O'Dair Reflects on Student Support Initiatives From DSO's First Year

A few months ahead of the Dean of Students Office's one-year anniversary, Dean of Students Katherine G. O’Dair said administrators have been “making a lot of progress” toward their goals following the merger of the Freshman Dean’s Office and the Office of Student Life.

“I think we have really created this organization that supports all four years,” O’Dair said in an interview Tuesday. “I think we’re really looking forward to our second year of the new organization with building upon the work we’ve done.”

O’Dair said much of the office’s work during the 2018-19 academic year has been focused on inward-facing initiatives, such as integrating the personnel, finance, and human resources infrastructure of the two “really significant” organizations. The office plans to formally review its efforts over the past year to support the student body, she said.

“We’re undergoing program review right now in the DSO. We’re going to start that with our one-year review, which doesn’t sound that exciting,” O’Dair said. “But to us, it’s really making sure that the things we’re doing now, the resources, the staffing, are all toward student-facing student experience, and to assess the things we’ve done for years, and to see if they're meeting the needs of — the current needs of — today’s students.”

The FDO and OSL merged to form the DSO in July 2018. Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana announced the merger in an email last April that the purpose of the consolidation was to “centralize services” offered by both former offices. The merger also sought to “link each student’s first-year experience with their sophomore experience in an intentional way,” according to Khurana’s email at the time.

O’Dair said she is looking forward to working with Nekesa C. Straker — the new senior assistant dean of residential life and first-year students — as the office strives to create a sense of continuity in the undergraduate residential experience “from orientation through handoff to the houses.” As part of this process, she said the DSO hopes to strengthen connections between freshman students and programmatic offices at the College.

“I think we have spent a lot of time thinking about that handoff to the sophomore year, and I think even more so now that we’re going to have that team in place,” O’Dair said.

O’Dair highlighted the new “sleep module” — an online training module about healthy sleeping habits that incoming members of the Class of 2022 were required to complete — as an example of new programming for freshmen students.

As she looked back on the DSO’s progress over the past year, O’Dair also gave a preview of the office’s priorities for the next academic year.

The DSO will pursue closer collaboration with the Office of Undergraduate Education and other campus offices to focus on supporting the first-generation student experience, O’Dair said.

“We know students have one experience,” O’Dair said. “They don't have just separate experiences in the classroom and outside of the classroom.”

The office will also be launching a new website in August, as well as continuing to support professional development opportunities for its staff.

—Staff writer Sanjana L. Narayanan can be reached at sanjana.narayanan@thecrimson.com.

—Staff writer Samuel W. Zwickel can be reached at samuel.zwickel@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @samuel_zwickel.