PBHA Fills Last Vacant Director Position

The Phillips Brooks House Association (PBHA) announced last night that Roxbury native LaTonya Brown has been appointed to its vacant director of programs position.

The cabinet also voted to combine two of its mentoring programs and to amend its bylaws at last night's meeting, which was attended by around 30 cabinet members.

With Brown's appointment, PBHA's four director of programs spots will all be filled for the first since October, according to PBHA President Joseph M. Garland '00.

The directors of programs serve as "professional support staff" for the student program directors who coordinate the service groups' day-to-day affairs.

"They're human service professionals who bring different areas of expertise," Garland said.

Brown will assume her post May 16 after finishing her studies at the Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.

She has also spent five years working for City Year, a Boston-based organization that recruits youths to particular in service programs, and has put together a community newsletter in Roxbury.

"She has a lot of community contacts in Roxbury, East Boston, Dorchester," Garland said. "She also has a lot of experience working with teenagers".

Mentoring Merger

The cabinet also unanimously approved a proposal to form a single committee, Cambridge 1-2-1, out of two existing mentoring programs, North Cambridge Youth Enrichment Program (NCYPE) 1-2-1 and One-to-One mentoring.

The programs serve slightly different regions, with One-to-One focusing on three housing developments in Cambridge and NCYEP serving North Cambridge and Jefferson Park.

But the programs' leaders, who proposed combining the committees, said they felt the groups could do a better job recruiting and serving their communities if they combined.

"It will help us to streamline our mentoring efforts here and help us to recruit better," said Robert B. Davis '00. "Right now we're kind of competing for volunteers,"

Unanimity ruled the meeting again when changes to the bylaws were proposed.

Although the sponsors of the changes said they could not remember a time when a PBHA member had been suspended or removed from a position, the cabinet changed its bylaws to allow more PBHA officials to suspend members.

Under the new rules, a committee chair, program director or the executive director of PBHA can suspend or remove a member from their post.

The final decision on how long to suspend a member or whether to remove him from his position would be made a PBHA's executive director and president.

Suspended or removed members can then appeals the decision to PBHA's Board to Trustees, which meet monthly.