Currier Loses Third Top Administrator

As Currier residents express frustration over the search process for the House’s new masters, Currier’s resident dean announced Wednesday that he will be stepping down after this year, leaving the three top administrative positions in the House currently unfilled for the 2007-2008 academic year.

Cole M. Crittenden, who has been resident dean since 2005, will leave Currier to take a position as the director of studies at Princeton’s Whitman College, the school’s newly added sixth residential college. His announcement comes as the College scrambles to find replacements for current Masters Patricia O’Brien and Joseph L. Badaracco, who are set to step down in June.

Some students and residents have expressed disappointment and frustration with the search to find new masters. The College has not appointed a formal advisory committee for the search, but students and residential tutors are informally involved in the process.

“We just think that the process was not really taken seriously. Basically, the administration really didn’t care about what students thought,” Omid G. Shahi ’09, co-chair of Currier’s House Committee (HoCo), said. “There wasn’t a whole, year-long search like there should have been for new masters.”

Dean of the College Benedict H. Gross ’71 said that time constraints have prevented the search process from being more inclusive of students. O’Brien and Badaracco, citing “personal and professional” reasons, announced their decision to leave Currier in February, leaving the College only a few months to find replacements. Gross said that a full, year-long search may take place if interim masters are chosen.

“We may end up making an acting appointment, and doing a full search, with plenty of time and House input, next year,” he wrote in an e-mailed statement.

The College expects to announce new masters in early- to mid-June, according to Associate Dean for Residential Life Suzy M. Nelson, who also noted the possibility of appointing interim replacements.

Other members of the House community echoed Shahi’s concern over the lack of student input. Residential tutor Christopher C. Kim ’98 noted the change in student involvement between this year’s process and the search for new House masters at Winthrop, Currier, and Cabot that took place in 2003. During that search, each House formed advisory committees made up of resident tutors, students, and Senior Common Room members.

“It seemed like the Dean [of the College] then was a lot more organized and a lot more forthcoming with the students about getting their input about what they were looking for in a House master,” Kim said.

Acting Quincy House Masters Lee and Deborah J. Gehrke were considered for the Currier position but they ultimately decided to turn it down, Gross said in an April interview. In an e-mail yesterday, however, he wrote that the Gehrkes may consider being acting House masters for another year but “were not yet ready to sign on as Masters of any House.”

Lee Gehrke was not available for comment yesterday.

Meanwhile, talk about prospective masters has begun to fly around Currier.

“There’s definitely talk. The students are very concerned. Especially now that Cole [Crittenden] is leaving. He was kind of like the last bastion of the Joe and Pat administration,” Martel said.

Martel said Crittenden’s presence would be missed.

“Cole is a very visible figure in Currier. He’s very much a part of Currier life and part of the Currier spirit,” Frances I. Martel ’09, the treasurer of Currier’s House Committee (HoCo), said. “We’re very concerned about finding someone that can fill that role at least as well as Cole did, which will be very difficult.”

Badaracco and O’Brien did not respond to repeated requests for comment yesterday, and Crittenden’s assistant said he was out of the office and unavailable for comment yesterday.

—Staff writer Victoria B. Kabak can be reached at vkabak@fas.harvard.edu.