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Just a few weeks after his unexpected death, the Saint Xavier community is still mourning the passing of Provost Paul DeVito. “It is with a profound and personal sorrow that I report the passing of our beloved Provost and chief academic officer, Dr. Paul L. DeVito, who has served the Saint Xavier community and me since July 2013,” said President Christine Wiseman in her message to the Saint Xavier student body on August 25.
DeVito’s sudden death came as a shock to many of those in the Saint Xavier community. Many people had become not just coworkers with DeVito, but also formed personal relationships with him. John Pelrine, vice president for student affairs, had a good relationship with DeVito since the beginning.
“We hit it off from the very beginning and we collaborated on a very high level. He would always say, ‘We’re partners in this and we’re going to work together’,” said Pelrine.
DeVito’s collaborative spirit was a welcomed addition to Saint Xavier. Dr. Nelson Hathcock, professor of English, sat on the search committee for the university’s new provost in 2013.
“It was imperative that our next chief academic officer be a consensus-builder, someone who could wade into a crowd full of competing priorities and come out on the other side trailing a single group unified by sensible compromise and common cause,” said Hathcock.
Hathcock revealed that the provost also needed to be someone that would listen and be able to work effectively with staff and especially faculty members of the university. “This ability draws not only on a clear-eyed view of the big picture, but on the ability to listen to individuals–students and staff as well as faculty and other administrators–and make connections. We certainly felt that in Paul we’d found that person,” said Hathcock.
According to Wiseman, DeVito lived up to his promises. “I think that Dr. DeVito more than fulfilled all of my expectations for a provost who would understand the work of the university and compliment my vision for moving this university forward,” said Wiseman.
Before being hired at Saint Xavier, DeVito had a successful career at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. This experience was a factor in why DeVito was hired at Saint Xavier.
“He knew what we were about. He knew what it meant to be a Catholic institution of our size. […] He knew about the kind of student body we had, that it was a relatively economically needy student body, but a talented one. A talented student body that just needs access. As he talked to us, it was clear that he understood this place well,” said Pelrine.
DeVito also knew and respected the role of faculty members at the university.
“A really great thing that I’m hearing from faculty is that he really understood what it meant to be a faculty member. He had been faculty for most of his career and then he started moving up the ranks at Saint Joe’s. He had a real respect for the role of faculty in the governance of the institution. That’s a big deal to faculty,” said Pelrine.
DeVito was an incredibly personable man. “He liked people. He was very engaged. He had great ideas and one of the things about people who with stories is that they listen to the stories of other people. There is no one that he didn’t find interesting,” said Wiseman.
“He had a great sense of humor, a wicked sense of humor and he was just easy to be with. He liked to travel and he was extremely proud of his son and very attached to his wife. He was easy to get to know and easy to get to like,” said Pelrine.
DeVito’s sense of humor came shining through as Pelrine recalled a story about one ugly paint color. “You know when the A wing got painted last summer? That gross peach color? He picked that color and we never let him forget it. We ribbed him mercilessly and the president started it. She’s like, ‘I don’t know why I let you pick the color.’ And he said, ‘I thought it would be a good color!’,” said Pelrine.
DeVito’s choice of paint color was only the first of many decorative changes he made in the school. His other design ideas were a little more successful than the paint.
“A sign went up one day out of the blue with the name of all of the staff who were in the A wing. He thought it would be easier for students to find who they needed. And he put up pictures of new faculty on another wall. And on another spot he put up pictures of the Faculty Member of the Year for the last ten years,” said Pelrine.
DeVito also brought many large changes to the university in hopes of advancing programs, hiring several deans, and bringing in more revenue for the school.
“He had arranged to get, and it will start in the spring, an organization called English Language Services (ELS). Which will bring international students to SXU starting in March. […] So that can be something that we can look back and say, ‘Paul did that’. He was also making strides on recruiting international students outright, not through ELS. He had made a number of forays into China, Saudi Arabia and India. Those pipelines take a long time to develop, but at some point, we will see that coming. He really set the table for internationals. When he got here, he said, “We have got to recruit internationally’,” said Pelrine.
The changes made by DeVito, big or small, will leave a lasting impression on Saint Xavier for many years to come. “I would like to repeat something that I said at his funeral, ‘His legacy to us was his care of our mission and our people modeled after the care he gave his own family. He was a man of great thought and small gestures and in the end it was those small gestures that had the greatest impact,” said Wiseman.
A memorial ceremony will be held in DeVito’s honor on September 18th at 3:00 p.m. in the McDonough Chapel of the Mother of Mercy. All members of the Saint Xavier community are invited to gather with DeVito’s wife, Dr. Rebecca Lipner, his brother, Dr. Lipner’s brother, and others to mourn the passing of Dr. Paul DeVito.
Additional resources for this article provided by Brian Laughran.
Lauren Dwyer
Deputy Editor-in-Chief