“I don’t know its future,” she says. “Obviously it makes sense to revise it.”

Though Avery has tried to maintain contact with University Hall, sometimes news takes a while to reach her.

When asked about the resignation of Dean of FAS Jeremy R. Knowles, Avery was very surprised.

“Wow,” Avery says, as the four-day-old news sinks in. “He’ll be missed.”

While she often calls the office, she has yet to sort through a sizeable pile of mail, and she checks her e-mail only once a week.

“It’s hard to do it one-handed,” she says, explaining how she has to hold her baby while navigating her keyboard.

Motherhood

Since going on maternity leave, Avery doesn’t have much time for one-handed e-mailing anyway.

Her days at her Brookline home are spent tending to her two children, her husband Richard H. Chapman ’86 and her black-and-white, mixed collie-labrador.

Avery is also reviewing the third wave of applications for Trust grants and has attended the organization’s dinners.

“This time on leave I’ve been a lot more in touch,” she says. “This is my second child, so the whole having-the-baby thing is less shocking.”

Much of her time is spent running errands—picking up her daughter from daycare at 3 p.m. and going to doctor appointments.

During the car-ride home from daycare, Avery turns on the radio and encourages Angela to sing along to the music, Nickelback’s “How You Remind Me”—anything, she says, to not listen to Sesame Street.

“The weird thing,” she confides, “is that you look forward to things like going to CVS for free time.”

Avery’s lifestyle as a young mother contrasts with that of most College administrators—many of whom have older children or none at all.