A new dean's goals for the year

Assistant Dean of Undergraduate Students Maria Flores-Mills arrived on campus in August to begin her new job. She is the dean in charge of residential life and disabilities concerns and a liason to the eating clubs. 'Prince' senior writer Michael Jenkins talked with her this week about her background and the goals of her new position.

'Prince': Can you tell me about your background?

Flores-Mills: I was born and raised in northwest Ohio. I did my undergraduate work at Iowa State University in Spanish and education. Then I went to the University of Iowa and completed a J.D. in 1996.

I worked for the University of Iowa in the diversity branch of the provost office for almost two years. And then I moved to work at DePauw University, which is in Greencastle, Indiana, for four years — two years as the assistant director of multicultural affairs, one year as the judicial coordinator and posse mentor and then the fourth year I was the director of judicial affairs and a posse mentor.

Outside of work I have two kids. My daughter is four, Alicia, and Matias is one and a half. My husband is a writer and he stays home with our children. That's his full time job for a period of time.

P: So, how is working here at Princeton different from working at the other universities where you've worked?

F: I have a broader array of responsibilities. The portfolio entails a lot of different aspects — [it's] part of what really attracted me to it. The residential college system is very new to me. I'm very used to a residential life approach, and that's very different here as well.

P: By 'residential life approach' you mean?

F: Meaning that they have a residence life department that's staffed by full-time people whose jobs is [to supervise] what goes on in the residence halls. Here that's done via the residential colleges, but the masters are faculty members who kind of rotate in and out — as I understand it — of that role. And then the deans of the residential colleges and the directors of studies also have an academic focus, and that approach is very different for me.

P: Do you like it so far?

F: I do. It's been challenging; there is a whole lot to learn. In some senses it's been frustrating because being at DePauw — where there's about 2,800 students — and having been there for about four years, people asked me, "Okay, I need to get a parking permit. Where do I go?" And I could tell them four people to go see in public safety. "I'm interested in working on sexual assault awareness. Who should I talk to?" I could rattle off three different names of people that they could go talk to.

Here I don't have any of those contacts. I have to rely on my colleagues to kind of set me in the right direction. And things are structurally very different; they run very differently. That's been really challenging, but it's refreshing to be really challenged and learn new things and get a whole different perspective of things.

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P: What areas of campus life are your responsibilities?

F: I should probably get my job description back out [laughs] but I'll try to give you a brief run down. I coordinate accommodations for all undergraduate students with disabilities, ranging everywhere from working with the dean of the college for academic accommodations to housing for those students with physical disabilities that have special needs in housing.

I'm a liaison to the eating clubs, so I work closely with the ICC and all of the presidents and leadership of the eating clubs. I am the chair of the REP, the residential education program, so I oversee those programs and work in close conjunction with the directors of studies in the residential colleges on that program.

I work with the dormitory assistants through housing. Adam Rockman and I train and supervise the dormitory assistants in the upperclass dorms together. I supervise the LGBT student services coordinator. I work with the assistant masters pretty closely. I facilitate the selection of assistant masters and then work with them throughout the year on their work with the RAs and MAAs.

P: So what are your general goals?

F: With regard to disabilities, I just want to provide the best service that I can so that students with disabilities have a good experience here. I'd like to streamline the process, create some kind of handbook or chart or some way that students can know how all of these things function. Because it's a very decentralized effort — which in many ways I think serves them well because there are a lot of different people on campus looking out for their well-being — but in some ways it's confusing because students don't always know where to go for what. So I'd like to help streamline that in some way.

I'd like to develop a great working relationship with the eating clubs. I'd like to serve as a resource for them. I'd like to help them go in whatever direction they want to go. I want to facilitate healthy and safe processes for selection whether Bicker or sign-in, and a general healthy and safe experience for all students at eating clubs. [I'd like to] work closely with the LGBT community and continue to work on creating a diverse and safe environment for everyone.

I have lots of goals. I could probably keep going, but I'll leave it at that.

P: So how much interaction do you get with the students?

F: It varies quite a bit. I have a lot of contact with students with disabilities. I see them on a regular basis, whether they're coming in to ask about whether I've requested for a book to be recorded on a tape or they need an interpreter for an event, or whatever those concerns can be.

I'm also pretty actively seeking out to make contact and, because it's been my experience through student organizations, just offering myself as a resource, as a person who has advised student organizations in the past I can maybe help them in some way or another. I do want to maintain a high level of contact with students. It's what makes me love my job so much.

P: So what do you think of the Borough alcohol ordinance?

F: In many senses I'm still struggling to understand the true legal crux of what the ordinance entails. I understand what students and Borough officials anticipate will be the result of the ordinance, but I'm still a little bit caught up in the details of it.

I hear a lot of the concerns of the students. I've been a strong advocate in the past of students receiving medical assistance without making themselves vulnerable to disciplinary action within the university context. I hear the Borough's concerns, and I share some of them. I think the environments are pretty ripe for having some pretty bad things happen, and I'd like to work in conjunction with eating club leadership, just to make sure that everyone's doing what they can and playing their role in helping students to make healthy, safe decisions.

P: What do you like best about your job?

F: It's challenging. It's an opportunity for me to learn a lot of new things, and it's also an opportunity for me to apply a lot of different kind of antillery experiences I've had to new problems. In addition to that, it's been really a great thing to work with Princeton students. I'm looking forward to doing more of that.

And I have to say that on the personal side, I'm very sold on the community. I'm thrilled that my children are growing up in a diverse neighborhood. We live in University housing. I'm thrilled that probably four of the five closest playmates my daughter has are all bilingual in [different] languages. I walk down the street everyday and see people of different cultures and hear different languages. I have access to three Mexican groceries in my neighborhood; that's very exciting to me.

The community of Princeton itself is a very positive change for me, and I think the students will play a key role in having a great experience here.