College officials have tapped Sylvia Spears, the current director of the Office of Pluralism and Leadership and acting senior associate Dean of the College, to oversee the Dean of the College's Office for the next two years while its structure is reevaluated and a permanent dean is chosen, Provost Barry Scherr announced on Tuesday. Spears first came to the College in July 2007.
The process of finding a permanent replacement for outgoing Dean of the College Tom Crady, who resigned abruptly on Tuesday morning, will not begin until spring or summer of 2010, Scherr said.
Prior to being named acting dean, Spears served as director of the Office of Pluralism and Leadership as well as acting senior associate Dean of the College.
"[Spears] hasn't been at Dartmouth all that long herself, but she has quite an extensive background," Scherr said in an interview with The Dartmouth. "[Her selection stemmed from] a combination of her experience and the fact that, just in my own conversations with people, she's made a very positive impression."
In an interview with The Dartmouth on Tuesday, Spears said she has been discussing the shift into the Dean of the College's Office with Scherr and other College officials for "the past two or three days."
Spears said her top priorities in the new role will be to "stabilize the [Dean of the College] division as best as possible" and to manage the arrival of new and returning students to the College for the Fall term.
"I think one of the major priorities for me is to help the staff to give our good wishes to [Crady] and his family ... and to keep our eyes on the core functions of the division: to support the experience of Dartmouth students outside the classroom and to enhance their success while they're here," Spears said.
Spears said she will also participate in the wide-ranging review and restructuring of the Dean of the College's Office proposed Scherr in his Tuesday morning e-mail announcing Crady's departure.
Although she said it would be "premature" to discuss specific plans to alter the division, Spears said she expects to collaborate with Scherr on reviewing how the division delivers services to students.
The College plans to "examine the scope of responsibilities in this critical area" before beginning that search, Scherr said in his e-mail.
The committee that hired Crady had originally discussed reassessing the structure of the Dean of the College's office because of the large number of organizations that report to that office, Scherr told The Dartmouth, but ultimately decided to go ahead with a search for a replacement without making any alterations.
"What I want to make sure we do this time is really be confident before we start a search that the structure is what we want it to be," Scherr said. "There may not be any changes at all, but I think it's good to do that before you have a search committee struggling with it."
Any work on long-term goals in the Dean of the College's Office will be secondary to "steadying things" as the College begins preparations for Fall term, Spears added.
Student Body President Frances Vernon '10, in an e-mail to students on Tuesday, said Spears will work to familiarize herself with the "major projects and initiatives" Crady has been working on with students.
"Many of the programs in the Dean of the College division are developed to, hopefully, provide students with a large variety of experiences where they can develop leadership skills," Spears said. "I will continue to be connected to students as they launch initiatives and come up with innovative ideas for the College."
Spears said her combined experiences in OPAL and at the University of Rhode Island as both a faculty member and administrator will be helpful as she manages her two-year deanship.
"[These experiences] really give me a broad view of the community needs and some appropriate mechanisms for supporting students," Spears said. "It's my hope that my previous experience and knowledge and education can be brought to bear in positive ways in the acting dean's role."
To fill the vacancy in OPAL caused by Spears' departure, officials plan to "move very thoughtfully and mindfully" to develop a new structure for the office, Spears said. Spears said she was confident that the current OPAL staff could serve effectively as "point people" for the office, and that student events and services would not be interrupted.
