March 29, 2024

Creston native returns to fill SWCC dean of student services position

Southwestern Community College has named former Creston native Katie Davidson as its new dean of student services.

President of SWCC Barbara Crittenden said it was Davidson’s excitement and enthusiasm throughout the interview process, her educational background and work experience that made her the ideal candidate for the position.

“I’m really excited about SWCC and community colleges in general,” said Davidson. “Sometimes universities kind of lose sight of the mission of access to education. Community colleges don’t forget that mission, so I’m really excited to be working in that setting.”

As dean of student services at SWCC, Davidson will oversee anything related to the students attending SWCC, such as admissions, registration, resident life, athletics and student support services.

“I’m kind of overseeing the student experience, making sure that all the different areas are working okay and that SWCC is providing the best experience for all the students to be successful,” said Davidson.

Davidson comes to SWCC from the University of North Dakota where she worked with international students for two and a half years. She has a PhD in higher education, which she said taught her to recognize and dismantle barriers students could face in their pursuit of education.

“That’s sort of how I work,” said Davidson. “No matter what my goals are, no matter what job I’m in, I look at barriers for the customer, if I’m in financial services, or the student, if I’m in education, and how we get those barriers out of the way so that people can be successful and don’t have to work so hard to find a way to better their life.”

Connections

While coming back to Creston after almost 15 years will be a challenge, Davidson said, she is looking forward to coming back and reconnecting with the community and friends she went to school with who are still here.

Davidson will be accompanied by her husband, Andy, and their 6-year-old daughter, Vienna. She also has a large, extended family in southwest Iowa.

“That’s huge,” said Davidson. “We’ll have cousins for my daughter to play with, lots of cousins. But also, it’s so interesting to be an adult and hang out with your parents and your relatives and get to know them as people as opposed to, like, your mom or your dad or your grandma or whoever. I’m excited to do that.”

Connections are important to Davidson.

“I’m very much a relationship builder and a people person,” said Davidson. “Even though I love that work, it can get overwhelming when you have so many people you need to check in on and so many people who are connected to the projects you are working on. In a smaller setting, people are not only wearing different hats, there’s just fewer people. Everything (at SWCC) is more interconnected, and it’s nice to see that the decisions that you do have an impact, whether that’s a positive impact, or, potentially, a negative impact. It’s much easier to see that and adjust your course of action so that things are going the way they need to go.”

Davidson said it’s easier to make and maintain connections in a small community college setting because there are fewer people she will have to check in with, and added that she is looking forward to exploring the connections that already exist between SWCC and the community, and seeing how she can help them grow while keeping more SWCC graduates in Creston.