The Office of Student Affairs will soon be restructured. But if changes go according to plan, students should not even notice the reorganization.
Larry Moneta, vice president for student affairs, now oversees Dining Services and Event Management—a change that almost doubles his office’s budget and greatly increases its size. Moneta officially assumed the added responsibilities after Kemel Dawkins, former vice president for campus services, left the University in June.
“The real challenges are not the things that students will see,” he said. “My responsibility is to make sure that you are never bothered by it.”
Behind the scenes, however, the changes mean redistributed responsibilities for some administrators. Moneta said he is using the summer to completely restructure his office.
“A change of this magnitude sort of requires that we recalibrate the whole division in terms of what each of the leadership people do,” Moneta said. “It didn’t make sense to simply plug the two units in. It really was an opportune time to sort of sit back and say, ‘Let’s start from scratch and reinvent the division and reinvent the alignment of responsibilities.’”
Dining and Residence Life and Housing Services will report directly to Moneta, but he said he intends to create a fourth assistant vice president to oversee those responsibilities. He added that this position would not be filled “for months.”
Moneta formally announced the changes—which will be implemented Aug. 1—in an e-mail to student affairs staff June 29. Among the changes, Dean of Students Sue Wasiolek will oversee Student Health as well as Counseling and Psychological Services.
“Neither of those changes came about because there were problems or issues,” Wasiolek said. “Those areas aren’t broken—they don’t need to be fixed. But by having someone to focus on health and wellness I will have a way to bring those opportunities together in a way that serves the students.”
Zoila Airall, assistant vice president for student affairs for campus life, will supervise the Office of Fraternity and Sorority Life—which Wasiolek currently oversees—and will work with certain leadership groups, including the Council for the Arts and the Civic Engagement Council.
Caroline Nisbet, assistant vice president for student affairs for resource administration, will be largely responsible for Event Management. Now that housing, dining and event support all fall under student affairs, Moneta said he foresees potential for collaboration between departments.
“Could we really bring our hospitality services as a campus into a much stronger circumstance?” Moneta said, adding that immediate changes would not take place this Fall. “Where are there collaborative business opportunities?”
Because Event Management is a complex unit, Nisbet said she needs to understand more about the department’s daily business before instituting any concrete adjustments.
“These are auxiliary units so they basically have to charge fees to cover their costs,” Nisbet said, adding that she will now oversee about 34 more positions. “We need to understand what their business model is and what would happen if we changed that.”
Although the Student Affairs office budget has greatly expanded—Dining alone adds around $29 million—funds will not be shuffled, because most funding is not combinable, Moneta said.
Director of Dining Services Jim Wulforst added that he likes that Dining is now considered a part of Student Affairs rather than just a campus service.
“I think that as an auxiliary we were under a microscope all the time and it was all about how to make ends meet, and now it’s about how to better our program,” Wulforst said. “We still have fiscal responsibility, but I think that the support Dr. Moneta has shown to my group has been great.”
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