Masden to leave Rice

By Jaclyn Youngblood     9/25/08 7:00pm

After holding down the fort for five years, Director of Student Activities Heather Masden will step down from her position Tuesday to return to Florida with her family. Assistant Dean of Students Catherine Clack will begin the search for a new director this semester, Masden said. As director of student activities, Masden oversees Rice clubs, provides students with opportunities to engage in leadership positions and organizes campus events.

Masden attended Colgate University for her undergraduate studies and received her master's degree in higher education from the University of Florida. After a three-year stint at the College of Charleston in South Carolina, Masden arrived at Rice in 2000 as student director, where she primarily oversaw Rice Program Council and Orientation Week planning.

Madsen said the position at Rice appealed to her because she was already familiar with similar programs at the College of Charleston.

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"I had been working with a similar version of [RPC] at the College of Charleston, so that appealed to me because it was something I was familiar with," Masden said.

Masden was promoted to director of student activities in 2003 and she has since been primarily involved with organizing the annual Impact Rice retreat and overseeing the Women's Resource Center and the Student Association.

Masden said she has enjoyed getting to know the students at Rice.

"They've made this a wonderful experience," Masden said. "I think that they're so interested in pursuing whatever goal they might have and want to find whatever way they can to make it work."

Working with the students and helping them achieve their goals has kept her on her toes and has proved a demanding job, Masden said. She was involved with rescheduling Beer Bike 2007 after it was canceled due to a student death.

Masden said she finds that the solutions to these problems and the ways in which they are handled add to the university as a whole.

"It's not a problem to be challenged," Madsen said.

Masden said she, her husband and their 2-year-old child will be surrounded by three generations of family in Florida. She said she is looking forward to this new journey.

Masden said if she could leave one piece of advice to the incoming director, it would be to trust the students to find their own paths.

"It's your job to help them figure out what that is, but trust them to do it," Masden said.

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