Integrating Student Life from Admissions to Graduation
Ngina Lythcott is appointed associate dean for students at the School of Public Health.
Ngina Lythcott has been appointed to the newly created position of associate dean for students at the Boston University School of Public Health. The job combines the duties of Arthur Culbert, retired associate dean for admissions, with those of Gail Douglas, retired associate dean for students. Lythcott is currently vice dean and dean of students at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.
Although she begins her new position on January 16, Lythcott already has projects lined up, including a new student space in the Talbot Building and a new SPH-based office of student financial management to improve oversight of financial aid applications and grants. “One of the things I’m really excited about is working with a school of public health that is perfectly perched to be a tier one school,” says Lythcott. “The leadership under [Dean] Bob Meenan has worked hard to develop the foundation and a powerful intellectual resource to step into tier one.”
“At Columbia’s Mailman School of Public Health, Ngina has done an excellent job of strengthening student services, admissions, and financial aid and also created a particularly strong career services program. Under her leadership, we will now manage and coordinate recruitment, admissions, student affairs, and the duties of the registrar’s office and career services under a single associate dean,” says Robert Meenan (MED’72, GSM’89), SPH dean. “I look forward to the benefit of her experience, creativity, wisdom, and leadership in helping us pull together these essential functions so that SPH can provide students with an integrated pathway from application to admission to matriculation to graduation to employment.”
Part of Lythcott’s reason for joining SPH is because of her family’s BU legacy: her father, George Lythcott, graduated from the School of Medicine in 1943, and her grandfather was also a BU graduate. “It feels like it’s time for the Lythcott family to give back to the academic institution that has been so empowering to us, and I’m the right Lythcott to do it,” she says. “Boston University has had a long and constructive relationship with the African-American community.”
Lythcott is excited about SPH’s commitment to continued partnerships with surrounding communities and the impact those links have on local, regional, and global public health. “I look forward to working with Bob Meenan and the rest of the staff and faculty,” she says, “in ensuring that the BU School of Public Health is seen in its rightful place as a major player in public health globally.”
Brittany Jasnoff can be reached at bjasnoff@bu.edu.