Since October 2024, Carleton has actively searched for a new Title IX Coordinator. A previous round of candidate interviews was conducted in January 2025 but ultimately did not lead to a hiring decision.
The Title IX Coordinator oversees the Title IX office, which handles cases of sex-based discrimination at Carleton, including sexual misconduct, stalking and dating violence.
The hiring process has been multistage, and Carleton has taken care to ensure that both administration and student voices are represented.
“Choosing a new Title IX coordinator has been a collaborative effort involving student representation from the CSA; staff from a number of offices including the Division of Inclusion, Equity, and Community, the Dean of Students Office, Security, the Office of Health Promotion, and Human Resources; as well as faculty representation,” said Austin Robinson-Coolidge, Co-Chair of the Title IX Search Committee, in a joint statement with Dina Zavala, Co-Chair of the Title IX Search Committee, and Kari Hohn, the Interim Title IX Coordinator.
After all applicants were screened via phone interviews, the Selection Committee invited a small number of candidates to visit campus and participate in in-person interviews with administration and students.
“In this case for Title IX, it was OHP Peer Leaders [who were involved in the interviews] because some of them used to be a part of SMPR, which was a separate peer leading job that worked closely with Title IX until they put them into OHP to be one larger group,” said Vivian Agugo ’26, the president of the Carleton Student Association and a member of the Title IX Search Committee.
The Sexual Misconduct Prevention and Response (SMPR) office became the Sexual Misconduct Prevention division of the Office of Health Promotion (OHP) office in fall 2024.
The final stage of the selection process was a series of open forums which were scheduled for Sept. 24, Sept. 25, Oct. 3, and Oct. 6. Each candidate was invited to give a 20-minute presentation on how they would cover Title IX issues with students during New Student Week, followed by a 20-minute Q&A session open to all students, faculty and staff.
“The approaches [the candidates] described differed from each other, but we weren’t looking for a specific answer as much as we wanted to get a sense of how they would approach the training aspect of the Title IX Coordinator role and their ability to present information in a large group,” Robinson-Coolidge said in his joint statement with Zavala and Hohn.
However, student participation in the open forums was low. “I would have to say there [were] one or two other students [in the open forums],” said Agugo.
Scheduling conflicts could have been a possible explanation for the lack of student engagement with the forums. “The time period is from 10:30 to 11:30, so it’s not really conducive times for students to engage because they’re either in class for a 2a or 3a,” Agugo said.
The lack of student participation in the forums may also reflect a broader lack of student engagement with the Title IX office. “I think a lot of people, unless they know someone who has an experience with the Title IX office, don’t know much about it or don’t think too hard about it,” said Zack Shawn ’26, the WHOA House Program Manager.
The lack of student engagement in the selection process has been frustrating for CSA, especially because there have been previous student complaints about transparency surrounding the Title IX office. “[The office] says they’re supposed to release yearly reports about Title IX results… they haven’t done that since my freshman year,” Shawn said.
The college administration, however, is working to strengthen the relationship between the Title IX office and students. “An idea that my executive team has had, alongside Saint Olaf, is to have teach-ins to better inform students, as well as just having ways to engage either through OHP or SHAC or any other offices,” said Agugo. “I foresee OHP and SHAC being one of the biggest places they would engage or collaborate with to do more front-facing events… like tabling just to get the word out and show we are here to be a resource to you.”
The new Title IX coordinator has the potential to reform the Title IX office while also improving student engagement and trust.
“I’m confident in all the candidates that we have for Title IX,” said Agugo. “I really do have huge hopes that they will be able to get the ground running once they’re hired.”
