Currier Announces Acting Resident Dean

A resident tutor in Currier House will serve as acting resident dean this academic year while Harvard College searches for a permanent replacement.

Allison D. Diop-Frimpong will fill a vacancy left by Katherine Stanton, who announced in August that she will become assistant dean in the Office of Undergraduate Education on October 1, when she returns from her maternity leave.

Diop-Frimpong began serving as a tutor in Currier in 2008 and graduated from Boston College Law School in 2009. She was named the Allston Burr resident dean this past summer, according to interim Currier House Master James L. Cavallaro ’84.

The College will begin its hunt for a permanent resident dean in mid- to late fall, and the search is expected to end this spring, according to Dean of Student Life Suzy M. Nelson.

A select group of House Masters, Currier students, and staff will interview candidates and provide feedback. Dean of the College Evelynn M. Hammonds will make the final appointment, Nelson said.

“The goal is to consider a diverse pool of candidates and to eventually hire someone who has the skills and experience to do the job well,” Nelson wrote in an e-mail.

As Allston Burr resident dean, Diop-Frimpong supervises the House’s tutors, aids students in academic matters, and typically acts as a representative of Currier undergraduates to the Administrative Board, the College’s primary disciplinary body.

Diop-Frimpong, who declined requests for comment, wrote in her biography on the Currier website that she received her bachelor’s in Latin American studies at Vanderbilt University, in addition to law and master’s degrees in social work at Boston College.

“I’m proud to call Currier my home, mostly because of the people,” she wrote. “While the perks are nice, the food wouldn’t be as delicious, the housing as comfortable, or the study breaks as stress-busting without the people who work and live here.”

—Staff writer Naveen N. Srivatsa can be reached at srivatsa@fas.harvard.edu.