Message from Dean Raymond
Filed under Academics
Posted by , August 07, 2006
View all posts for August 2006
It is with great regret that I write to tell you that Lesola Morgan, director of the Academic Support Center, has decided to leave Simmons and relocate to North Carolina.
Lesola came to Simmons in October of 2003 from Brandeis University. Her experience and knowledge of a range of student support services – from academic advising to tutoring across specialties – immediately brought new enthusiasm and direction to the Academic Support Center. In the past two-plus years, Lesola has always seen her role as an educational collaborator in her work with parents, students, and faculty.
At a national conference on advising last February, Lesola articulated a clear vision of academic advising as a partnership between students and their advisers. She pushed the vision into concrete goals and mapped those goals into measurable steps that moved undergraduate students across their four years. She heard clearly the faculty’s desire to shape advising as something to foster students’ independence and to focus them more on their life goals and less on getting the best possible schedule.
Lesola does plan to be here through the opening of the fall semester to ensure that our transition into the new academic year is a smooth one for faculty, staff, and students. I appreciate her professionalism and her commitment to the best for this community.
Lesola’s words that “Simmons was the best professional fit for me” echo our experience, too. We will miss her leadership, her sense of humor, and her contributions to the College. Lesola’s absence will be felt by all of us at Simmons.
Diane Raymond, Dean of the College
