College announces new Dean of Faculty
On Tuesday, March 12, Lynn Pasquerella announced in an e-mail to the College that Sonya Stephens, vice provost for Undergraduate Education at Indiana University Bloomington had been appointed as Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of Faculty.
Stephens graduated with a Ph.D and B.A. from the University of Cambridge and an M.A. from the Université de Montréal. Although she studied at the University of Cambridge, she was educated at a women’s college within the university and also spent part of high school at an all-girls school. Stephens affirmed that her experience at a women’s college was a factor in her decision to work at one.
“The mentoring I received, the sense of community I enjoyed, the lifelong friendships I made, all helped me to develop a sense of opportunity and responsibility, and to shape a future that I don’t think I could have envisaged, or pursued in the same way, anywhere else,” she said.
Transitioning from Indiana University Bloomington, which has about 44,000 students, to Mount Holyoke comes with some differences for Stephens.
“The biggest difference with IU lies in all the things we need to do to make a big place seem smaller, so that students feel, as much as is possible, the same sense of individual attention, and belonging, as you do in a community like Mount Holyoke,” she said.
Stephens has had experiences working with smaller colleges, having worked at Royal Holloway (a college in London) for 15 years. Stephens also felt that “when you are focused on the undergraduate experience, the principles [of both large schools and small schools] are often the same: how to help students navigate opportunities to make the most of their time in college, and to grow as individuals, both intellectually and personally; how to integrate the different dimensions of learning that happen in a residential setting; how to prepare for a life of learning and reflective engagement, as well as shaping individuals for a life of professional practice; how to create learning environments that make a difference [and] how to support the faculty so that they can provide the exceptional learning experience that they envision.”
Stephens expressed that she loves her job at IU, but felt drawn to Mount Holyoke. She is looking forward to “getting to know the outstanding faculty, the staff and the students who make this community what it is, turning challenges into opportunities, and being a part of Mount Holyoke’s future.”
A search committee conducted the search to find Stephens, although it was up to Pasquerella to make the final decision. “I am grateful to all who helped conduct the search, especially Janice Gifford, who chaired the search committee this spring, James Harold, who chaired the committee in the fall and their fellow search committee members Amber Douglas, Gary Gillis, Kavita Khory and Nieves Romero-Diaz,” Pasquerella said, in her e-mail. “I also thank Anne Coyle and Julie Williams-Krishnan of the search firm Storbeck Pimentel, and Sally Sutherland for her support of the search.”
Author: Rani Mehta Rani started writing for the paper second semester of her first year, and she's been a News Editor since her sophomore year. She is also involved in JSU (Jewish Student Union) as a treasurer and co-head of the food committee. She's a Philosophy major and a Religion minor. For fun she enjoys listening to Dar Williams and Broadway music, reading and playing the ukulele.
