Peter Snyder, the director of Residence Life, will be retiring an the end of this year after 33 years of service to the RPI community.
When Snyder first started working at the Institute, there was no Center for Industrial Innovation, no Jonsson Engineering Center, no Folsom Library, and the Voorhees Computing Center was being used as the campus library. Academy Hall was owned by the Troy School District and was P.S. 14. Most of the student housing on campus, though, was already here with the exception of Barton Hall and the Colonie Apartments.
Snyder has been a part of Residence Life since 1973, which was the Department of Housing in those days. Snyder received his bachelor’s degree in English from St. John Fisher College in 1968. After that, he decided to pursue a master’s degree in health administration at SUNY Brockport. Snyder spent three years there as a resident graduate assistant before joining RPI. Back then, the Department of Housing consisted of six housing representatives and several councilors who reported to the Dean of Students Office. Soon thereafter, the representatives and councilors were combined under Residence Life. Snyder said it was a shift in how on-campus housing was viewed. “Housing is a commodity, whereas residence life is an extension of education,” he said.
Vice President for Student Life Eddie Knowles had kind words for his colleague of almost 30 years. “He’s really been the architect of the Residence Life program at Rensselaer,” said Knowles. “Residence Life is all about the quality of life, customer service, and care of the students. It starts with the person at the top, and that’s him.” Knowles has been Snyder’s peer and colleague since 1977, when Knowles started in the Dean of Students Office.
In his term, Snyder has worked to increase the bond between education and housing, including the Opening Doors program which was started three years ago. This year, over 1,000 students in all of the freshman and six of the upperclass residence halls were visited by faculty volunteers. There has been a lot of programming by the resident assistant staff as well. Over 235 programs were run by resident assistants, with over 5,000 students attending those events, according to statistics provided by Knowles.
“Pete is someone who has clearly left a mark on the Rensselaer community,” said Knowles. Snyder is very proud of the development of Residence Life to what it is now. “Training and selection of resident assistants are all getting better. We have great assistant directors, and the staff is very collaborative,” said Snyder. “I came to RPI and loved it. I’ve really enjoyed working with the students.”
Since Melissa Powers, the former associate director of Residence Life, left in September, there is no clear candidate to fill the position Snyder is vacating. Snyder will continue to be involved during the interim period, however. Knowles, who appointed himself acting athletics director after Bob Ducatte retired in 2001, said he will not be doing the same for Residence Life. It is not in a crisis period, Knowles stated.
Knowles said, “Someone who serves for that long in an organization leaves an imprint on that organization. We need to find what that print was. Pete’s going to be missed, but he’s built us a great platform to build off of.” Knowles plans to meet with the Residence Life staff and get feedback from them before deciding on the future of the position.
Snyder said that he will be taking it easy during his retirement, taking care of his house and spending time with his two grandchildren.
