripley/Woodward/Smith, the Fayerweathers and East Wheelock clusters. In past years, the cluster activities and day-to-day operations were coordinated exclusively by student Area Coordinators who oversaw Undergraduate Advisers.
"We were very understaffed as an office," Jeffrey DeWitt, who oversees the UGAs, ACs and Community Directors, said. "We had essentially four people [in ORL] to be responsible for all of the staff and students."
UGAs told The Dartmouth that they think the community directors are assets to ORL.
Lauren Lomax '03 sees her Community Director as "sort of the UGAs' UGA. In other words, she's the one that I can run to if I need anything, if I have any questions or problems, or if I just want to talk with someone."
Rebecca Davis '03 emphasized the fact that her Community Director serves as a "liaison between us [the UGAs] and the administration," a connection that the Office of Residential Life was looking to strengthen when adopting this new post.
The Community Directors said Dartmouth's residential life makes more progress every day. "We're defining the roles as we go along," said River Community Director Amanda Bingel, "and we're being very well-received by the community which is great."
Nariah Broadus, the Rip/Wood/Smith community director called the program "a constantly evolving process," stressing that the new addition "was a perfect place to begin to build on the professional staff."
DeWitt said "the ACs do a fabulous job but [their jobs] could be full-time jobs." He explained that supervising a cluster requires an enormous time commitment, in order to complete all of the programming, budgeting and personal needs of the staff and students within each cluster. These tasks, on top of frequent meetings and evaluations, call for a full-time professional in some of the larger clusters, according to DeWitt.
DeWitt said the Initiative was another impetus for creating the new position.
"[It] raised questions about how to improve the students' residential experience," he said.
Each of the four Community Directors -- Bingel, Broadus, Surabhi Lal in the Choates and Anne Soutter in East Wheelock had years of experience in higher education and working with students in a residential setting before coming to Dartmouth.
Lal graduated from Virginia Technical Institute in 1997 and earned her masters degree in Higher Education at the University of Vermont earlier this year. She spent her last three years at Virginia Tech working for the residential life program on campus, living in the dorms of underclassmen. She also took a year off in between her undergraduate and graduate years to gain experience as a hall director.
Bingel graduated from the College of St. Rose in Albany in 1998 and earned her Masters Degree in College Student-Personnel Administration earlier this year as well.
She served as a residence adviser for three years as an undergraduate and as a hall director during her time at graduate school.
Soutter, who graduated in 1996 from Dartmouth, earned her Masters in Education at Stanford University and then taught in a California high school for a few years before returning to Dartmouth this year.
Nariah earned her undergraduate diploma at Morovian College in Pennsylvania in 1997 and her Masters at Indiana University in 1999.
She proceeded to work at the University of Michigan as a hall director for a year before coming to Dartmouth.
Aside from the 30 hours plus per week that each Lal, Bingel, Soutter, and Broadus spend working as community directors, each spends an additional 10 hours working on a quarter-time collateral project in a certain field of interest.
"They really are interest-based," said Bingel, who is excited to work in the First Year Office as the assistant coordinator of orientation.
Lal works in the Women's Resource Center, Soutter with the special programs in the East Wheelock cluster and Broadus in Health Resources on the College's campus.
The community directors have matched UGA and ORL excitement about their arrival on campus.
"I've really enjoyed meeting all of the students," Lal said. "They are really enthusiastic. The people I'm working with are all fabulous and talented and I learn a lot every day."
