Disclaimer: The author of this article is in no way trying to suck up. Really. Honest.
I’ve been at this school for nearly four years now, and I’ve been through a lot with Cabrini. I’ve seen housing problems, pudding wrestling, meningitis scares, and even a hurricane. I’ve also seen my share of faculty and staff come and go.
Names like Paul Weaver and Carter Cragie make freshmen and more than a few sophomores say “who?” But it’s one of the latest additions to our happy family that I would like to talk about today: Dr. Neville.
I’ll sum it up for you in a nutshell: Dr. Neville is the man. For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of meeting Neville yet, or have no idea who he is, he is the acting vice president for student development. Neville gave up his retirement to come and stay with us for a year while we search for a permanent vice president of student development.
So why the big fuss on my part? Well, besides just giving up part of his retirement, he’s been doing a bang-up job while he has been here. Most people probably wouldn’t put a whole lot of effort into a job that they knew they were only going to do temporarily. But not Neville. He seems to realize how much we needed him here and rose to the occasion.
One of my favorite things about Neville is that he knows the role of vice president for student development transcends that of just doing office work. I’ve often noticed Neville walking around Cabrini’s campus, chatting with students and getting to know our community. He has also made appearances at most student activities, taking time out of his schedule to pose for pictures with students at the fall fling, make first- year students feel welcome at freshmen activities, and even poke his head in at the dance on Saturday night.
Former vice presidents, and I don’t like to name names here, but I will say her last name began with “V” and ended with “alente,”seemed to have the attitude that students were a necessary evil; treating us like lepers should we ever walk into her office. Neville seems to remember that Cabrini is more than just the buildings and the classrooms, but that the students make up the real Cabrini.
In my time here, I’ve heard more students complain about how the administrators are aloof, uncaring and out of touch with students. Finally, we have someone who gives the impression that they would like to get in touch with the students. I think it’s tremendous.
I wish we could keep. Neville for more than just one year. He understands what “education of the heart” and the Cabrini mission really mean instead of just tossing the terms around blindly. I applaud Dr. Idarola on her choice of Dr. Neville.
But I don’t have time to talk about that now.I need to go brush the dirt off of my nose.
