Brown picks student srvcs. VP

Brown President Gordon Gee created the position in February to strengthen leadership in the area of student affairs and improve coordination of student services. Montero, whose appointment begins on Jan. 3, 2000, will oversee the Office of Student Life, the Chaplains' Office, University Food Services, the Office of Residential Life, Athletics and Physical Education, the College Admission Office and the Office of Financial Aid. "This is a real coup for us -- she is a first-rate academic, she's a Hispanic scholar and she herself is a Latina," Gee said. "She was very successful at Princeton in organizing a very student-centered advocate system," Gee said. "She has a track record starting a new job, having a new portfolio, and being very successful in creating a sense of community among all of the disparate elements that report to her." "It's good for students," said Dean of Student Life Robin Rose. "It puts many of the people who need to be working together to serve students in the same division, and that's a great thing." Gee said that he created the position to bring together several departments that currently report to different vice presidents. "I reorganized student affairs so that we have all of the issues that deal with student life outside of the classroom reporting to one person," he said. "It just made no sense for us not to have a powerful, powerful advocate for students, and she is that." Montero said she was attracted to Brown by the possibilities for greater coordination among various departments and the opportunity to provide better services to students. "The desire and openness to experimentation is tremendously attractive," she said. Responding to concerns from some faculty and staff that the new position may conflict with the position of Dean of the College, Gee said that the status of neither position will be lowered, but both offices will work closely together. "We try to live by the rule that everything at Brown is academic, including the quality of the food we serve," he said. Part of Montero's job at Brown will be building a stronger sense of community among various groups on campus, an area in which many students have said that Brown is lacking. "Brown has created a successful group of diverse communities, and now the challenge is determining the larger institutional response," Montero said. "My sense of Brown is that it's really well-positioned to have that conversation" of integrating larger and smaller communities. Montero's arrival at Princeton in 1993 brought her into a new role, similar to the new position at Brown. She is the first dean at Princeton to directly oversee a broader range of student services beyond student life -- including the offices of athletics, health services and religious life -- in addition to policy responsibility in matters involving student housing and dining services. Among her projects at Princeton, Montero was involved in administrative reviews of athletics, the residential life program, alcohol abuse, and the construction of a new campus center with libraries, classrooms and a learning center. From 1990 to 1993, Montero was dean of the college at Wesleyan University, in Middletown, Conn., advancing to that role from a position as assistant professor of Romance Languages. She spent her undergraduate and graduate years at the University of Pennsylvania, receiving a doctorate in Hispanic literature in 1973. "Janina is a perfect fit for the position, because she's done it before at Princeton," Rose said. "She's got terrific academic credentials as well as student life credentials, and she's very enthusiastic about Brown and Brown students. In terms of her leadership, to be the first person in that position is just wonderful."