Shozo Kawaguchi is Oberlin College’s first ever associate dean of community life. He comes to Oberlin after 13 years as an administrator at Vanderbilt University. He is a native of Yokohama, Japan.How would you describe your new position?We’re actually developing it as we speak. If I had to put it in one sentence, I am responsible for facilitating the process of building a greater sense of campus community at Oberlin College. That’s how I would describe it. What did you do at Vanderbilt?I started as assistant dean of campus services, then I moved into more multicultural aspects of student affairs work. For a time, I was director of intercultural affairs and also taught part-time at the college of education. What is your academic background?I have a variety of backgrounds. In Japan I studied mechanical engineering. I‘ve never used that degree. After I came to the U.S. in early 1980s I studied social work. I was a social service provider for five years before I came to Vanderbilt. Then I went back and got a doctorate in higher education. My engineering knowledge is pretty rusty but I think that mentality is still there. I have a very systemic way of thinking about things.What are your goals for your new position?I’ve been here for two and a half months so I’m just becoming an insider. One of my main goals is to observe what’s really going on and listen to people then and absorb that information and try to figure out what is Oberlin culture. That’s going to be my main goal. I respect people who have worked hard to create a sense of community here. I want to observe, absorb and listen. I strongly believe that I’m responsible for facilitating community building because that’s something that is everybody’s job.Does your work extend beyond students into the greater Oberlin community at all?Students already do that through community service and other things. Part of the philosophy is no college campus should insulate from outside community. We talk about the bubble here. At Vanderbilt we talked about it as well. We need to know what going on out there. I had experience in social service arena and I really want to encourage students to have great experiences outside the College. My main focus is the Oberlin community and the town is a natural extension of that community.What specific projects are you working on?I’m actively working with [Associate Dean of Students] Adrian Batista. We’re about to embark on a pilot project with first-year students. We are hoping to recruit 50 students for this and examine how they are adjusting to the Oberlin culture by sitting down and talking with them. There are also about 10 administrators who will work with us. Letters are about to go to these students to find out if they’re interested. We want to find out how they are adjusting, why they came to oberlin and what their expectations and goals are so they can utilize the resources we have here. Knowing about student experience can be a very powerful tool.We are trying to come up with some ideas for reaching out to the different student communities and should be able to share that idea in the very near future. Oberlin is full of sub-communities. These could be biology majors or athletes or Review reporters and we want the dean of students’ office to be open to all of them. We should be announcing this idea soon.I think we need to be transparent. But we want students to be transparent as well. We want to know what’s going on with their lives.–Josh Keating