New Vice President of Student Affairs Shares Her Goals

"Student voices are very important, they’re vital, the heartbeat even to the institution,” said the new Vice President of Student Affairs Melissa Champs, who will be leaving her role as Dean of Enrollment. CCC across all seven city colleges decided to branch out the role of vice president to two people.

Vice President of Academic Affairs Santos-George said the division of responsibilities for vice president will be beneficial. “There will probably be more efficiency and effectiveness, efficiency in the sense that in the past if there are student complaints for example it would have to go to me and only me. Now it depends on what the concern or what the complaint is. That means we can get to the complaint faster.” 

Santos-George said, “The model that we have in the past, which is a combination of the two, is probably more of an old model for organizational structure in higher education.”

A committee made of faculty and staff made recommendations throughout the hiring process.  President Andres Oroz said about Champs, “She did an amazing job of representing the vision for Wright College vice president of student affairs. Together with the feedback that we got from the committee and the campus community about her candidacy showed me she has the leadership and the vision.”

The new role still requires Santos-George, who was previously vice president of student and academic affairs, to collaborate with Champs. “Obviously there’s collaboration between academic and student affairs, there always will be, we do not want to silo that, but to really push the envelope and be more innovative and supportive of our faculty and staff in both areas, having two vice presidents will help us with that,” Oroz said.

 Santos-George said about Champs, “I know she is very proactive, visionary, and goal-oriented and she’s also a kind person. So I really look forward to working with her to pursue shared goals and objectives for our students and our community.”

Champs said about getting the new role, “It means a lot, I am a first generation college grad, I’ve come from spaces where family and friends would have never even thought about what it could look like to support others on a level like this.”

“This is more than a job to me,” Champs said. “I decided really early at the age of 19 that I wanted to have a life of service and be committed to others. I wanted to spend my days thinking about how my skills and my resources could go beyond myself.”

Champs talked about her goals as vice president of student affairs. “I hope to accomplish supporting the college as we move into this new phase of being more trauma informed, that is something that we are looking to really explore and branch out even more and our goal is to be equity minded and serve students with excellence and access and so as an institution thinking of excellence and access the ultimate goal is that students have access to whatever they need to reach their goals.” 

Champs said, “I believe when we decide and make decisions we got to do it with the student voices in mind, so it’s gonna be very vital and very important for me to engage with our student body, clubs, our student leaders and with that engagement for me the sole purpose is to hear their voices, make sure we’re meeting their needs and even to bring in more creativity, things we can be doing differently, and things that we can expand upon. I think the only way to do that is by engaging with students, building relationships with students, meeting students  where  they are, getting to know students.”

In her free time Champs said she enjoys time with loved ones, food and shoes. “I really enjoy spending time with my friends and my family, we have good time over meals so I am a food connoisseur so maybe that’s a hobby and I love gym shoes, I’m a sneaker head so maybe that's a hobby too, seeing what new gym shoes are coming out.”

Champs holds a Master of Divinity from Northern Baptist Theological Seminary and a Master of Arts in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from Roosevelt University. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology with a minor in English/Writing from Chicago State University and is currently a doctoral candidate in trauma-informed leadership at North Park Seminary. She is also one of the chairs of the Black Student Union.

Santos-George gave Champs advice on how to succeed as vice president of student affairs. “There is nothing that cannot be solved. There is always a solution. Listening is very important, especially because our position is very critical to the determination of solutions to issues.”

Vice President Champs in her office. Photo Credit: Kyle Chmielowski.