Help Center director appointed new university ombudsperson

BY BARBARA PALMER

David Rasch, director of the Help Center, has been appointed university ombudsperson, Vice Provost for Campus Relations LaDoris Cordell announced.

Rasch succeeds Lowell Price, who has served as ombudsperson since last April and will retire tomorrow following a 37-year career here.

Rasch, 51, has been a counselor at the Help Center since 1985 and director since 1992. He holds a bachelor's degree in philosophy from Colgate University, a master's degree from the Naropa Institute and a doctorate in counseling psychology from the California Institute of Integral Studies. Rasch, who has a private psychotherapy practice in Palo Alto, has served as a consultant and trainer for numerous university departments and has written about assisting university faculty and staff through organizational changes.

"David has a good read for people. He has spent his entire professional life working with people, and with people in crisis," Cordell said. "Everyone who knows him, who has worked with him or has interacted with him comes away thinking what a decent and fine person he is," Cordell added. Rasch "knows the university inside and out. He's done a great job running the Help Center" and is respected and trusted by staff, faculty and students, she said.

Rasch was named following an internal search made by a committee that included Cordell; Jeff Wachtel, senior assistant to President John Hennessy; Laraine Zappert, director of the Sexual Harassment Policy Office; Debra Zumwalt, vice president and general counsel; and Christine Yam, human resource officer in the Office of the President and Provost. Rasch was the committee's unanimous choice, Cordell said.

"My philosophy is that when positions open up at the university, it's important to look within. There's lots of talent here," Cordell said. An internal search for the Help Center director position will begin immediately, she said.

The ombudsperson position seems like a natural next step for him, Rasch said. "I have become very interested in workplace and academic issues as a result of my work at the Help Center, where I've seen many staff, faculty, postdocs and graduate students concerned about what was happening in their professional or educational life at Stanford.

"The university is a large, complex organization, and there are always challenging situations turning up that involve disagreements, difficult feelings and misunderstandings, so the need for helpful interventions is ongoing," he said. "I am very interested in figuring out how to creatively promote positive change in the personal, interpersonal and institutional elements of these situations."

The ombudsperson strives to see that faculty, staff and students at the university are treated fairly and equitably. According to information provided by the Ombuds Office, the ombudsperson operates outside of the usual school and administrative structures, is answerable to the president and is authorized to talk to all persons at the university in order to resolve problems. Information shared with the ombudsperson is confidential, except where disclosing information is required by law, and conversations with the ombudsperson may not be used in a grievance or other formal proceeding.

Although the Help Center and the Ombuds Office are both confidential services, "as ombudsperson, I will have more options available to me than I do at the Help Center for actively resolving problems in concrete ways, and I think I'll like that," Rasch said. "As ombudsperson, I will be more likely to engage the resources and offices of the university directly and to facilitate conversations between people in conflict. I am also looking forward to dealing with students' concerns more than I have at the Help Center.

"I have had a wonderful experience working as both a counselor and director at the Help Center and telling the staff I was leaving was very difficult," he said. "Fortunately, I am not moving very far away and will be able to keep up pretty regular contact with my friends there."

Rasch's appointment is effective May 1. Rasch lives in Portola Valley with his wife, Jean, and has two adult daughters.