Sterritt To Assume Post of College Dean for Administration

D. E. Lorraine Sterritt, a former administrator at the College, will return from Stanford University this semester to serve as the Harvard College dean for administration, effective February 10.

Sterritt will be replacing Georgene B. Herschbach, who accepted the early retirement incentive package for staff offered last spring—vacating the post of dean for administration and concluding nearly three decades of service at Harvard. Herschbach will remain on campus to facilitate the process of her successor’s transition, according to Sterritt.

But come February, Sterritt will not find herself on wholly unfamiliar ground. She served as assistant dean of freshmen and associate dean of freshmen for academic affairs in the Freshman Dean’s Office from 1996 to 2000. Sterritt was also a lecturer on romance languages and literatures.

After her time at Harvard, she departed to become the dean of freshman and director of academic advising at the University of Pennsylvania. Sterritt has since worked at Stanford University, where she will be leaving her most recent post as associate dean for graduate and undergraduate studies in the School for Humanities and Sciences.

The newest addition to Sterritt’s resume—the College deanship for administration—was originally created for Herschbach in the summer of 2008 as administrative support for then-incoming Dean of the College Evelynn M. Hammonds. At the time, Hammonds sought to mirror the administrative framework of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which includes an analogous position currently held by FAS Dean for Administration and Finance Leslie A. Kirwan ’79.

Sterritt said that her work at Stanford has given her experience in bridging the realms of student life and academia—an asset that will boost her efforts to fulfill Hammond’s hope for closer cooperation between the College and FAS.

“I really admire how Harvard integrates the academic and the residential,” said Sterritt, whose primary responsibility will be College affairs but is nevertheless expected to work with her counterparts in FAS.

“Lorraine will be a key partner for me and my team,” Kirwan wrote in an e-mailed statement.

In a statement announcing Sterritt’s return to Harvard, Hammonds wrote that Sterritt would work with senior administrators, faculty, and operational managers in the College and across the University to “promote the successful integration of academic, residential, and extracurricular life in the College.”

While Sterritt looks forward to overseeing House renovations and rethinking house life, she acknowledged that the budgetary component of her job would be at the forefront of her work, and that she was prepared to tackle this priority.

“That’s kind of my niche—how one orchestrates the financial angle to support, in the best possible way, the academic mission,” Sterritt said. “What we’ve tried to do at Stanford—insofar as it is possible—is to make the budget cuts invisible to students.”

Returning to Harvard after nearly a decade, Sterritt said she will have to acclimate not only to the colder climate, but to the new faces around campus.

For now, the Irish native is preparing for yet another long distance move: “I just put on some good music and get cracking on the packing,” she said.

Sterritt’s arrival comes in the wake of the departures of several key College administrators. In addition to Herschbach, Former Associate Dean of Student Life and Activities Judith H. Kidd accepted the staff retirement package offered by the University last spring. Former Associate Dean of Advising Programs Monique Rinere departed at the end of the last academic year to take a post at Columbia.

The announcement of the departures preceded the creation in the fall of 2009 of the Office of Student Life—the consolidation of the College’s Office of Residential Life and Office of Student Life and Activities. The move, which involved cutting five staff positions, would “streamline support for our undergraduates,” Hammonds had said.

—Staff writer Noah S. Rayman can be reached at nrayman@fas.harvard.edu.