These are extraordinarily exciting times for the University. Professors and students face classes with renewed vigor after the summer break. The Class of 2005 is eager to begin its Duke experience, and returning students buzz with the anticipation of reconnecting with old friends. The campus is emblazoned with late summer hues, and everyone can look forward to watching Jason Williams and company in what promises to be another memorable winter inside (and outside) of Cameron Indoor Stadium.
And, on the first floor of the Flowers Building, Larry Moneta is getting used to his new job as vice president for student affairs.
The Division of Student Affairs is tremendously important in steering undergraduates' outside-the-classroom experiences. Unfortunately, the boat of student affairs has been adrift at sea the last few years. Some members of the division tirelessly press forward, always working to build a better University on behalf of its students. Others, sadly, row backward against the grain. Without a clear rudder or direction from the captain, the boat travels in circles, offering little yield for a lot of hard work. There's a lot of dead weight toward the stern of the boat in need of streamlining. Worst of all, there are several people sitting directly in the center of the vessel, afraid to touch the water in case they make a wave.
Two examples immediately come to mind: the Office of Student Development and the Office of University Life.
In May, OSD lost its longtime dean, Barbara Baker. Her departure was a great loss to the University, as Dean Baker was the nicest, warmest, most-caring student administrator I had the pleasure of working with. She was charged with creating the East Campus environment we take for granted today. However, her departure, in conjunction with the arrival of a new vice president, makes this an excellent opportunity to re-evaluate the office's function, especially considering its mission evaporated years ago.
The office was charged with supervising the transition to an all-freshman East Campus in the Fall of 1995 and creating residential programming and structure appropriate for the distinct campuses. This was a radical change for the University at the time, but six years after implementation, all of the wrinkles have been ironed out, leaving the office looking for something--anything--to justify its glut of associate deans.
Some OSD staffers are straight out of the cartoon Dilbert, filing reports and making decisions for the sake of looking busy. Take away Associate Dean Bill Burig, a man who takes far too much abuse for doing an impossible job admirably, and the rest of that office does in a week what their interim chief does in a day.
Originally intended to foster ties between diverse student groups and build a better undergraduate community, OSD staffers are now best known for picking petty and punitive fights with selective houses that don't file the right paperwork and running a judicial system clouded by secrecy and inconsistency.
I covered the Office of University Life for a year for this very newspaper, yet I am still not quite sure what they do nor do I have a clue why they exist in their current form. From what I can tell, their greatest policy victory in the last two years was getting pianos placed in random spots around campus.
A good example of their work is the plight of the 1999 Chanticleer. The Office of University Life is charged with supervising the production of the yearbook in an advisory role. The 1998 Chanticleer came out a few weeks late--hardly the end of the world. But instead of applying stricter scrutiny to the organization, the advisor defended her hands-off policy. The following year's production was an unmitigated disaster. The tools were not in place to finish the job anytime close to deadline, and a graduated senior produced the book single-handedly from Charlotte, NC through the summer and fall after her nine-to-five job. The University was lucky to get a yearbook at all, yet this fiasco did not produce a change in structure.
As a former student leader, I appreciated running my organization free of administrative oversight. But when the system is not working, being hands-off to the point of negligence is irresponsible and lazy.
I think the job currently done by the Office of University Life can be streamlined into a single position within the division of student affairs, similar to Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs Sue Wasiolek's niche in the hierarchy. Am I advocating the termination of employees? Absolutely not--the great majority of OSD and OUL staffers I have met are kind-hearted people who love Duke and are an asset to the University community. However, it is obvious that these offices do not have sufficient responsibility to match their staffing levels. There are other departments of this University in dire need of more money and manpower.
Student Affairs has a ton of potential for positive change, but before it can figure out where it wants to go, it has to take a good long look at what it has.
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