President Biddy Martin sent out a community-wide email on Monday, Feb. 27 announcing that Dean of Students Alex Vasquez will leave his position at the college after the spring semester.

Vasquez, who has been at the college since 2014, helped restructure the Offices of Student Affairs and Student Life, developed updated residential and community standards and participated in planning the Greenway dorms’ interior design, according to Martin’s email.

“His support of countless numbers of students and student organizations has made our community stronger,” Martin added.
The college has hired search firm Storbeck/Pimentel & Associates to help with the search for a new dean of students. Chief Student Affairs Officer Suzanne Coffey will chair the search, along with Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer Norm Jones.

In an email interview, Coffey said that she and Jones hope to bring search candidates to campus before final exams begin on May 8. Martin noted in her email that students and other community members will be “well represented” on the search committee and asked to provide input.

In an email interview, Vasquez said the moment he was proudest of the college community was at Amherst Uprising — “the students who shared and organized so thoughtfully and courageously [and] the staff and faculty who spent so many hours with them listening, learning, supporting, teaching and prioritizing our students.”

Vasquez also said that his most meaningful work at the college “has centered on building trusting relationships with students, finding ways to be on the same side of the table with them, listening to them and helping to ensure that we continue to be a community that puts students first.”

In his remaining time as the dean of students, Vasquez plans to “continue to be engaged in” conversations about the college’s changing social life, issues of sexual respect in residence halls and collaborating with community members “to support and engage our community in the face of a changing political climate.”