Alumni Spotlight Victor Arcelus ’89, Dean of Students at Connecticut College, has been leading the COVID-19 response team this year. He and his team have been praised for the college’s success in keeping students on campus and case counts relatively low. He established a robust testing program where all students and staff have been tested twice weekly since the September re-opening. As a result, over 50,000 tests have been done through Broad Institute’s lab, with a positivity rate that is often below 1%.
Victor J. Arcelus ’89, College Dean
“It just became part of everybody’s week to go down to the testing center twice a week,” said Victor Arcelus, the dean of students at Connecticut College. “Knowing what the positivity rate was on our campus at any given time, it enabled us to hold in-person classes, it enabled us to have student clubs.”
A specialist in holistic learning, Arcelus oversees residential life, student engagement and leadership development, health and counseling services, campus safety, sexual violence prevention, student wellness, new student orientation, and the College’s student conduct process. With a doctorate in higher education from Pennsylvania State, he has also worked in student life at Gettysburg College and Bucknell University. He is passionate about fostering collaboration between academic and student affairs departments to create learning-centered campuses. “Quite frankly, I could not be where I am today without my Green Vale education,” Victor concludes.
This fall,Cat Colella-Graham ’85 was named one of the Top Women in PR 2020 by PR News. She is the Founder and Chief Employee Experience Officer of Cheer Partners, an award-winning employee experience agency that helps companies cultivate a more connected and engaged workforce. Cheer clients include Johnson & Johnson, Juniper Networks, and Aetna health insurance.
Cat Colella-Graham ’85, Employee Experience Expert A leading authority on the future of work, Colella-Graham’s expertise was highly sought as workplaces scattered into employees’ homes when the pandemic struck. A regular contributor to Forbes Magazine, Colella-Graham has long been a believer in flexible and remote work arrangements and their impact on organizational efficacy. She is also the co-founder of the Diversity Marketing Consortium, frequently guest lectures at Georgetown and NYU, and is a volunteer TED translator. After Green Vale, Colella-Graham attended Aiglon College (a secondary school) in Switzerland, Boston College, and Cornell graduate school. “My years at Green Vale remain vivid memories: from getting our boarding school acceptances to the holistic approach to learning in the outdoor amphitheater, hands-on art, and sports. With Green Vale as my home for 10 years, I was well prepared, resilient and able to accept the future fearlessly. A special thanks to Mr. Zaloom who inspired curiosity as a way of life in me.”
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