OCS Director William Wright-Swadel says Kidd’s goal-oriented focus on procedure is a “hallmark” of her leadership style.
And Megan says, “[Kidd] is one of these crackerjack managers. She’s just incredibly organized and very solution oriented.”
A ‘GUIDING PRINCIPLE’
Despite Kidd’s focus on organization, students and administrators alike point to her “genuine” concern for students as the real driving force behind her actions.
“She’s just got a real human side, a capacity for really empathizing and thinking through issues from other perspectives,” Megan says.
“Dean Kidd to me is someone who in every role is very student-centered,” Wright-Swadel says. “She spends a great deal of time and energy to make sure she listens to, speaks with, and interacts with students in everything she does.”
McLoughlin says that beyond her effective management, Kidd’s “guiding principle” is a commitment to her undergraduate constituents.
Students who have sought her help this year say she has been instrumental in ensuring that they achieve their desired ends.
In particular, Kidd has sought out a relationship with the Undergraduate Council—another of her stated goals in September—and established periodic meetings with council presidents and the chairs of the council’s Student Affairs Committee.
“The U.C. is a juggernaut,” Kidd says. “They know more about which committees exist than I did.”
The year’s two major concerts, Guster and Busta Rhymes, were catalyzed by a clear shift in the attitude in the student activities office, says Justin H. Haan ’05, chair of the council-affiliated Harvard Concert Commission.
One of Kidd’s top priorities was improving social options on campus, Dingman says, and Haan, who is also a Crimson editor, says Kidd didn’t display the same resistance to concerts that previous administrators did.
“Dean Kidd was essentially what made these concerts happen,” Haan says. “She’s been incredible...it really couldn’t have happened without having someone like her in that position, who really cares about having these things come to fruition.”
McLoughlin says Kidd voluntarily expended student activities office money to bring the Gordon Track and Fitness Center—the venue for the Guster show—up to code for the concert.
“She didn’t get anything out of it other than seeing the U.C. get a great concert,” he says.
And even with smaller endeavors, Kidd has focused on facilitating student goals.
When Joseph T.M. Cianflone ’07 attempted to start a film production company this year, he says he initially encountered crippling opposition, both from would-be faculty advisers and from administrators who refused to grant them the go-ahead to film on campus.
“Dean Kidd was incredibly receptive and amazingly helpful with the set-up process,” Cianflone says. “She was really good at putting us in contact with administrators, and making rules flexible where they needed to be. We would have hit a dead end.”
—Staff writer Katharine A. Kaplan can be reached at kkaplan@fas.harvard.edu.