Grand Rapids Community College held a series of three interviews with the finalists for the Student Life Director position, which has been vacant since July. For each interview, the candidates gave short presentations which were followed by faculty and staff asking questions about what they would bring to the GRCC.
Each finalist was given the prompt, “How do you envision the Office of Student Life and Conduct supporting one or more of the College’s strategic goals and helping to bring fruition the overarching principles of the Strategic Plan?”
The first finalist, who was interviewed on campus on Monday, Nov. 27 was Madison Creutz, the Assistant Director for the Office of Civil Rights and Title IX and Deputy Title IX Coordinator at Grand Valley State University.
Creutz has worked in Title IX and student affairs, stating she is most experienced in student conduct.
“Student Conduct is really specifically the work that I am doing most often and every day,” Creutz said. “…Ideally, when students are going through the conduct process, we can help them understand and help them develop the tools to participate in the community in a way that makes sense to them…”
Creutz started her Title IX work in the Office of Student Conduct and Conflict Resolution at Loyola University Chicago and served as a Living Center Director at GVSU soon after earning her Master’s Degree in Higher Education and Student Affairs at Loyola.
During her meeting, Creutz stated that it’s difficult to meet people where they are but that GRCC must ensure that students have the resources they need to get through college.
“There is a lot of responsibility on all of us to figure out what students are needing and wanting. I spoke earlier about the risk that leaders take to meet students where they are at and fulfill their needs,” Creutz said. “When I was learning about GRCC students today… so much of Maslow’s hierarchy and meeting those basic needs, the work Rebecca (the Student Resources Coordinator) does and seeing that students are surviving well so they can attend college.”
The second candidate was Joseph DeDonato, the Career Planning and Placement Manager at Hillsborough Community College in Tampa, Florida.
During his campus visit, DeDonato gave The Collegiate a copy of the letter he sent to Raynard Ross, GRCC’s Associate Dean of Student Success, and the selection committee. According to the letter, DeDonato is responsible for five Career Resource Centers and worked as a Student Activities Coordinator for over two years.
During his interview on Nov. 28, he stated that the Student Life and Conduct office should be a safe place for students to get the resources they need to excel in their academic careers.
“First and foremost, the Student Life and Conduct Office, for me, should be a hub where students feel safe and it’s a place they want to be, where they go for resources,” DeDonato said. “Whether it’s resources in development and news for things that are happening within the college, addressing their needs and insecurities…my vision for the Student Life and Conduct office is we are going to be the place where they want to be.”
When asked how he would equip his staff with the skills to work with our diverse community on campus, DeDonato stated he wants to expose them to several experiences and help train his staff to provide resources and keep inclusion within the Student Life and Conduct office.
“How would I develop them is through exposure,” DeDonato said. “Bring them in. Let’s all have this conversation. Speak with the students. What is the type of programming we want to have? Sit the staff down and have the conversation on how to implement this and how do we see this working – what are some of the challenges we are going to interact with – and exposing them to the other fantastic offices that we have here on campus.”
The third candidate is Valerie Butterfield, who is the registrar for GRCC. Butterfield, who was interviewed Nov. 29, has been working with GRCC for about seven years and has had previous experience in student services at Henry Ford Community College before her arrival here on campus. Butterfield said that she believes that being the Student Life director is “the best job on campus” and hopes to be able to work directly with students again.
“It’s where I want to be,” Butterfield said. “ The part of my job I love the most is serving students but I don’t get to do a lot of it where I am at…I have an energy around engagement and organization and it’s something that I’ve been putting an effort in the past two years with our veteran services area. I would love to take what I’ve learned and apply that campuswide and see what we can do.”
Butterfield acknowledges that while student engagement for an event can be low, it does not mean that the activity didn’t improve the well-being of a student or many students.
“Just because we had low numbers of engagement on something, is it not a success? I don’t know if that’s easy to say,” Butterfield said. “You have to think about what was the impact on that student who engaged in that opportunity. How did it drive them forward to meet their goals? How did it connect back to their academic retention and why they are here?”
During her presentation, Butterfield said she would like to open up the Behavioral Intervention Team (BIT) to help not only students but the staff who are involved in the process as well.
“I think it’s a primary function of the Office of Student Life and Conduct to advocate for support services and resources in students’ need…I think there is information that we can find through the BIT and care reporting process to understand what’s happening,” Butterfield said. “To my understanding, about 90% of those cases that come through are related to self-harm or harming others. And don’t forget about faculty and staff experiences, it’s not just traumatizing for students. How are we connecting them to mental health resources on campus, is everyone educated on EAP (Employee Assistance Program) opportunities, where can we partner… for other opportunities to provide other circles (with) support and professional development.”
