George Mason University Hires an Experienced Ombuds to Reopen Office
GMU has selected Kimberly Davidson as its next University Ombudsperson. She will restart an Ombuds program that has been dormant since 2017 and which will serve faculty and staff at the public university in Virginia. Fortunately, Davidson bring significant experience in higher education and as a conflict management expert. For the past four and a half years, Davidson has been the Ombuds for Oberlin College.
Prior to becoming an Ombuds, Davidson held a variety of positions at Oberlin, including student judicial coordinator, liaison for the student Honor System, ADA compliance coordinator, and volunteer mediator. She graduated from Spelman College and earned an MA at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and PhD at Emory University. She was also a presenter at the latest Cal Caucus. (GMU News; LinkedIn.)
Congratulations, Kimberly.
ReplyDeleteI just came across the 2021 GMU news link announcing the selection of the current GMU university ombuds. I know this is old news, but history is important. And referencing history, accurately, is important. The news bites and quotes from the Chief of Staff stated a couple of times that this was a brand new program. This is not accurate. Dolores Gomez-Moran served as ombuds for over 14 years at GMU, first serving students from 1999 – 2007, then as University Ombuds from 2007 – 2014. Fernando Caetano then served in that role a little over a year from 2015 to early 2017. It is a shame that this history is not mentioned on the GMU Ombuds website and that the news articles inaccurately reported that the program was brand new only in 2022. The blog article accurately talks about the program being "restarted." But one would hope that the public institution would've been fair and accurate, which it was not. And I didn't see any other information on the website mentioning that history.
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