Smith Fills New OSGA Dean Position

Following an administrative shuffle, Todd Smith, currently an adviser to LGBT groups at New York University, has been appointed associate dean of the newly-formed Office of Student Group Advising.

Although the specifics of Smith’s role as associate dean have yet to be decided, Smith will serve as the adviser to all groups recognized by the Student Governing Board, including those in all undergraduate schools. Smith will work closely with the offices of Multicultural Affairs, Residential Programs, and Student Development and Activities.

“We haven’t fully flushed out what his responsibilities are going to be,” Arjun Kapoor, CC ’09 and treasurer of SGB, said. “I hope that he will get involved with programming with student groups and that he will be active in building bridges between student groups. That’s something he stressed in his interview.”

The OSGA, which was created when the SGB was moved from the Chaplain’s Office into Student Affairs, has functioned without a dean since the beginning of the academic year.

“One of the conditions of the move was that we can’t be in SDA, we want our own office, we want our own staff,” Jonathan Siegel, CC ’08 and chair of SGB, said. “SDA has a much more bureaucratic structure, a top-down structure, and we didn’t want to be a part of that. They have a bad reputation and we didn’t want to sully our reputation.”

SGB initiated interviews for the OSGA dean position this past summer and unanimously chose Smith, who had been the director of NYU’s Office of LGBT Student Services for eight years, as first choice.

“We wanted someone who had experience working with activism, politics, religion. We wanted someone who had worked with students ... an advocate for students within the administration whenever we were having conflicts within the administration,” Siegel said.

According to an e-mail sent by Dean Chris Colombo to the SGB, Smith’s prior experience at a university made him well-suited for the position. “Smith is co-founder and trainer of a social justice focused consulting group. ... He also brings with him previous experience in residence life and alumni outreach and training.” Colombo continued, saying, “Mr. Smith envisions leading an office where there is a collaborative approach to encourage discussions among students and colleagues on important issues.”

“We’re overjoyed with the outcome. We’ve got everything we wanted,” Siegel said. “We interviewed a lot of people, many of whom we thought were very good. Todd was perfect on all counts.”

Smith will assume his position on Feb. 25.

David Xia contributed to this article.