Dean Sue to step into a new role in 2020-21 advising on housing, residential experience

Will students still be able to call her Dean Sue?

Sue Wasiolek, more commonly referred to as “Dean Sue,” is taking on a new role heading into the 2020-2021 academic year. Currently dean of students, Wasiolek is moving on from that role, as she has been appointed as senior adviser to Mary Pat McMahon, vice provost/vice president for student affairs, and Gary Bennett, vice provost for undergraduate education. 

Wasiolek’s new role will be to help implement the suggestions made by the Next Generation Living and Learning Experience Task Force—the Board of Trustees task force that was charged in the 2018-19 academic year with examining the undergraduate residential experience and making recommendations to “promote growth and health,” according to the Board’s website. 

In a summary of its Board report, the task force described a few possible changes to the West Campus housing system, such as the creation of neighborhoods and increased faculty involvement in the dorms. 

McMahon wrote in an email to student affairs leadership that Wasiolek’s new role will enable her to “design and implement programs that support the state-of-the-art student living and learning experience that Duke seeks to provide our current and future students.”

Wasiolek has perennially been a popular figure among the undergraduate population, having worked in Duke’s student affairs for nearly 40 years. 

“Several generations of students and alumni have experienced her extraordinary dedication to student life,” McMahon wrote. “She is there for students and their families in good times and bad, during the greatest of celebrations and the sad moments of loss that we inevitably go through as a community.”

Wasiolek’s new title, set to take effect following commencement, will not remove her from the many campus involvements she has grown to be associated with. Wasiolek will retain her role as associate vice president of student affairs, as well as continue to teach courses in education. Although she will continue her role as a faculty-in-residence, planned renovations to Gilbert-Addoms during the 2020-21 year will relocate Wasiolek across the backyard to Bell Tower.