The University of Texas at Austin Housing and Dining Executive Director Hemlata Jhaveri will serve as the new Executive Director of Housing Dining Hospitality (HDH) after April 16, 2018.
The current Executive Director, Assistant Vice Chancellor Mark Cunningham, will retire at the end of the academic year amid two different responses: consistent and public student frustration from students and praise from several administrators like Chancellor Pradeep Khosla and Vice Chancellor and Chief Financial Officer Pierre Ouillet.
“Please join me in wishing Mark a wonderful next step in his life and in warmly welcoming Hemlata to our community,” Ouillet wrote in a campus-wide email. He described Jhaveri as committed to progressive leadership and management, with a “proven record of commitment to continuously improving the student experience, building strong relationships with faculty and campus partners, new construction, and capital projects and food service operations.”
Jhaveri received a doctorate in Education and Human Resource Studies from Colorado State University, as well as a Master’s in Business Administration from Illinois State University and a Master’s in English Literature from the University of Mumbai.
“I look forward to reaching out to them [Jhaveri] and connecting them to issues students are facing with HDH today,” Associated Students of UC San Diego (ASUCSD) President Lesly Figueroa told The Triton. “I plan to create a strategic plan with the new director that elevates students’ needs and authentic student and worker voices into HDH. In fact, I plan to host more student forums next quarter so students can get to meet the new director and begin creating a relationship that uplifts student and worker needs.”
Gabe Schneider is the News Editor at The Triton. You can follow him on Twitter @gabemschneider
Update June 9 3:20 p.m.: The Triton was alerted of misspellings of Jhaveri’s name in the photo caption and the article has been corrected accordingly.