Dean of Students in the College Philip Venticinque (A.B. ’01, A.M. ’02, Ph.D. ’09) sat down with the Maroon to discuss his first year in the office, current initiatives, and aspiration to be a “dean for students.”
Venticinque began his tenure as dean of students in early 2024, transitioning from his previous position in the Office of the Provost, where he had served since 2018. He came to UChicago after teaching at Cornell College, where he served as an associate professor of Classics.
Note: This interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Chicago Maroon: How has the past year been?
Philip Venticinque: It’s been really great and exciting. It has been a really busy year of meeting with students, working across the College, identifying priorities, and really thinking strategically about [how to be a] dean for students, not just the dean of students. And we spent a lot of time reflecting on that this year. What would that mean? Sometimes at college, it’s easy to be reactive. And I was hoping that we would all find ways to be more proactive, working more to meet students where they are and where they need us to be.
I think we’ve made really, really positive steps [with] things like the care team. So we’ve established a care and support team for the first time here at the College in a real, intentional way. It’s a group of now five members of the Dean of Students Office focused on retention, persistence, and coordinated student care across the College and across the University. I think [it] has increased our toolbox in the ways that we’re approaching and working with students.
We [also] spent a lot of time thinking through [academic] advising. In that sense, we’ve also been really successful with onboarding and retaining folks at that office. Now, the advising loads are more like 280 to 290 [students] per advisor, which is a big difference from last year. We have even more jobs posted now, and I’m hoping that by the end of the academic year… we can bring that down to about 240 to make it more manageable for advisors and their caseloads and working with individual students. [What] we’re trying to do now is give the advisors a chance to focus on advising.
CM: How have your interactions with graduate and undergraduate students informed your priorities over the past year?
PV: I think it undoubtedly has shaped some of the priorities…. I can’t stop, in some sense, being the liberal arts college professor that taught Latin and Greek and ancient history and things at a liberal arts college in Iowa. And that’s my background here [both] as a graduate student and as an undergraduate, and so I’m very much focused on working with students, focused on student success in and out of the classroom.
But one of the other things I think that’s informed [me] is some of those conversations that I said I’ve been having regularly with students because, quite frankly, I know things are not the same as they were 25 years ago. And I’m looking for ideas and real critical thoughts and assessments. And I’ve gotten that from groups like Maroon Key Society. I’ve gotten that from Student Government. I’ve gotten that from various advisory boards. I’ve been talking with veteran scholars, groups of transfer students, study breaks, RAs, and just students who come to my office hours.
CM: Were there any particularly memorable interactions?
PV: When I first arrived, there were many conversations I was having with students that were focused on advising and focused on access to their advisor. What did that relationship look like? What are the outcomes?
So some of those conversations and just hearing about what those experiences were, both from the students and then listening to the advisors themselves talk about how they wanted to be interacting with students, how they wanted to forge better relationships and connections with students, how many of them who have subject area expertise wanted to do more of that right, and that, I think, started to help inform some of the things we were talking about working with the team.
What if we do go back and start thinking about that liaison model? What if people do start working more closely with, say, the math department and the stats department? What if we start finding these ways where subject area, advising expertise, and academic expertise with directors of undergraduate studies can be brought together? So I can think of a lot of those early conversations about advising… informed and continue to inform some of what we’re trying to do in advising and thinking about the organization.
CM: What would you consider the most significant ways the student experience has changed since you were an undergraduate?
PV: I think… it’s easy to say it’s bigger, right? Everyone just sort of points that [out]. But I like to say there’s a richness, I think that has changed for the better…. The rigor of the academic experience, I think that remains the same. The change, I think, is [in] the variety, the breadth and depth [of] the course offerings in academic programs.
Going back to the ’90s, there were 30 or 40 majors. I think we just approved our [54th] or something like that. So there’s just a variety of options for our students to engage in different ways here at the College, [but] I think many of the core values remain the same.
CM: Are there any areas where you’re hoping to engage the community in the coming months?
PV: I am hoping that we can continue going from strength to strength. We have been fortunate to get many jobs posted. We’re still hiring and advising. We’re hiring at the care team…. We’re building things out in academic and student services. I’m hoping that we’re going to continue working in those directions. I am hoping in the next year [we’ll be] able to work closely with Campus and Student Life and Housing and Residence Life, thinking about ways to work better together and bring some of the College into housing [and] have that synergy.
I think there’s potential for thinking about different ways where we could work across resident heads, resident deans, and programming between the College and those groups in new ways, but that’s a multiyear thing. I think it’s such a foundational piece of the student experience. And you know, I’m always saying, part of what we try to do over here is meet students where they are and where they need us to be. And I always say, you’re only in class three or four hours a day. There’s a whole other part of the day where we’re trying to impact and help students find the success that they want. I think partnerships with housing residents [can be] a big part of that.
CM: In recent years, the University has racked up some very substantial deficits. We saw new restrictions on research funding on top of various threats that the Trump administration has made to scientific grants. What’s your approach to protecting the student experience in this more resource-scarce environment?
PV: That’s an excellent question, I’ve gotten that [at a] few other places, [including] a study break not too long ago, and I try to say what I can control and what we try to do around here is [facilitating] student success and the student experience. Every day we wake up over here, the folks in the Dean of Students Office and across the College are motivated and focused… solely on finding ways to impact student success…. And so, while there might be some constraints and contexts that are changing… the focus on students remains the same. The mission, the vision, [is] to champion your success, make sure that you’re positioned to succeed. That is not changing.
CM: I know your academic background is in the Classics. Obviously, a large portion of undergraduates these days are taking economics. And the University seems to be concentrating a lot of its resources in STEM areas like the new climate and quantum initiatives. Are you thinking about ways to encourage students to pursue the humanities and make sure those departments aren’t starved of resources?
PV: What we’re trying to do is work closely with the collegiate divisions and think about ways to shore up connections, like I said, between advising and academic departments. And think about what those advising and academic relationships could be.
You’re right. There are lots of students that are economic majors…. My own research… is [the] social and economic history of the ancient world. So I’m kind of a tweener, and I think one of the things I talk a lot about with students is the potential to harness… interdisciplinary connections to think about places where, say, Classics and economics actually overlap.
So I think if there’s anything that we could be doing more proactively or that I can ask advising or I can ask those of us [in] collegiate divisions, I think those are some of the things we could think about differently and promote in our own interactions with students.
CM: Could these efforts involve helping professors design more interdisciplinary classes, encouraging more double majors, or something else?
PV: Building classes and curricular things are going to live outside of this part of the College, but we can work closely with our academic partners who are designing these programs and the new majors that I mentioned.
We’re also in the process of hiring and identifying, for lack of a better word, what I’m calling “academic specialists,” sort of learning specialists. It’ll be part of the Dean of Students Office. It’ll be a different way, sort of an academic counterpart to the care and support team, where we have people working with individual students in sort of an academic way.
I’m hoping—and again, this will take some time—to develop resources, group advising, workshops, [and other] different varieties of learning support and academic support for students. Some of this, like going back to your curricular questions, some of this can and probably will start taking place in advising as we lean more into this liaison model, where we’re working closely with the masters in the collegiate divisions and thinking about what particular approaches to advising in certain fields or groups of fields might look like. So I think we’re moving in that direction, and it’s something I’d like us to think more strategically about.
CM: Finally, are there any things around campus you’re particularly looking forward to in the coming months?
PV: I feel like I’m [going to] say the same thing I said last year, but spring is so fun around campus. I mean, there are just so many things going on, all the signature events: the senior prom, senior week back at The Shedd…Summer Breeze—all the good stuff that happens on campus and in the spring. But also, I just look forward to a Wednesday Shake Day, too.
