Rinere to leave for Harvard

Monique Rinere GS '00 is leaving her position as dean of Butler College to become the first associate dean of advising programs at Harvard University.

"This is a time of great change at Harvard, and I look forward to being a part of it," Rinere said in an interview. "The Dean of the College office has put together an amazing team of people, and I feel like I clicked with some of them, so I look forward to working with them. Also, it's a chance to focus on something I'm very passionate about."

Harvard College Curricular Review's Committee on Advising and Counseling recommended the creation of the new post in an attempt to provide better academic counseling resources to its student body, she said.

"I'm going to be coordinating pre-concentration and department advising for all 5,400 undergraduates," she said. "I will be working with academic advisors as well as the departments to improve the advising system."

Rinere will leave the University Feb. 24 and begin her new job at Harvard three days later.

Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel said a successor would be named as Butler College dean later in the academic year.

"Residential college deans and directors of studies gain experience in academic administration that fits them very well for greater administrative responsibility," Malkiel said.

Previous Butler administrators include Ruth Simmons, now president of Brown University, and Harold McCulloch, president of DeVry University. Both were formerly Butler's Director of Studies.

John Jovanovic '08, a Butler student, said Rinere provided useful guidance on matters ranging "from academic advice ... to life choices."

"She's very open, warm, and friendly," Jovanovic said. "I knew that within my first few days at Princeton."

Rinere said her only counseling philosophy was to approach each student as an individual with a unique set of problems.

"You have to have a really thorough, exploratory conversation," she said. "There is no one right way. Advising and deaning cannot be prescriptive. Every single case is different."

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Rinere said she plans to use her experience in academic advising to improve Harvard's system.

"Often, students come in to say 'this is my issue,' but the roots reveal a different picture," she said. "You need to know as much as you possibly can about what's happening in a student's life — their social life and their academics, their extracurricular activities and their family situation."

With the exception of a brief stint outside academia, Rinere has been a part of the University community for 11 years. After receiving her undergraduate degree from the City University of New York at Hunter, she received her Master's degree in Germanic Languages and Literature from the University in 1992.

She briefly left the University in 1996 to work as an education consultant on globalization and cross-cultural communication, then received her Ph.D. in German studies from the University in 2000. She became Director of Studies of Butler College the following year.

Rinere said she plans to "remain fully engaged as Dean of Butler until the very last minute," adding that she will "say goodbye to the people that I care about and make sure that people know how to reach me."

"It's sad to see her leave," Jovanovic said. "But I'm sure she'll do well."