Lisa Grubbs, the new Residence Life director, comes to Nicholls with a lot of experience and plans for making the Nicholls housing program even better. Grubbs, a native Texan, has worked in student affairs for twenty-six years. She comes to Nicholls from Texas A&M University, where she worked in housing operations.

She also has work experience from the University of Dallas and Oklahoma State University. In addition, she worked at the University of Missouri St. Louis, where she aided in building a housing program from scratch.

Grubbs holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology with a minor in marketing and management from Texas A&M as well as a master’s degree in industrial psychology. She earned her doctorate in student counseling from Oklahoma State.

Grubbs will coordinate programming involved with the residence halls and the students living on campus.

She will be working closely with Kim Montague, the new housing director, as well as the Residence Hall Association.

Grubbs said she is excited about the position and eager to begin.

“There are so many exciting things here, so much potential,” Grubbs said.

She said her experience so far has been fabulous. She said she feels the people are helpful and patient. She likes the openness to new ideas found at Nicholls and the opportunity to collaborate with the faculty.

Grubbs is excited about working with the new residence halls. She said these new facilities are a “part of the mix that will make Nicholls one of the best colleges in Louisiana and in the country’s southern region.”

She thinks it will be fun to be a factor in the cutting edge era that Nicholls is entering.

In the past, both Grubbs and Montague have managed housing operations and residence life combined. Grubbs said she believes that having the job split will give them the opportunity to provide a program that the students can be proud of.

She said residence life is not an entity all its own; it is a part of the larger campus community, so it must help students to get involved.

“I am a strong believer that there are no apathetic students; only students who haven’t been engaged,” Grubbs said.

She wants to give the students who live on campus a sense of ownership by giving them more choices that will meet individual needs.

She said, in order to achieve this, students’ ideas must be heard. Doing so will allow the students to have the experience that they choose, she said.

“It’s not one size fits all,” Grubbs said.

Coming to Nicholls at a time when new residence halls are being built, Grubbs is excited about the opportunity available. She recognizes, however, there will be challenges to face.

She said the biggest challenge will likely be bringing together one residential system.

She said it will be a task to unify the old residence halls with the new residence halls, both of which will need to be unified with the La Maison du Bayou apartment complex.

Grubbs said the students having to get to know one another will be a challenge that is necessary to meet in order to ensure the students’ satisfaction.

“Prioritizing all this opportunity,” she said, “will also be a challenge.”

Students can look forward to many special events that Grubbs has in the works that will enhance the programming involved with residence life.

Despite the challenges presented, she said she is excited about encountering all of them.

“The door is always open,” she said. “We are interested in opinions, preferences and concerns. We are on the threshold of evolution.