President Wippman’s Writings & Remarks

Vice President and Dean of Students Terry Martinez

January 28, 2022

Tags Public Statements

Dear Members of the Hamilton Community,

I am writing to share the news that Vice President and Dean of Students Terry Martinez will retire at the end of the academic year.

Terry’s departure is a great loss for Hamilton and our students. Since arriving on College Hill in 2017, she reconfigured staffing in Student Life and hired extraordinarily effective professionals to complement those already at the College. Then, working closely and collaboratively with her colleagues in the division and throughout campus, she developed new strategies and enhanced existing programs to accommodate changing student interests and needs. These included successfully advocating for significant new mental health resources; developing a residential curriculum and launching a housing study to help determine the next phase of our residential neighborhoods; starting new traditions such as the annual lighting of the Beinecke Student Activities Village, late night breakfast in the library, class banners, and the first-year formal; and establishing Bundy Café as a convenience for students living down College Hill Road. She also hosted frequent meals with students at her home on North Road prior to the pandemic to stay connected with students and the issues and concerns that matter most to them.

In 2018, I asked Terry to take on the additional responsibility of chief diversity officer, and she has done an exceptional job, advocating not just for our increasingly diverse student body, but for our diverse faculty and staff as well.

Terry has been a wonderfully collaborative and effective colleague. She has earned the trust and admiration of our campus community, and I am sad that she will be leaving us in June. We will find time to acknowledge her numerous contributions to Hamilton later this semester. In the meantime, I encourage you to offer her congratulations and best wishes in retirement.

We have retained Isaacson Miller to assist us in the search for Terry’s successor, with the goal of having someone in place by the start of the fall semester.

David