Dear Pacificans,

We are looking forward to a great new year together! Today we wanted to give you a quick update on the structure of our operations to recruit and support international students. As you know, our international offices had been embedded within Benerd College. Additionally, our external partner, Shorelight, ran much of the early academic and Student Life dimensions for international students recruited by Shorelight to attend Pacific.

The Shorelight partnership has been successful in significantly increasing our international student population, making us an even more culturally diverse university while strengthening our overall enrollment and finances. But the model was designed in a very different time and, I believe, operated too much in a silo.

Therefore, in our effort to teach, serve and support our international students better, we are changing our organizational design.

First, instead of reporting to Benerd College, the different dimensions of international staff will report to the appropriate vice presidents – Chris Ferguson for Enrollment, Gretchen Edwalds-Gilbert for Academic Affairs and Maria Blandizzi for Student Life. This will enable us to better serve our international students by taking full advantage of the resources of those divisions by integrating our international students throughout the university.

Second, we will do the same with our Shorelight colleagues. They will report to Chris, Gretchen and Maria, based on their specialties.

And, importantly, we are adding to Library Dean Niraj Chaudhary’s responsibilities by making him Dean of Pacific Global in addition to the library. As many of you know, Niraj has a deep passion and expertise in international students. We have asked Niraj to lead the academic side of the international student experience at Pacific while analyzing how we deploy our entire international staff. During that analysis period, our five Pacific international staff will report to Niraj.

In his new role, Niraj also will oversee study abroad programs and services.

I am deeply appreciative of the leadership of Niraj, Chris, Gretchen and Maria as we both grow our international population and serve these students better.

Sincerely,

Christopher Callahan
President