With the announcement of Dean of the College Maria Cruz-Saco’s coming departure, this is a good moment not only to examine Cruz-Saco’s particular legacy, but the dean of the college’s particular role within the University. The dean of the college wields a considerable amount of administrative power, in particular as the liaison between students and administrators, and students should realize the impact this change will have on their day-to-day lives. Not only that, but replacing Cruz-Saco will be one of the first big tests of our next president.
Consistently throughout her tenure, Cruz-Saco proved effective at setting an agenda that resonated with issues of great concern to the student body. She reacted quickly to worries about profiling by police on campus, as well as incidences of intolerance and hate speech. Cruz-Saco should be congratulated for fulfilling one of the primary goals for which she was hired: bringing in a dean of diversity who actively participates in student life and serves as an important coordinator and point-person for student groups and program houses. While we applaud Cruz-Saco for providing new ideas about safe spaces on-campus and other diversity issues, it is unfortunate that she should choose to leave just as her programs were beginning to take hold.
Now, just as her presence was beginning to solidify among students, we are once again dragged into a lengthy search process requiring great investment of time, energy and resources. It is simply not effective to carry out such a search every few years. Hopefully the next candidate will arrive prepared to invest more than a two-year commitment.
While Cruz-Saco’s departure allows for a fresh perspective within the administration, considering the brevity of her stay, we do not need a change in direction so much as a strengthening of already existing initiatives. Cruz-Saco’s successor should realize that taking over the position is not akin to stepping into an empty room. Maintaining a sense of continuity will be vital, for there are still important projects to work with and to build upon. Chief among them are the campus climate log and First-Year-Matters, two Cruz-Saco programs that, while having noble intentions, have yet to demonstrate a consistent practical use.
The next dean should learn from some of Cruz-Saco’s weaknesses. Her return to research in lieu of taking another administrative position is telling, as many students on campus seemed unsatisfied with her as a communicator. Complaints about her lack of transparency, especially about funding, could have been avoided with a little more dialogue coming out of the Office of the Dean. Perhaps no issue more clearly demonstrated this rift than the Office of the Dean’s repeated attempts to eliminate the New York Times readership program, one of the most popular student services on campus. We understand unpopular decisions come with the territory, but our next dean should understand that tough explanations do too.
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