Lisa Gates, a familiar face from the Dean’s office, has recently been named Associate Dean and Dean of the Class of 2007. Gates has occupied this role under an interim title since July 2004, when the Dean’s offices all transitioned to their new structure.
Under the old arrangement, each dean only worked with each class year for one year, under the title of “Dean of the Freshman Class” and so on. As of July 2004 each Dean is assigned to one class year and will follow that class for all four years.
While the recent change to Gates’ position is only a variation of title rather than duties, it confirms the success Gates has had in the position since July. Prior to her employment as Interim Dean of the Class of 2007 Gates had worked in the Dean’s office since 2001 as the Associate Dean and Director of New Student Programs. In this position she dealt primarily with helping ease the transition to college for freshman.
“In her previous position Lisa was instrumental in upgrading student orientation,” said Billy Weitzer, Senior Associate Provost and Dean of Continuing Studies.
When the former Dean of the Sophomore class, Michelle Rasmussen, took an offer at Duke last summer the position was suddenly left vacant. Gates seemed to be a clear match for the position. Both Gates and Weitzer, who is her supervisor, were eager for Gates to try out the position of class Dean.
When Gates took the post, it was on the condition that she fill in for the year and that after the first semester her work would be evaluated. At that time, they would assess if she should take on the position permanently. If the arrangement had not worked out, the Administration would have done an outside search to fill the position, according to Weitzer.
“We are thrilled that she wants to stay in the position,” Weitzer said.
In her former position Gates was already working closely with individual class deans so she was familiar with the demands, but her work with students was on a more limited basis.
“Easily half of my week is spent in direct contact with students,” Gates said.
As a class dean Gates’ overall concern is to help her class make progress towards graduation. When she is not directly working with individual students she is often following up on student issues with colleagues.
“All kinds of things happen in students’ lives,” she said. “Class deans are central in figuring out an appropriate solution if a student has a problem. Class deans are responsible for monitoring students’ academic status throughout the year, and particularly for helping students under academic discipline.
Referring to the new system under which deans stay with one class for four years, Gates said that it should foster better student, dean relationships.
”Now you know who your class dean is and you can feel more comfortable coming to us,“ she said. She added that this further familiarity between students and their class deans will hopefully encourage students to approach their deans sooner when they have a major problem.
According to Gates, as the Dean of ’07, she has spent much of her year assisting her students in the process of declaring a major. Due to the changes in different departments, Gates said she has been working with students all year to make sure they know the requirements for their desired major.
Overall, Gates said she is happy in her class dean position.
”It’s great spending so much time with students, because there are so many interesting students at Wesleyan,“ Gates said.
According to Gates the one downside of her position is the difficulty of finding time to execute administrative work.
”Time is in scarce supply,“ she said.
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