Kirkland Senior Tutor To Step Down, Taking Post at Washington Bank

After her third semester in the post, Kirkland House’s Senior Tutor is leaving to take a position with an international bank based in Washington, D.C., according to two e-mail messages sent to House residents yesterday.

Coral Fernandez-Illescas will step down at the end of January to work for the Inter-American Development Bank, which funds development in Latin America and the Caribbean.

“I have truly enjoyed being a senior tutor at Kirkland and a lecturer on engineering sciences for the last 2 years,” Fernandez-Illescas wrote in an e-mail. “I have very much liked what has been an incredibly fascinating and rewarding job.”

Assistant Senior Tutor John Walsh will serve as acting senior tutor for the spring semester, and resident tutor Sharrona Pearl will serve as Assistant Senior Tutor.

“I feel very comfortable because it’s a House with strong leadership now and the masters seem to have identified somebody who has the respect of both students and other tutors,” said Associate Dean of the College Thomas A. Dingman ’67. “That’s a very lucky situation for us—I think we’re blessed.”

Dingman said Fernandez-Illescas is “appreciated by the students and staff” in Kirkland.

“She’s been a great advocate for all of us,” Kirkland House Committee President Adam Kalamchi ’04 said. “I’m also really happy for her, she seems happy and I think that’s going to be a great move for her.”

Walsh said he had a good working relationship with Fernandez-Illescas.

“In a way it’s kind of sad, because she was catching her stride,” he said. “She taught me a lot about meeting with individual students, students that maybe wouldn’t seek people out.”

Kalamchi said he is confident that the House is “in good hands.”

“We’re also really lucky to have John around to keep things running smoothly,” he said. “He knows everyone in the House, he’s just a really generous and warm guy.”

Fernandez-Illescas also lent Walsh her support.

“I have also been very impressed with my interactions with John Walsh, and have complete confidence in his abilities as a senior tutor,” she wrote.

A Revolving Door

Fernandez-Illescas will be Kirkland’s second consecutive senior tutor to leave before completing her appointed three year term.

“We found ourselves faced with a very very uncommon situation in which a very good tutor, Coral, had been offered a life-promising job, a job of the kind she just could not turn down,” Kirkland House Master Tom C. Conley said.

“To be able to work on issues of environment and sustainable development has been a long standing interest of mine, so the opportunity to join the IDB was very attractive and something that I could not refuse,” Fernandez-Illescas wrote.

She added that she had not chosen to leave at this time.

“My departure at mid-year is in no way a reflection of my experience as a senior tutor and lecturer but a consequence of the transition into a professional world that does not abide by the academic calendar,” she wrote.

Conley said he knew Fernandez-Illescas would have preferred to begin her new position in September, but he had sensed in the fall that she might be exploring other options.

“It wasn’t officially expected but I had the sense that her eyes were looking on the horizon,” Conley said. “I said to myself just in case something happens, we should have some alternative plans.”

When he heard the news, he and co-master Verena Conley were prepared to offer the position to Walsh.

“It took us about 30 minutes to go to get our plans in place,” he said.

Walsh met separately with Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Education John T. O’Keefe, Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross and Dingman in December after Fernandez-Illescas informed them she would be leaving.

Conley offered high praise for Walsh.

“He’s been absolutely stunning—I repeat, stunning—as an assistant senior tutor,” Conley said. “He’s been involved in every phase of the House.”

Conley cited Walsh’s experience in the House—he’s been a tutor for three years—as a source of continuity. The House has seen four senior tutors since the Conleys became House masters in 2000.

Dingman said Kirkland’s run of abbreviated senior tutor terms is a “fluke,” and that most tutors stay for the extent of their three-year appointments, with many accepting offers of two-year extensions.

But he said the college respects tutors’ desire to explore new opportunities.

“We’re loathe to keep people from pursuing their dreams,” he said.

New Tutelage

Walsh said he was excited about the position but apprehensive, too. As a resident tutor he was not responsible for the academic status and health and well-being of every inhabitant of the House—on top of his responsibilities to his entryway.

“I will still retain all of my advisees—that was sort of a given for me from the get-go,” he said.

Walsh said he had planned on entering the job market after completing his dissertation in November, but is now looking forward to the possibility of becoming senior tutor full time.

“It’s a great position because it lets me see if dean work is something I want to pursue in the future but still pursue my academic career,” he said.

At the end of the term, the House will begin a search for a full time senior tutor. And though Walsh won’t be guaranteed the spot, a recommendation from the House Masters will help, according to Dingman.

“There will still be a full search,” he said. “There are considerations that are more college-based, like the makeup of the administrative board, and while he might—and I expect he will—have great success in the House, there might be other people with very strong teaching credentials, or significant experience, who will make this real competition.”

Walsh, a sixth-year graduate student, is in the midst of completing his dissertation in 20th century Francophone Literature from North Africa and the Caribbean, with a focus on “colonial childhood.”

Asked whether he will bring his research to bear on his work as senior tutor, he joked, “We’re all working through our childhoods, aren’t we?”

—Staff writer David B. Rochelson can be reached at rochels@fas.harvard.edu.