"I worked closely with student leadership in a collegial-type fashion because I'm used to that, [having come] out of this very idiosyncratic institution," Johnson said in an interview last spring.
Johnson could not be reached for comment yesterday.
In that interview last spring, Johnson said the program has increased from 150 students to 1,500 students during his tenure.
"I thought [Johnson] did a very fine job for many years," Coles said. "I've never met [Kidd], and I hope and pray that this will work out for the very important PBH programs."
Peretz credits Johnson with building the program to its current stature and even initiating the involvement of professional staff.
"PBH is an organization that existed for 85 years without any professional staff," Peretz said. "Johnson came along and developed a good infrastructure which the students have now bought into and have established something that's a...national model."
Lewis attempted to address these concerns, saying Kidd will serve to stabilize this strong tradition of public service at the College.
"The most important thing in my mind is to preserve the integrity of the programs that we have," he said.
Lewis added that he is grateful to both Johnson and Epstein for their years of service to the College. "Johnson and Epstein have played a very important and very meaningful and very successful role in developing our undergraduate public service activities to the state that they are in now."
Ehrlich said he hopes that the choice of the new dean was made based on the quality of the individual candidates and not on the basis of political agendas.
"I hope that the criteria making this decision was not loyalty, but who could maintain the best public service experience for undergraduates," Ehrlich said. "If that was the criteria, I can't see how a decision other than [Johnson] could have been reached."
Johnson and Epstein have been offered the chance to remain at their posts through June in order to aid Kidd during the period of transition.
Kidd is currently the vice president for development and acting co-chief operating officer of City Year, Inc., a Boston based national service program.
A 1964 graduate of Williams College, she has also worked as a manager of corporate contributions with the Bank of Boston and as Boston University's director of public information.
Kidd sat on the board of directors of the Associated Grantmakers of Massachusetts from 1987 to 1992. She worked for the Brookline Council for the Arts and Humanities in her hometown from 1988 to 1989.
Currently, she is the founder and a member of the board of directors for Project STEP, an educational program for minority students