Courtesy of Lewis & Clark
Lewis & Clark’s CAS has elected a new dean, and she is someone the campus already knows well. Jerusha Detweiler-Bedell has been a member of the LC community since 2001 and a professor in the psychology department who has spent 25 years teaching and researching here. She took on the Dean of Students role permanently after having served as interim dean in 2014-2015. In a written statement to The Mossy Log, Detweiler-Bedell reflected on what has changed since then, why she chose to take on the role and what she sees as the most urgent work for the future of the college.
Detweiler-Bedell noted that this role requires a different kind of commitment than her earlier stint as interim dean. Back then, her job was largely about keeping the college steady and passing the baton to a permanent successor. This time, she and her team are planning years, not months, into the future.
“The other difference is the moment we’re in,” Detweiler-Bedell said. “Higher education is facing headwinds that simply didn’t exist in 2014, including a national decline in the number of college-age students, families who are more price-sensitive, and real questions in the public conversation about the value of a liberal arts degree.”
Detweiler-Bedell was candid that these are real challenges, but she said that she believes LC is well-positioned to meet them, in part because of her own deep familiarity with the institution after a quarter century on campus.
When asked what drew her to accept the job during a moment she herself described as difficult for deans across higher education, she said that difficulty was part of the reason she said yes. She pointed to the college’s financial reserves and the support of the president and Board of Trustees as reasons for confidence.
She laid out a three-part plan: stabilize the budget, build capacity to invest in what makes an LC education distinctive and diversify the colleges’ revenue streams so it can not just survive, but thrive. She framed this moment less as crisis management and more as an opportunity to actively shape the college’s future: deciding — in her words — what must be sustained, strengthened, what must be done differently as well as what the college can no longer responsibly continue doing.
Detweiler-Bedell has an academic background in decision-making and health behavior research, and she said that scholarship directly informs how she is approaching her first months in office. She described relying on a framework built around two questions: an institution’s “why” and its “how,” and said that an organization loses momentum when the two become disconnected.
“If all we talk about is vision, nothing happens. If all we talk about is process and budget reductions, people lose heart. But if we keep vision and process in constant conversation, we can adapt and thrive,” she said.
For the CAS, she said the “why” is the enduring value of a liberal arts education, and the “how” is the concrete steps needed to protect it. She also drew on her research into how people experience difficult decisions, arguing that prioritizing between values does not mean those things stop being values, it just makes the choices difficult. Her approach, she said, is to be transparent about that difficulty rather than pretend it away; to listen closely, and turn her ideas into a clear and openly communicated plan.
She will be doing that work alongside a leadership team she spoke highly of — Associate Deans Rachel Cole and Rebecca Lingafelter and Director of Operations Scott Feickert.
Detweiler-Bedell describes three immediate priorities for the team. They hope to stabilize the CAS budget over the next five years using data on enrollment and student demand in order to create room in that budget to invest in what makes LC distinctive. This includes its applied liberal arts identity, community partnerships, undergraduate research, and its study-abroad and law/graduate-school partnerships. Finally, the aim is to diversify revenue through expanded precollege and summer programs, stronger retention and increased philanthropic support.
Her message to the campus community was direct and emphasized the path forward. To students, she emphasized that the close mentoring, small classes and research opportunities that drew them to LC in the first place remain her priority. To faculty and staff, she acknowledged that balancing the budget alone would not solve the college’s challenges, but it would also take creativity and better storytelling about what LC does well.
Detweiler-Bedell concluded her statement by describing the values an LC education is meant to instill.
“A Lewis & Clark education teaches students to think deeply, study broadly, and work collaboratively; to be nimble and adaptable while pursuing meaning and purpose. As a community, we must practice what we preach and be nimble and adaptable as we envision our future, and we will build this future together. I genuinely believe the best version of LC’s College of Arts & Sciences is ahead of us.”
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