Tyson Goings will be interim director of Residence Life effective in January. Vice President for Student Life Julie DeGraw said his skills and abilities made him a strong candidate for this position.
Goings began working with Kevin Williams, who resigned to accept the same role at Anderson (S.C.) University, at the beginning of December to get a feel for the position.
“Because I know his skills and abilities, I believe he is a good fit for this job. I discussed this with [President Wood], who is the ultimate person who does all hiring and firing at the university,” DeGraw said. “I know him as an employee already, and I feel that he has the skills and abilities to be successful in this position.”
After being approached about the idea, Goings met with DeGraw and President Wood before deciding to take on this new role.
“I’m a person that likes to process, so I took some time and I had to process everything, and then my wife and I discussed and decided that this sounds like a great opportunity, so we agreed to it,” Goings said.
Goings is currently the director of Multicultural Student Development. He will retain some of the responsibilities of this position going forward, along with new ones that fall to the Interim of Residence Life.
The plan is for Goings to continue his work with the Multicultural Student Organization and Project H.O.M.E., which are the pieces of his current role that DeGraw says they feel like have the most direct impact on students. He will give up coaching, teaching Becoming a Scholar and counseling to allow him to focus on his other duties.
“I have mixed feelings about [Goings not teaching], because he’s good in that class,” DeGraw said. “It’s nice to have that connection between student affairs and academic affairs, so it’s kind of a trade off to have him in the other role.”
Although Goings won’t be teaching, this new set of duties will allow him to work with more students overall.
“The thing that I’m most excited about is the opportunity to hopefully have a larger impact on our students,” Goings said. “My current role is working with our underrepresented students and the football program, and I think this will allow me to work with more students and hopefully have an impact and allow them to have the experience that they’re looking for at Bluffton.”
Goings believes his past experience, as well as support from his family, will allow him to be successful in adjusting to this new role.
“I think the balancing act will be something that will be a challenge at times, but I think the previous semester, with balancing out this position, coaching, and teaching, will help,” Goings said. “My family is understanding, knowing that there might be some times in the evening where I’m having to do things to get things where they need to be, so having flexibility with the family will help me with the balancing act of this.”
Although Goings is stepping into an interim position, it has the potential to become permanent. DeGraw said she believes the interim position is fitting for now because hiring someone not already with the university is often difficult mid-school year. She said the future of this role will be revisited at the end of the semester to evaluate if this makes sense as a long term solution or not.
“I think it’s a good situation for me to be able to get a semester into it, and process everything, and then evaluate at the end of the semester with Julie and President Wood and see if this is a good fit for me from their standpoint and also for myself to see if this is a role that I can see myself in moving forward,” Goings said. “I think that’s a good thing about being in an interim position, is that gives you a chance to feel things out and see if this is a good fit from both sides looking at it.”
DeGraw is confident that Goings will serve the university and students well during this interim period.
“If anybody can do it, Tyson can,” DeGraw said. “He’s really gifted and wanted to have some experience in another area, too, and I think that he has those skills and abilities.”
