Hood College dealing with administrative vacancies

By Amrit Brown

Hood College is coping with the resignations of a number of administrators in the past several months. 

        Open positions include dean of students, director of residence life, a mental health counselor position, director of residence life, and, most recently, assistant director of athletics for communications.

            Other positions at the school have also been vacated recently, including head counselor John Slick and men’s head soccer coach Kyle Bulgarelli.

Despite the extra load these vacancies have put on other members of the administration across the board, college President Andrea Chapdelaine said that this is not a large number. “It is higher than is typical for Hood, but that is occurring at colleges everywhere,” she said.

            Currently, other members of the administration are being asked to fill in until positions can be filled. “It does put added strain on others to ensure we are completing the work,” Chapdelaine said. “As Provost Ricker announced, we have had others take on additional responsibilities to help cover these gaps,” she added.

            Head of Human Resources Christine Traini most if not all of the positions are posted on the Jobs at Hood website. She said hiring managers and search committees were reviewing candidates.

            According to the Jobs at Hood website, the school currently has 40 open positions, compared to 33 at the same time last year. The openings include 14 administrators compared to nine a year ago.

            Traini said that while some positions are filled through internal promotion, higher-level positions are typically filled with outside hires.

Traini said she is also taking into account the way that these vacancies are affecting students. “[Students] don’t see people in those roles and they don’t know who they can turn to for questions,” she said.

            Traini said she does not believe that it would be appropriate to comment on the reasons behind the resignations, but she said that they were voluntary. “What is happening on our campus aligns with a national trend regarding employee retention and, conversely, turnover,” she said.

            Chapdelaine agreed and highlighted a variety of different possible reasons for the recent turnover in administration. “The reasons are complex, attributable to the pandemic, inflation and other factors,” she said.

Traini added that it is possible that the resignations occurred because of preferable hours or pay at other locations.

            Geoff Goyne, the assistant director of athletics for communications, is moving on to a position with better pay and hours that he prefers. He said that Hood was not to blame and that the position fell into his lap.

            The school is still doing its best to retain employees despite the influence of outside factors. “We continue to do all we can to ensure our employees want to stay,” Chapdelaine said.