Housing Director Moves to Medical Campus

With little pomp and circumstance, Herman Matte, formerly the director of housing, assumed the role of interim assistant vice president for campus operations at the Columbia University Medical Center in early January.

Matte is a candidate for the permanent position of assistant vice president, and said he expects to hear the final results within the next two months. In the meantime, his former two assistant directors, Jose Rosa and Joyce Jackson, have taken over his responsibilities.

“It’s temporary at the moment,” explained Scott Wright, vice president of student auxiliary and business services. “For those reasons, we haven’t changed titles, made any announcements.”

According to both Wright and Matte, the planning process for this transition began in November, when the Medical School campus began reorganizing to improve operations and customer service. “Though we were planning for it, we were unsure what the needs would be,” Matte explained. “By that time [winter break], student leaderships were on break, and there was kind of no one to inform.”

Neither Wright nor Jackson thought that the transition led to any major issues in the relations with student representatives.

But Peter Valeiras, SEAS ’09 and the Engineering Student Council student services representative, said he had been surprised by the news when he was informed by Liz Strauss, SEAS ’08 and ESC president, at the beginning of the semester, and that the lack of communication gave way to logistical difficulties.

“I had had meetings with him [Matte] before break with the CCSC representatives, and he had told us he was going to plan meetings with us for CUIT, facilities, and that never happened, and now I have to go through the entire process with Joyce,” Valeiras said.

Matte said he was glad to have seen through the final stage of McBain residence hall’s renovations before making the transition. “The icing on the cake was to put a new elevator in McBain,” Matte said. “Second-years feel as if they’re on the short end of housing, so to have something they can call their own and are proud of kind of makes me feel good.”

Jackson, who has been working in housing for more than twenty years, had been one of the candidates for Matte’s director of housing position at the time that Matte was hired. Wright expressed immense confidence in Jackson’s abilities and stated that Jackson would be his candidate of choice to take Matte’s place if Matte were to be hired for the assistant vice president position.

Since the transition, Jackson has started the RecycleBank, a pilot program that allows first-year building residents to exchange recycling material for gift certificates. Jackson says she is hoping to assist student representatives in realizing their agendas.

“She knows everything that’s going on, and she’s very helpful,” Valeiras said. “She says she’ll look at anything we’ve put before her so far.”

ivy.chen@columbiaspectator.com