NPHS grad now dean of students

Whoever said “You can’t go home again” forgot to tell Melinda Roper. The newly named vice president of student affairs and dean of students at California Lutheran University returned to the area seven years ago after spending years on the East Coast. She loves being back.

Roper, a 1985 graduate of Newbury Park High School, had served in the vice president position at CLU on an interim basis since July, when the former head of student affairs retired. She was named to the position permanently in mid-April.

“In this role, I love the relationship I have with my students and feel the work we do has a significant impact on their lives,” she said. “I am there at orientation and I’m there with them at graduation, having the opportunity to see them grow.”

The student affairs division encompasses most of the students’ nonacademic school life, such as residence living, multicultural programming, student counseling, and health and career services.

Until she came to Cal Lutheran in 2008, Roper’s academic life and career had been spent at larger universities.

She received a bachelor’s degree from UC Santa Barbara and went on to earn master’s and doctorate degrees from Penn State, where she also worked in student services. She went on to work at Duke University in a similar department. After 12 years at the North Carolina school, CLU, with an undergraduate population of about 3,000, offered the environment she was looking for.

“I wanted to come home and be closer to family, for sure, but I was in a point in my life where I wanted to do the work I love in a different setting,” Roper said. “I love our commitment to purpose, and I really appreciate our sense of community we have at Cal Lutheran.”

And the university appreciates her.

“She brings all kinds of experience in that, not only has she been here for a number of years, but also has experience at Duke and Penn State, ” CLU President Chris Kimball said. “To have someone who understands us as a particular institution as well as the knowledge about the field she brings is an incredible asset.”

Roper served as the director of student life since 2008 then associate dean of students since 2012.

As such, she helped expand the role of the campus awareness, referral and education team, which reviews student cases related to social, mental health, academic and behavioral issues. She also has taken a leadership role in Title IX compliance and education efforts.

Even so, she faced stiff competition for the vice president position. Kimball said the school received and considered strong applicants from across the country.

“It wasn’t just handed to her,” he said. “It wasn’t, ‘OK, we’ll make you permanent now.’ There was a national search, and she came out on top.”

Student life services has taken on an increasingly important role as institutions are realizing they have to attend to students as whole people, not just as academics, Kimball said.

“If you look at our 1,300 or so students who live on campus, they are here 24/7 and are out of the classroom more than in it, and you need a staff that’s equipped to help people get what they need in terms of everything from recreation to healthcare,” he said.

“If a student is not happy, is alienated, having roommate difficulties, struggling to pay the bills, he’s going to have a harder time succeeding academically,” Kimball said.

Under Roper, the student life services staff is helping the school embrace what Kimball called a national trend of viewing a student as a student all the time.

Roper, 48, lives in Thousand Oaks with her husband, Chad, and two children.

--- Published in the Thousand Oaks Acorn on May 14, 20015