Rose named director of financial aid stewardship, special assignment dean

Dean of Student Life Robin Rose will leave that position July 1, 2000, to become director of financial aid stewardship and dean on special assignment. Jean Joyce-Brady, associate dean of student life, will serve as interim dean.

PROVIDENCE, R.I. — After eight and a half years as dean of student life at Brown University, Robin Rose will leave that position to become director of financial aid stewardship and dean on special assignment. She will begin her new duties July 1. Jean Joyce-Brady, associate dean of student life, will serve as dean of student life on an interim basis.

Rose will spend approximately 50 percent of her time working with the Brown Outdoor Leadership Training program (BOLT), a nationally accredited program she established in 1987. BOLT provides leadership training through a wilderness experience for up to 40 students at the start of their sophomore year. As part of her continuing involvement, Rose will lead a fund-raising effort to establish a permanent endowment for BOLT. She will devote the balance of her time to enhancing undergraduate financial aid through Brown’s Development Office.

“Under Robin’s leadership, the Office of Student Life has led the University in many areas, including diversity, disability support, gender issues, health education and crisis intervention. It has been a model of outreach to the student body,” said Janina Montero, vice president for campus life and student services, to whom the Office of Student Life (OSL) reports. “Although Robin has wanted to take on new challenges for a long time, she agreed to continue her work as dean during my first year at Brown. I am grateful for her steady support and good counsel, and I wish her well in her new assignments.”

In recent years, OSL has supported a number of improvements in the campus community, among them:

• Improved residential system. OSL created the Community Director Program in 1995 and added resident programmers in 1997 to create a better sense of community, help resolve conflicts and improve supervision and management in residence halls.
  
  
• Disability support services. OSL created a full-time position to coordinate disability support services, including daytime transport, mentoring, an adaptive computer lab, education and outreach to faculty and staff, and a more comprehensive set of services and policies.
  
  
• Diversity and pluralism. In addition to developing a staff that is racially and ethnically diverse, OSL has increased its programmatic support for the discussion of diversity issues among student groups, at orientation and on the campus at large throughout the academic year.
  
  
• Alcohol policies and procedures. OSL has made substantial progress in dealing with alcohol-related problems, working with student groups to improve communication and consistency of policies and to reduce problems associated with binge drinking or social functions at which alcohol is available.
  
  
• Mediation. Formal mediation efforts and a system of structured negotiations are now part of the University’s process for non-academic discipline.

Rose, a graduate of the College of Wooster (B.A., 1975), earned her graduate degrees in psychology at the University of Connecticut (M.A., 1978; Ph.D., 1981). She came to Brown in 1981 as director of outreach programs in the Office of Psychological Services, facilitating groups and workshops to address stress, academic anxiety, relationships, assertiveness, eating disorders, grief and other issues. In January 1991 Rose was named assistant dean of student life with responsibility for sexual assault policy and programs. She chaired the University’s sexual assault task force and supervised the Women on Call and Sexual Assault Advocates programs. She began serving as dean of student life in January 1992.

“Robin Rose has given this University nearly two decades of extraordinary service, and she will continue that service in her new role,” said Brown President Sheila E. Blumstein. “She has had primary responsibility for resolving many difficult issues facing the campus community and has responded to those challenges with firmness, compassion and understanding. Her work has supported and enriched student life at this University, for which Brown owes her a great debt of gratitude.”