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New Dean on Deck By Kimberly Marlowe AC It's a handy gift, this ability to track time without a clock. Like the sailor who always knows her boat's progress by the position of the sun, or the instinctive cook who pulls the soufflé out of the oven just in the nick of time, the administrator who just knows that the 45-minute meeting she is holding has run into overtime has a definite edge in her work. In the five months that she has served as dean of students, Mela Dutka has honed that skill into a fine thing. Without so much as the tiniest glance at her watch, she knows she is 10 minutes late and can already predict what she will find when she reaches her office: two drop-ins camped outside her door, a staff lunch about to start, and a pile of While You Were Out messages growing at the reception desk. She's right. Time-tracking is crucial for the person in this newly created job, which oversees a formidable list of programs and people: residence life, student activities, multicultural affairs, health and counseling services, and international students. Dutka's ambitious mission calls for her to function as a sort of cross between a small-town mayor and a psychologist. "I focus on programs and services that shape student life in what I hope are meaningful and fun ways," Dutka said in a recent interview. "We're trying to create an environment and sets of experiences through which students come to understand themselves and others." To the 42-year-old Massachusetts native, this means working closely with the other administrators and staff who do the hands-on work of running residential life and activities, but also finding time to meet and learn from the diverse group of women who make up Smith's landscape. Outsiders might imagine that the college's population is easier to understand and serve because Smith is a single-sex school. Dutka, who worked for four years at Columbia College in South Carolina (also an all-women's college), knows better: "We certainly don't have just one kind of student here at Smith." The college's tradition of residential houses is a good example, she adds. "House communities are great, but the more connections a student can make to meaningful people, peers and faculty, the better. One challenge we face is to support both the house community and beyond, so that women here can feel that they are part of Smith in important, larger ways." Dutka is no stranger to the demands of a student's life. She did her undergraduate work at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, earned her master's degree in higher education from the University of Vermont, and is now completing work on her doctorate in curriculum, instruction and administration at Boston College. She speaks with feeling when she says, "It is important for students to have some time and energy to do things that complement or provide a break from studies. Part of our job is to help students understand all their options." Looking beyond the campus and the college years is part of Dutka's vision as well. She believes that administrators and staff who work with students in areas outside the classroom must make a habit of asking themselves, "How do we prepare these women to live in a healthy, respectful environment here and after Smith?" Answering that question means forming and nurturing partnerships among administrators, faculty, staff and students, says Dutka. And that means a lot of careful listening. Not to mention an excellent sense of timing. |
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