Former Hammonds advisor D. E. Lorraine Sterritt left her position as College dean for administration in the fall, a vacancy that has gone without a permanent replacement throughout Pfister’s tenure. An exodus of staffers at the academic year’s end is expected to include Howell, Secretary of the Ad Board John “Jay” L. Ellison, and Cabot House Resident Dean Emily W. Stokes-Rees, all of whom played a large role in the adjudication of the cheating case through their involvement with the Ad Board.

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Khurana will also be faced with implementing the recently approved honor code and creating the student-faculty judicial board charged with hearing academic integrity cases. And other student life issues will remain on the plate for the College’s next top administrator as well, including the recently created “inclusion” working group, which is set to begin meeting in the fall, an ongoing Department of Education Title IX investigation, and a new University-wide sexual assault policy that is awaiting Dept. of Education approval.

“It’s par for the course,” says Currier House Master Elizabeth A. Ross. “I imagine you’re focused on working on the issues that are most important for that year and thinking about who’s going to take over in the long-run. You’re not the dean; you’re the interim dean.”

Howell agreed that Pfister has in many ways “set the stage” for Khurana to work with others on future, substantial initiatives.

“I think there’s a way that the kind of atmosphere that Dean Pfister has created...has made it more likely that collaborative projects like the honor code or College initiatives will be successful,” Howell says. “Fostering that trust might not always seem like sweeping and substantive work, but it over time creates a better space for good things to happen.”

For his part, Pfister acknowledges that his tenure was not one that was particularly full of big projects and goals.

“Knowing that you’re interim, it’s...unfair to saddle someone who you know is going to be following you with projects or ideas or special things they may or may not agree with or may not feel the same way that you do about them,” Pfister says.

Reflecting on his year, Pfister says that he believes he was largely successful as dean of the College.

“I think a very healthy organization and set of relationships are being handed off, and I’m proud of that,” Pfister says, adding that he is confident Khurana would also be successful. Mayopoulos and Goffard both say they are confident their already strong relationship with Khurana will allow for productive negotiations next year, as well.

But others, while agreeing with Pfister in his assessment, emphasize that it is not so clear that things will be the same with a permanent dean.

“Let’s not be reductive about this...let’s not just have the expectation for dean of the College be that they send cute emails,” Raghuveer says. “We need to expect more of the leaders of this institution. Ideally that is a part of it, ideally that communication is maintained and that humanity is maintained, but we need to ‘get shit done.’”

—Staff writer Noah J. Delwiche can be reached at noah.delwiche@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @ndelwiche.

—Staff writer Steven S. Lee can be reached at steven.lee@thecrimson.com. Follow him on Twitter @StevenSJLee.

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:

CORRECTION: June 27, 2014

An earlier version of a photograph accompanying this article was incorrectly attributed. In fact, the photograph was taken by Sue Brown, the College's associate director of advising programs.