Northwestern administrators announced Tuesday that they hired an Illinois State University administrator to fill permanently the position of Asian and Asian-American student services coordinator.
Dimple Patel, the assistant director of Illinois State’s office of intercultural programs and affairs, said she plans to gauge student needs before starting to implement her changes, which she hopes will include creating more unity within NU’s Asian-American community and providing academic services for students.
“The most exciting part of the position was the fact that it was new and there’s a lot of room for development and a lot of room to work with the students to create new initiatives,” said Patel, who graduated from Michigan State University in 1998 and received a master’s degree in education administration in 2001.
NU created the position last spring after several years of lobbying by Asian-American students and other student leaders. It has been filled on a temporary basis by Tedd Vanadilok, a former NU graduate student.
Patel was chosen unanimously from a pool of 87 candidates, said Mary Desler, associate vice president for student affairs. The eight-member search committee, which included three students, interviewed nine finalists via phone and invited four to campus for personal interviews.
Patel said she hopes to create a mentor program that would pair Asian and Asian-American upperclassmen with freshmen and eventually, with high school students from Chicago public schools.
The program could extend to match students by major, athletic team or extracurricular activity.
“It’s important to have somebody you can look to, a peer, more than anyone,” she said. “We have so many faculty and staff who care about students, but it’s so essential to have that peer in their life.”
Alan Fu, chairman of the Asian American Advisory Board, said the mentoring program sounded similar to a big brother and big sister program AAAB used to organize. Fu, a Weinberg junior, said he liked Patel’s ability to look beyond programming issues and provide ideas for career and psychological support of Asian and Asian-American students. Fu also said he looked forward to seeing unity created within the community.
“Everyone’s in their group and it would be nice to have an Asian-American identity within the student body,” Fu said. “People identify with (their nationality) first – you’re never just Asian right off the bat.”
Patel also said she hopes to use the resources of Chicago. After spending time in the smaller community of Normal, Ill., she said will be excited to return to a large city.
“I’m really used to being in a larger community,” she said. “I’m even looking forward to helping make students connect with other students outside the university. It’s wonderful to work in a university that’s near such a large city.”
