Senior Associate Vice Provost and Dean of Students appointment

The following was emailed to all students.

Dear students,

I am delighted to announce that Dr. Mona Hicks has accepted my offer to serve as Stanford’s senior associate vice provost and dean of students. She will begin in this new role at the start of winter quarter 2020. Mona has 25 years of experience in higher education at Rice University, Vanderbilt University, the University of North Texas, and most recently, Saint Louis University, where she serves as dean of students, a role she has held for nearly a decade.

She comes to us at a time of great promise and progress for our division as we advance Our Most Important Work. Organizations reporting through Mona will include: Residential Education, the Graduate Life Office, the Office of Accessible Education, Schwab Learning Center, and the Office of Community Standards.

Mona has extensive senior-level experience addressing individual student needs and responding to students in crisis. She built the Saint Louis University dean of students office from the ground up, with a centered focus on student well-being. Throughout her career, she has collaborated with students, faculty, staff and community partners, including her helping to guide students and the university community in responding to the Michael Brown shooting in nearby Ferguson in August 2014.

Mona’s experience serving as a resident associate for one of Rice University’s 11 residential colleges afforded her valuable insight into building residential communities with a focus on student agency, supporting her role here overseeing Residential Education as well as contributing to the implementation of our ResX vision. “My daily compass blends faith, strategy, a sense of humor, and justice to help lead students to discovery about themselves, their destiny, and their global community,” she shared in a letter to the search committee.   

Mona received this year’s Donald Brennan Humanitarian Award from the Urban League of Metropolitan Saint Louis and Saint Louis University. In addition, she was named Woman of the Year by the Saint Louis University Women’s Commission in 2017. Mona currently serves on the board of NASPA – Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education; she is also the Equity, Inclusion, and Social Justice Division director.

She holds a bachelor’s in biology from St. Edward’s University, a master’s in college student personnel from Western Illinois University, and a doctorate of education in higher education, leadership and policy from Vanderbilt University.

I’d like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude for your patience as we completed this search. It took a bit longer than we expected, but yielded an eminently qualified and experienced senior associate vice provost and dean of students who is sure to bring fresh insight, knowledge and expertise to our division and university.

I would like to thank the students who served on the search committee and who participated in the search process. In addition, I’d like to thank search committee Chair Suzi Weersing, associate dean of Graduate and Undergraduate Studies for the School of Humanities and Sciences. And finally, I would like to thank Ken Hsu, our interim dean of students and Graduate Life Office dean. Ken has been ever so generous in his leadership and guidance during the past six months, and now as we prepare for Mona’s arrival.

Please join me in wishing Mona the warmest of welcomes as she prepares to join our community. 

Sincerely,

Susie