A new position called the Dean of Campus Life will combine responsibilities of both the Dean of Student Life (Mona Olds), and the Director of Residential Life (Joanne Toby), and the old positions have been eliminated.The Dean of Campus Life, likely to be Anne Lundquist, former Assistant Dean for Retention & First Year Program and currently Dean of Students at Greensboro College, will report directly to Randy Doss, whose new title is Vice President for Enrollment and Student Life. The deadline to apply for the deanship was Fri., April 26.

“My engagement comes from an enrollment management position,” Doss said. “I will oversee the whole student life program.”

Doss will take on most of the planning and oversight functions of the eliminated positions, and the day-to-day decisions will be handled by the Dean of Campus Life, according to Mona Olds, whose contract with Guilford ends June 30.

Additionally, three Assistant Deans of Student Life, a step up from the current three Residence Life Coordinators, will relieve the Dean of Campus Life of most low-end responsibilities of student life and residence life. David Heggie and Patty Burgoon, the two remaining Residence Life Coordinators for this year, have both chosen not to apply for the new positions and will leave Guilford this spring.

Adam Kris, Residence Life Coordinator for Binford, Shore, and Mary Hobbs dorms, left earlier this semester.

“We have had low-paid residence directors and have not been able to attract a quality pool,” Doss said.

The new positions will be paid more than the ones they were designed from, and will require a Master’s Degree, with two years of post-Master’s residential life experience preferred, according to the job description.

“The design of the three assistants is not just a glorification of residence coordination; these are intended to be administrators with substantial expectations and will be held accountable to those,” said Executive Vice President Jerry Godard.

The Operations Planning Group subcommittee of the Strategic Long Range Planning committee (SLRP), both chaired by Associate Academic Dean Jim Hood, created the new Dean of Campus Life position, to be paid less than the former Dean of Student Life, last month in their efforts to save money by “reducing non-instructional staffing,” according to Doss.

“I don’t think any of it was dissatisfaction with my performance,” Olds said. “The redesign allows for there to be savings.” Olds has worked at Guilford since 1993.

Olds, who served on the subcommittee, presented alternatives to the restructuring that would have saved money but kept the basic present structure intact, and with it her position. But the subcommittee came to consensus on the new structure, with Olds sitting out. According to the committee process, when a committee member has something personal at stake in the matter being decided, that member bows out from the final decision.

When asked if she would have opposed the restructuring if she were another person on the committee, Olds said yes.

“I’m concerned about the direction and feel a personal loss as a result of the decision,” Olds said. In a written statement, she added, “While it’s unfortunate that change at Guilford is often driven by budget constraints, we have to make the best of it and move on.” She does not feel that if she had done things differently that her position would still be intact.

“It was a collaboration, not a decision handed down,” Olds said.

According to Godard, “The principal things that emerged from this were some savings in money, salary compensation, and more importantly, there is reduction in staffing at the top of the hierarchy at the college rather than at lower levels, as has been the occasion before. To reduce costs we’ve tended always to operate with small salary reductions. The Dean of Campus Life provides a flatter leadership structure intended to be closer to the students.

“This is not a backdoor firing,” Godard said. “It was a creative response based on money instead of whacking [of positions].”

The subcommittee decided to restructure with Joanne Toby in mind for an early version of the new position called Director for Student Life, for which Toby wrote the job proposal. Doss and Godard offered her the position a week later.

“The restructuring model is a residence-life-driven model,” Olds said. “I urged that it be filled by a Res. Life specialist and I directly referred them to Joanne.”

Toby, who had not planned on leaving Guilford before the restructuring, decided she did not want the position. Toby has been here since the summer of 2000.

“Sick person that I am, I like Res. Life stuff. I enjoy working with students this way,” Toby said. “Maybe I would have really liked this new position, but I decided not to take it. I felt good about where I was, and then the direction changed around me.”

“That put us in a quandary,” Doss said. “So it was a fresh start; we needed to revamp the position slightly and elevate to a dean position called the Dean of Campus Life.”

Toby raised concerns about the new structure, but generally approved of it. “When I was first brought up to speed, I was given an opportunity to state [to Godard and Doss] the positives and negatives.”

“The Dean of Campus Life is going to be quite a job,” Toby said. “Mona and I work 50 to 60 hours a week, separately. I know [the restructuring] isn’t one plus one equals two, but the combination of student life and residence life will be tough.

“Mona is wonderfully caring, and she listens to students. We need that kind of person: busy, but who has time to talk with students. And I hope students feel they can talk to whomever they need to – Randy, the Dean of Campus Life, the Assistant Deans of Student Life, anyone. You need people to listen.”