Vice President and Dean of the College Paul J. McLoughlin II, PhD, has received the Pillar of the Profession Award from the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA) Foundation. The award is one of NASPA’s highest distinctions, honoring individuals who have excelled in scholarship, mentorship, and service.
The development of the Residential Commons system and the West Campus project, as well as a redesigned orientation program, are a few of the ways McLoughlin has made his mark on the Colgate community since he arrived in 2017.
“Dean McLoughlin learns before he leads and grounds decisions in evidence,” says Dean of Students Dorsey Spencer. “He not only makes institutions stronger — he makes the people around him more thoughtful, disciplined, and courageous in how they lead.”
Through a wide variety of duties, from administrative advising to counseling, McLoughlin tries to ensure that he can make changes to improve student life in and out of the classroom.
“I’ve had the opportunity to work alongside Dean McLoughlin on Student Affairs and Academic Affairs boards,” says Student Government Association President Harshitha Talasila ’26. “His dedication to students consistently stands out — whether through his help during the student government constitutional rewrite or his open office hours, which give students space to voice their concerns and feel supported.”
Mentorship is a foundation of McLoughlin’s philosophy. “Students have to see you as their mentor,” he says. “It’s like having your best friend and your biggest fan all in one. Most of the answers can be found within yourself, but a mentor helps ask the right questions so you can unlock the answers.”
Another significant and more personal accomplishment has been establishing “an incredibly strong and committed team that truly cares about students,” McLoughlin says. “The only way it happens — and that it happens well — is because I’ve hired a phenomenal team, and we work together.”
That team, under McLoughlin’s leadership, was instrumental in seeing Colgate through the COVID-19 pandemic and, more recently, in advancing Third-Century Plan priorities around student life. “These jobs are a lot of decisions,” McLoughlin says. “Any one of them may not seem noteworthy, but the totality of it all makes a difference in students’ lives.”