BY LINDA HOU

In print | Published January 21, 2010

This piece is part of ongoing coverage of administrators’ transition to NYU Abu Dhabi.

Kelly Wilcox ’97 said that she never thought she’d leave Swarthmore.

“I love what I do,” said Wilcox, assistant director of student life and academic advisor. “I feel like I’ve never worked a day in my life.”

At the end of this month, however, she and Tim Sams, assistant dean and director of the Black Cultural Center, will finish their tenure at the college for positions at New York University Abu Dhabi.

They will join former President Al Bloom and Dean of Students Jim Larimore, who both left last year for the branch campus in the United Arab Emirates to become Associate Vice Chancellor for Campus Life and Dean of Students, respectively.

“They each have been here for quite some time, and I see their new positions as terrific opportunities for them,” Garikai Campbell, acting dean of students, said.

NYU Abu Dhabi is a combination of a research university and a liberal arts and science college, the first of its kind in the Middle East. According to its website, the college is expected to draw students from around the world, eventually expanding to about 2000 students in five years.

“NYU Abu Dhabi will place greater emphasis on recruiting a global student body and will shape its educational experience to take advantage of its location at a new crossroads of the world,” Bloom said in an e-mail of the difference between NYU Abu Dhabi and Swarthmore.

Wilcox said that the NYU Abu Dhabi search committee contacted her about a job. She was interested in the new college due to her Ph.D. research in higher education.

“The search firm that NYU Abu Dhabi and Jim Larimore employed reached out to me and tried to get a feel for my interest in the position. And since Jim decided to take it, I was interested in the model that they were creating … because of the graduate work I was doing at the time,” she said. “As an individual and an academic, I’m studying higher education management, so it’s an opportunity to put into practice everything that I’ve been learning at a theoretical level.”

Wilcox was drawn to the excitement of both starting a college from the ground up and the chance to work in a more global setting.

“To be honest, the tipping point was meeting the potential colleagues and students — students are being drawn from around the world. They’re just dynamic, mature, creative, curious individuals,” Wilcox said.

As the founder of Drug and Alcohol Resource Team and the Wellness team, Wilcox said that she has been “working very hard to make sure that the structure is absolutely as sound and strong as possible.”

With 17 members on the newly founded DART, Wilcox plans to increase leadership roles to make sure DART stays alive after she leaves. The Dean’s Office also plans to hire two graduating students to be student activities interns to work with the DART team and other projects begun by Wilcox.

Assistant Dean Sams took a different route to Abu Dhabi. Sams said that he has been browsing for new opportunities for the past five years but was especially looking for positions in NYU Abu Dhabi due to his connections with Bloom and Larimore. He found an ad for his new position in September.
He applied then and decided to visit during Thanksgiving break. Sams will be the Associate Dean of Students at NYU Abu Dhabi and work with the “judicial component, education and intercultural affairs” of the college.

Sams also liked the idea of building a new college from the ground up.

“I don’t know of anyone who’s ever started a new college or university and so that’s really exciting,” Sams said.

Bloom said in an e-mail that Sams and Wilcox will bring to NYU Abu Dhabi important elements of Swarthmore.

“Tim Sams and Kelly Wilcox will add to the NYU Abu Dhabi community the wonderfully invigorating intellectual challenge and affirming personal support that has meant so much to Swarthmore,” Bloom said.

Sams is also the 2010 class dean and the director of the Black Cultural Center. When asked how his leaving will affect both of these groups, Sams said he didn’t know.

“The work that Dean Sams and Kelly Wilcox have done, the initiatives that they have brought forward, the relationships that they’ve built with groups of students and individuals, are critical and of such value to our entire community that we will have to think about ways to sustain those initiatives and conversations,” Campbell said.

Associate Dean for Student Life Westphal said that she will be the senior class dean for the rest of the year, while Associate Dean of Multicultural Affairs Darryl Smaw will begin to spend half of his time at the BCC.

Westphal said that it is not yet decided whether the positions left open by Sams and Wilcox will be filled in the future.

Every opening in the college is examined by the administration to determine its necessity. Westphal said that the recent economic difficulties will especially reduce the number of openings available.
Westphal does not think that the two deans’ departure will greatly affect the students who are not directly involved in projects spearheaded by them because in most instances students can receive assistance from any dean.

“I think that for students who work directly with those two people, they will miss those two people, but I think that in terms of getting services that they [the students] need, they probably won’t miss them too much,” Westphal said.

When questioned about how he would respond to concerns from members of the community over the departure of four important members of the Swarthmore administration for NYU Abu Dhabi in such a short time span, Sams said he probably would not respond.

“If forced to respond, I would say it’s their choice,” he said.

When asked the same question, Bloom said “there is no institution more certain than Swarthmore to instill in educators an appreciation for fine liberal arts education and a desire to see it thrive around the world.”

Wilcox explained that the reason many staff members are leaving in a short interval of time is because of the pressures of developing a new school. “The sense of urgency on the staff side is to have a fully functioning college with the best possible programs for the pioneering class in place. That’s going to be a lot of trial-and-error and work. So I think that’s why … we weren’t able to give six months notice instead of two months notice,” Wilcox said.

Campbell said that the departures can be taken as a compliment. “In some ways it’s a sign of folks doing great work,” he said. “You hate to lose great folks so it’s sad too.”

Both Wilcox and Sams say they will miss the college and their roles here. “People have a genuine curiosity about other people here — it’s not superficial. They really want to get to know each other,” Wilcox said.

When asked if he had considered leaving for Abu Dhabi, Campbell said, “I’m really focused on the position here at Swarthmore.”

Westphal said that in the future, she would expect faculty members rather than administration to leave.

“I think if there are other people that are going it’s likely to be faculty and it might be for leaves. I remember at a meeting where Al Bloom said people might take their sabbaticals there,” Westphal said.

On the NYU Abu Dhabi website, a list of openings includes positions in German, mathematics, interactive media and technology, music, business and nutrition/food studies and public health.

Additional reporting by Amelia Possanza and Dante Fuoco.

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