GUEST COLUMNIST: Koros: the lifeblood behind Community House programs

As a three-year resident and two-year computer lab manager in Community House, I can appreciate Diana Koros' abilities as a dormitory administrator as well as a staff supervisor. My freshman year in Community House was a good year as far as it went. I got on fine with my roommate, I worked as an assistant in the computer lab to help finance my education and my residential advisor minded her own business. The following fall I returned to the house and reported for work as the computer lab manager. It was then that I met Koros, who introduced herself as the new assistant dean. As a resident, I sensed the improvements in Community House immediately. As a member of Koros' staff, I recognized the influence as her own. The Community House staff that year included several seniors who had already spent three years in the house and were naturally skeptical of this outsider. Since I was a new employee, I had no past ADR to measure Koros against. But even if the upperclassmen's enthusiasm about her hadn't made it clear, the way Koros ran the house certainly demonstrated that she was something special. From the beginning, Koros said she would support to the fullest of her power our staff's ideas for house events, policies and procedures; and she has done so on a consistent basis for the entire time I've known her. The quality of the students' lives in Community House also vastly improved under Koros' careful eye. The computer lab was upgraded with whatever residents felt they needed. And at Koros' request, I held regular staff-and-user meetings where students using the lab could express their own initiatives for change. By the end of my sophomore year, we were the only freshman dormitory computer lab with a scanner, two Laserjet printers, a fax machine and a copier. Although I made several mistakes as a house employee, under Koros' direction I felt as though I could learn from my mistakes to become a more effective manager. Her managerial style is contagious. She delegates responsibility consistently and directs house affairs effectively. Time and again, I have seen her navigate a fragmented group of residential advisors and managers to common ground in staff meetings, and arrive quickly at strategies for dealing with differences between roommates, vandalism, excessive drinking and fighting among students. Koros' commitment to Community House's goals of co-operative living shaped my experience as a resident there. After my sophomore year, every one of the 10 employees on my computer lab staff applied for a position in the house for the following year, and some of them lived there even though they were not hired. And after spending my junior year in England, I returned to Community House to find that several of my old neighbors were still involved in the house as residents and as employees. Koros is personally and professionally committed to the students living in Community House. She is sensitive to student needs and the house benefits from her presence. For many incoming freshmen, she will be an invisible reason why they like where they live. My appreciation for Koros' competence has grown deeper since graduation. She is an asset to the University and is well-qualified for the position of house dean.