By Charlotte Williams
Edgewood College’s Assistant Director of Student Inclusion and Involvement Anjali Pattanayak has stepped down from the position, where she focused on orientation and first year experience. Her last day was Nov. 7.
Edgewood has not hired anyone to fill her position yet.
Pattanayak spent the last two years focused on creating a format for orientation that centers around inclusion. Pattanayak said she took an interest in how leadership programming could be developed with an emphasis on critical race theory and intercultural competency.
“Inclusion was at the heart of how I wanted to frame orientation,” Pattanayak said. “A big part of the planning was based on the understanding that we have students with a whole host of backgrounds, experiences and needs and trying to make a one-size-fits-all orientation wasn’t really going to fit everyone.”
She said she wanted to emphasize to incoming students during orientation that it was okay for them to have questions and to know that there were people “in their corner” willing to help them. She said feedback from students had been a large help in redesigning orientation.
Pattanayak said she hopes to continue using the Dominican values and applying them to her endeavors moving forward.
“I have loved and valued so many tremendous faculty, staff, and students who I have had the great pleasure of working with for the last few years, and I know that I am going to make sure that I stay in touch with them for years to come,” Pattanayak said.
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