A message from Dean Hill

December 9, 2016

Dear Silliman,

Three summers ago my family and I settled into Entryway H and I began the best job of my life. Being a residential college dean is one of those rare gigs in life that summons all of you, marshals all your skills. Finding work you love is huge. I wish it for all of you. And I’m enormously grateful to you, and to the ‘15ers and ‘16ers, because you have taught me how to be a dean.

I’m writing today to tell you that because I derive such meaning from the work of listening/advising/cajoling/haranguing/imploring you all, I am going to take my act on the road. Up the road, more precisely, to Prospect St., where I will be the inaugural dean of Benjamin Franklin College.  Some of you know I have been very involved with the Steering Committee for the New Colleges over the past two years. I have served as secretary to the committee, digging into floor plans – in the early days when we still called them “North and South” – and FroCo and transfer plans in more recent ones. I was asked to join the new colleges – Franklin, specifically – to bring this knowledge along with some residential college dean experience to the team of four. There’s a lot riding on getting these colleges right, building strong communities that reflect upon the current 12 and integrate with them.

Despite the opportunity to help build a new college, I would not leave Silliman unless I felt it was truly in good shape. Under HoC Santos’s leadership, Silliman is truly thriving. Though I will miss you all, more than I can really process just yet, I know I leave you in very good hands. I only hope with time Franklin will grow into a college as vibrant and caring as Silliman. Tall order.

Specifically, spring term I will be dean to two colleges – the one I live in near all of you, and the “idea” of a college with no actual live students yet.  Silliman will remain my primary focus through the academic year, the pinnacle of which will be graduating the Class of 17(!) in May.

Warmly,

Dean Hill