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Charlton to lead Lang Center

BY APOLLINE BERTY and KAITLIN KYI

In print | April 12, 2007

Joy Charlton, associate dean for academic affairs and professor of sociology, has been appointed as the new executive director of the Lang Center for Civic and Social Responsibility, replacing Jennie Keith. After holding the position for the past five years, Keith, who is the founding director of the Lang Center as well as a professor of anthropology, will be retiring from the position after this spring semester. She has worked at the college for 39 years.

“We’ll all miss [Keith] tremendously,” Director for Community Partnerships and Planning Cynthia Jetter said. “She has a personal commitment to civic responsibility and community and the need to be a citizen of the world.” Charlton has already attended some staff meetings and some of the programs as well. “As much as possible, she’s trying to be as present as she can with her current position,” Jetter said.

Charlton, a sociologist, has been a faculty member at the college for over 25 years. “I am very excited at the opportunity to work with the Lang Center and its goals,” Charlton said. “I have been interested and involved in the activities now under the umbrella of the Lang Center long before there was a Lang Center.”

Charlton will use her experience as associate dean of academic affairs and as a sociologist in her new role as the executive director of the Lang Center to integrate learning for students both inside and outside the classroom. She also hopes to maintain Keith’s abilities of communication for the center. “has helped the college focus its vision of who we can collectively be, while seeing to the practicalities of creating an organization with staff, funding and a physical place,” Charlton said. “I am very grateful for all that she has done, and for all that the talented and hard-working Lang staff have been doing with her.”

In the immediate future, the center will be relocating from near the train station to 3-5 Whittier Place, a change that Charlton is especially eager for students to know about. The relocation will give the center a more central presence on campus as well as more room.

The new center will include offices for staff, a community room described by Charlton as a “smaller version of the Scheuer Room,” a seminar room, a meeting room, three areas of informal space and a workshop area for student groups. “The portion designed for direct student use will be open and available at night. Students have been asking for this kind of space for a long time, and I hope they will be as enthusiastic about it as I am,” she said. If all goes according to plan, the building will be ready for use by fall 2007.

Keith believed the transition would run smoothly, having worked with Charlton on numerous occasions before. “I’m very excited that Joy Charlton is going to be the next executive director,” Keith said. Keith will have an office in the center’s new building, where she will continue her research on the relationship between Swarthmore and Chester.

Virginia Tice ‘09, who is a student intern at the Lang Center, is pleased that a suitable replacement for Keith was found. "The personality traits that I’ve encountered [in her] will be very valuable for the new position," Tice said.

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