POWER OF Three new vice presidents joined the campus community over the summer: Joseph DaSilva, Vice President of Administration and Finance; Richard Glejzer, Ph.D., Vice President of Academic Affairs; and Jeannette Smith, Ph.D., Vice President of Student Affairs. Now that the semester is underway, they’re working on everything from infrastructure to student wellness to helping students at move-in day. Trailhead caught up with them to learn more about their priorities, personalities, and first impressions of MCLA.
What led you to a career in higher ed administration?
JD: I started right out of college. I as a substitute teacher and assistant vice president at the juniorsenior high school for a while, and an accountant position came up at Holyoke Community College, where I graduated with an accounting degree. I got the position, and here we are 29 years later. You never expect your whole life to be in the same industry, but shortly after I started, I really found my passion. It’s every year—the joy of students coming in as freshmen, then seeing them walking down the aisle and getting their diploma. You feel a sense of accomplishment. RG: I was an English department chair for a while, which allowed me to straddle the worlds of faculty and administration. My first administrative job was writing center director, which allowed me to
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work with students and colleagues in a different way. Part of it was finding myself more interested in the larger picture of the institution. How can I help students and faculty? How can I bring folks together to talk about issues that are important to the institution? How can I mobilize faculty? JS: I was a resident advisor in college, and also worked in the library. I lived in Philadelphia after college, working in pharmaceutical marketing/ sales, and hated it. I made a list of all the things I loved in a job, and it was what I had when I was an RA. I missed helping people. A conversation I had with a former colleague led me to a hire as a fulltime residence director, and that’s the first time I learned I could do this work as a career.
