Susanne Dietzel will be leaving her position as director of OU's Women’s Center. Dietzel will be moving back to New Orleans with a job at the Eden house.
Susanne Dietzel will not continue in her role as director of the Women’s Center next year.
After eight years in the position, Dietzel will move back to New Orleans. This will make for the third switch-up in a director position within the Office for Diversity and Inclusion this semester.
Cecil Walters, former director of the Office for Multicultural Student Access and Retention, resigned for “personal reasons.” The position of director for the Multicultural Center was also eliminated this semester. Linda Daniels, who had held the position for 17 years, left the university and her responsibilities have been transferred to Shari Clarke, vice provost in the Office of Diversity and Inclusion.
Dietzel said she will be leaving for “personal reasons.” She will be the executive director at the Eden House, which offers “long term housing and services to survivors of human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation,” according to its website.
“I’m excited, and I’m sad because this has been a phenomenal experience for me,” she said. “The last eight years here have been tremendously fulfilling for me as a professional, but also as a person and as a feminist and as a teacher.”
Dietzel’s current responsibilities include overseeing and helping to work in the Women's Center. She also oversees the operation of the Ohio University Survivor Advocacy Program.
Dietzel’s job is not listed on the university's job offerings website. Dietzel said she will not be leaving for about a month.
The next step in the process is assessing the position and seeing what the next best step will be, Clarke said.
Dietzel earned $82,702 during this academic year.
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“I think the programs I’ve designed really fit our campus and are really appropriate for our community, and I hope have served the community well in the eight years that I’ve been here,” Dietzel said. “I would hope that we would maintain our strong ties to students, faculty and staff, as well as the community, because that is really what the center was founded for and I would hope that the new director just gives it ... their own personal imprint.”
Delfin Bautista, director of the LGBT Center, will be the only individual continuing in a director position within the division. Bautista said Dietzel was the one who brought Bautista into the position two years ago and that saying goodbye to her is bittersweet. The Women’s Center and LGBT Center have worked together on programming throughout the years, including series such as Queer Women in Film.
“I’m excited for her and excited and nervous to see what this means for the Women’s Center and our division as a whole,” Bautista said.
Bautista said Clarke has been looking at different models in how offices and divisions are run at different universities, and “no concrete decisions have been made, just different possibilities are being considered.”
Under Dietzel’s direction, the Young Women’s Leadership Program, an outreach program with Athens Middle School students and OU students, was launched.
Madison Koenig, a senior studying English and the 2014-15 Women’s Affairs commissioner for Student Senate, said she worked a lot with Dietzel this year. She said it's important to have the Women’s Center and individuals such as Dietzel advocating for women and survivors.
“I think that women students at this university and survivors of all genders really need people who are on their side and Dr. Dietzel has done a good job of advocating … both for women at the university and for survivors,” Koenig said. “Both of those identities, sometimes, people have a hard time advocating for themselves.”
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