At the end of this month, Tim Diette will be stepping down as SHECP's Executive Director and transitioning to his new role as Dean of Faculty at Hampden-Sydney College. During his tenure as Executive Director of SHECP, Tim led the consortium in strengthening connections between member schools and developing innovative new programming to complement the well-established internship program.
“Tim has been instrumental in stabilizing and growing SHECP over the past two years as we returned to Washington and Lee as our academic home,” said Mindy Wilson, Chair of the SHECP Governing Board. “We are grateful for Tim's dedication to our member schools and interns as well as his passion for preparing students to understand and address issues related to poverty in their chosen fields of study. He will be greatly missed.”
Last summer, SHECP celebrated 25 years of providing transformative summer internships and hosted its first in-person Annual Conference since 2019 to provide faculty, staff, and students the opportunity to engage with one another in deep discussions of poverty. “A personal highlight was traveling to intern sites and working together with our SHECP central office team and member school partners to bring all our 2023 interns to Georgia Tech for our first post-covid Annual Conference. Each attendee was clearly energized by the opportunity to hear the reflections of our interns and learn from leaders committed to anti-poverty work,” said Diette.
Beyond summer programming, Tim played a vital role in expanding virtual engagement opportunities for member schools throughout the academic year. Along with the SHECP team, he developed programs such as SHECP Talks, Pedagogy & Practice, and SHECP Springboard Series events to provide thoughtful avenues to wrestle with questions surrounding poverty and human capability. Additionally, Tim worked with students from across the Consortium to start developing an undergraduate-led academic journal to highlight student scholarship and reflections.
“It has been a privilege to collaborate with so many talented and caring professionals and community partners around our mission of helping students understand and address the causes and consequences of poverty and inequality.” Diette shared. “Watching SHECP alumni share their experiences with current students highlights how SHECP contributes to preparing students for a lifetime of professional and civic efforts to diminish poverty and enhance human capability.”
“The original vision of consortium members’ faculty and staff working together to create a richer curricular and co-curricular education for our students than we could provide as individual institutions remains,” Diette said. "We are all grateful for Tim's stewardship of the SHECP vision and mission for the past two years and for his work building our SHECP team," said Jen Handy, SHECP's associate director. "It is always hard to say goodbye, but I know he is leaving us well-positioned to advance the work we started!"
Sascha L. Goluboff, director of community-based learning and Professor of Cultural Anthropology at Washington and Lee University, has been named SHECP's Interim Executive Director. Read more about Sascha's appoinment>>