Current Assistant Director of Multicultural Student Programs and Services, Glen D. Lloyd has recently been named the Director of Alumni and Parent Engagement. Lloyd is a highly valued and respected member of the Diversity Center faculty and will transition into his new position on Dec. 4.
Lloyd grew up in the Washington D.C. area and attended Catawba College in North Carolina, where he received a degree in Communication Arts with a focus on Interpersonal Communication.
Lloyd’s career began with several jobs in youth development and leadership. He became involved in the college sphere when he was hired for a coaching position at St. Olaf College in 2007. Lloyd held a position as the Area Coordinator in Residence Life at St. Olaf before becoming the Assistant Director of Multicultural Student Programs and Services at Gustavus in 2012.
Lloyd’s new position as the Director of Alumni and Parent Engagement will help to connect alumni, parents, and others to the current events of the Gustavus community, while encouraging involvement from these parties.
“We live on a legacy of who Gustavus has been in the past and we are living that legacy every day. But, as we all know, that story morphs, it changes, we add new things, some things that were done in the past change. With Alumni and Parent Engagement, our opportunity is to share with the greater community, the greater constituency, of our alumni, parents and friends, about the work of what Gustavus is doing currently and how we’re doing it together,” Lloyd said.
Senior Darcy Coulter, who worked with Lloyd as the former publicity chair of the Diversity Leadership Council, will miss Lloyd as he moves to his new position in December.
“I always tell him that he’s my biggest cheerleader, and he is always a cheerleader for students. And I’m really going to miss having him around to encourage me and cheer me on and challenge me. He always asks the right questions that challenge you in the right ways, so I’ll miss having that,” Coulter said.
Sophomore Samantha Vang, who is active in the Diversity Education Exploration Project, where Lloyd is the advisor, shares a similar bittersweet view of Lloyd’s departure from his current position.
“I am going to miss his presence because he has such a big presence that he is so outgoing and very sociable and he’s very funny. Just that kind of positive presence is what I think a lot of students will miss,” Vang said.
Although Lloyd is excited to begin his new position, there are aspects of his Diversity Center position that he will miss.
“We have some really valuable conversations with students. I am going to miss sitting and talking [for hours] with students about what’s going on in their lives. I am going to miss the laughter and the joy and the pain. I am going to miss opening the eyes of new students to what a Diversity Center at Gustavus looks like. I’m going to miss making the invitation to students to be a part of who we are, by coming into this space, by being involved, by encouraging people to be active in their own development around their own identity, but I have no doubt, actually, I have the full confidence that I have with all my being that Pearl Leonard Rock and Laura Shilling will, along with an assistant director, take us to new heights and I am proud to be a part of that legacy,”Lloyd said.
As Lloyd begins his new position he hopes to stay connected to students as much as possible while continuing to spread his enthusiasm to the other constituents that he is asked to engage.
“I am excited about the fact that I get to talk, I get to encourage, I get to do the things that I’m most gifted at, which is talking and connecting people. That’s what I am most excited about, that it aligns my passion with a job,” Lloyd said.