June 24, 2019
Dear students, faculty, and staff,
Last week we welcomed our new dean of students, Elizabeth Agosto, to Amherst. As many of you will recall, Liz comes to us from Dartmouth, where she served for six years as senior associate dean for student affairs. While there, Liz oversaw an 80-member team in areas that included wellness, case management, diversity and inclusion, and religious and spiritual life. Both of us were involved in the search for a dean of students. We are delighted to have Liz as a colleague and look forward to working with her as we continue to focus our divisions on enhancing students’ experiences and success at Amherst.
Before and since Liz’s appointment, we have had many in-depth conversations about the relationship between the Office of Student Affairs and the work of inclusion. Amherst is the most diverse environment that many of our students have lived in, and we have a steadfast commitment to supporting all of them and to building community at the College. To provide the best possible support systems, we concluded that it would serve our students best to move the five resource centers, currently housed in the Office of Diversity and Inclusion (OD&I), to the Office of Student Affairs, integrating and strengthening the many resources they collectively offer. The centers will remain in Keefe Campus Center, and their work will continue to be coordinated and overseen by Angie Tissi-Gassoway, the associate dean for diversity and inclusion, who will report to Liz. With a background that is perfectly suited to lead new initiatives in this area, Liz will add the centers to her other responsibilities, many of which are listed in the previous paragraph. The move will take place on July 1, 2019.
Here is why we are making this change and are excited about the possibilities it will offer for the Center for Diversity and Student Leadership, the Center for International Student Engagement, the Multicultural Resource Center, the Queer Resource Center, and the Women’s and Gender Center, as well as the Office of Student Affairs:
It will benefit students who are served by the resource centers. Over the past year, collaboration between our two offices has increased and been greatly enhanced, so much so that the two of us now see new and exciting possibilities for coordination of and improvements in our support of students. That work is more difficult and time-consuming, however, when student-serving staff are located in different divisions. We want to increase the ease with which all students gain access to sources of community and support, while giving staff in both offices greater access to one another in an integrated approach to student well-being.
It will help ensure that the important work of inclusion is at the heart of all we do. Given all that our OD&I team has done to strengthen the centers, moving them back into Student Affairs, where they were originally located, will bring their staff members into more direct, day-to-day interaction with other student affairs professionals and involve them in the overall work of our students’ residential experience, which is central to the College’s mission. OD&I remains committed to serving students by helping to create and develop initiatives that have the potential to improve a sense of belonging on the part of all our students.
It will provide for enhanced career development for staff in both offices. Our resource centers’ staff are student affairs professionals whose professional growth and career trajectories will be well served by belonging and contributing to a growing and energized Office of Student Affairs. They, in turn, will bring important additional expertise to Student Affairs.
OD&I must remain nimble to continue to meet the changing needs of the entire community. This transition will free up Norm to pursue initiatives in areas for which he has had too little time, including work already underway—his work with the dean of the faculty on hiring and retention of faculty, as well as a project to create a meaningful record of the histories and experiences of alumni of color, to cite two examples—and new initiatives he can jump-start to ensure that the College has the most effective strategies for inclusion across divisions, across constituencies, and overall.
Liz, Angie, the resource center directors, and student staff will work with us for the remainder of the summer to make sure that the transition is smooth and that we are not only prepared but strengthened for the work of the coming academic year. We urge you to reach out to either or both of us directly if you have questions.
Please join us in welcoming Liz to Amherst and in enthusiastically supporting her and the resource centers’ staff as they pursue the essential goal of ensuring the success of, and a strong sense of belonging for, all of our students. We are excited about the opportunities this change will open up for us and for the College.
Norm Jones and Karu Kozuma