SDSU is restructuring and renaming some offices to form a new ‘Student Engagement Center’ to better align with federal policies, Provost Dennis Hedge and Vice President for Student Affairs & Enrollment Management Michaela Willis announced this week.

The Office of Multicultural Affairs and Accessibility, International Affairs, Veterans Affairs and the American Indian Student Center will merge into the Student Engagement Center.

“Those four units are going to realign underneath the new Student Engagement Center model,” Willis said.

There will be no new physical space for the Student Engagement Center.

Shelly Bayer will lead the Student Engagement Center. Bayer is currently the director of the Office of Multicultural Affairs and Accessibility (OMAA).

President Barry Dunn asked Hedge and Willis to start the project of transitioning in May, Willis said. Over the summer they developed a plan for how to restructure and rename existing offices. The goal is to transition into the new organizational structure by Oct. 1, though Willis acknowledged the transition will take time.

“You don’t just flip a light switch and everything is perfect and everything is transitioned and working exactly how we want it,” Willis said. “We really do plan to kind of slow walk this over the course of this next year and make sure that we do it well and do it right.”

Director of the School of Communication and Journalism Joshua Westwick attended the Friday informational session hosted by Hedge and Willis. Westwick asked if students in leadership positions in organizations being served by the Multicultural Center were consulted about the restructuring over the summer.

“The answer is, no, they weren’t, but we do still feel like this is in the best interest of students,” Willis said. “The feedback we’ve been receiving from students as we’ve been rolling it out – whether that’s leadership through the Students’ Association or members of student organizations and individuals that attended our meeting earlier this week – has been really positive, really supportive.”

No jobs will be lost in the restructuring. There are a few promotions that will happen within the new organizational structure.

Among the positions added:

• A student success adviser position under the student connection and engagement team will be added
• A current graduate assistantship within student accessibility and disability services will turn into a full-time position
• A graduate assistantship within international affairs will transition into a full-time success adviser position

There will be no cost to implement the new structure beyond the cost of positions added.

Willis said the name ‘Student Engagement Center’ came after looking at name changes happening across the country in higher education “particularly around executive orders and things like that.”

• The Veterans Affairs Resource Center (VARC) will now be the Veterans, Services and Engagement Center (VSEC)
• The Office of International Affairs will now be International Student and Scholar Engagement
• The American Indian Student Center’s (AISC) facility name will stay the same. Within the department, AISC will now be the American Indian Engagement and Student Success Department

Ashley DeZeeuw, a program assistant in enrollment services, asked for clarification on what “governmental priorities and federal guidelines” meant at the Friday session.

“There have been a number of messages and priorities coming out of the Department of Education that we need to be responsive to,” Willis said. “There are a number of directions that are coming out of our leadership of this country that we need to be responsive to. And so that’s essentially what we’re talking about.”

“Michaela’s exactly right,” Hedge added. “She was straightforward with that … If you find yourself out of compliance with rules and regulations or various things like that, you can easily find yourself in a situation where maybe you’re not able to provide really important things for our students. That’s not lost upon us, and we’ve been very thoughtful about that. President Dunn has been very thoughtful about that.”

Hedge and Willis hosted open informational sessions Sept. 9, 11 and 12 to talk about the transition.