Jomysha Delgado Stephen will join President-elect Sian Leah Beilock's Dartmouth team as executive vice president for strategy, chief of staff, and special counsel to the president, Dartmouth announced today. She currently serves as executive vice president of the college and general counsel at Barnard College.
She begins the role in August.
"Jomysha's wisdom and dedication have been an invaluable resource throughout my tenure at Barnard, and I am delighted she has agreed to bring her many talents to Dartmouth," says President-elect Beilock, who has been president of Barnard since 2017 and starts at Dartmouth in July. "Chief among those talents is a tremendous capacity for collaborative problem-solving and for finding common ground among stakeholders with diverse interests."
Stephen will coordinate high-level strategic initiatives that span and engage multiple areas across the institution. She will also oversee the Office of the President, Office of the Board of Trustees, Office of Compliance, and a new Office of Government and Community Relations. In addition, she will work closely with the Office of the General Counsel.
"I am very excited to join the Dartmouth community. As a higher education professional, I have long admired Dartmouth's distinctive role in higher education, its global reputation for teaching and scholarship, and its unique sense of place," Stephen says. "As hard as it is to leave Barnard, where I have spent nearly half my life, this new position presents a natural opportunity for me to grow professionally, applying the experience I've gained to new and exciting challenges."
Stephen, who is Puerto Rican and the highest-ranking Latina at Barnard, grew up in New York City. She majored in Russian language and literature at Barnard, graduating magna cum laude, and went on to earn her JD from Columbia University School of Law. She began her legal career as an associate in the commercial real estate divisions of Paul, Hastings, Janofsky & Walker LLP and Sonnenschein, Nath & Rosenthal LLP.
In 2003, she returned to Barnard as associate counsel in the Office of General Counsel. Over the past 20 years, serving three presidents, she has taken on increased responsibility, first as general counsel, then chief of staff to the president, and, most recently, as Barnard's chief administrative and legal officer.
During her tenure at Barnard, Stephen was instrumental in pioneering new strategic initiatives, from Beyond Barnard—a lifelong career support network for students and graduates—to CARES, a holistic approach to fostering a safe and welcoming community, steering institution-wide initiatives, such as Barnard community-wide discussions on its transgender admissions policy, and spearheading Barnard's Pandemic Response Leadership Team.
Stephen's dedication to developing leadership at all levels has resulted in an institutional commitment to creating pathways for professional success across Barnard for staff interested in developing beyond their specific areas of expertise.
Stephen serves on the board of the Fund for the City of New York and is a member of the National Association of College and University Attorneys, where she has served on the Membership Committee and is part of the Latino Lawyers Affinity Group.
She and her husband, Sanoj, have two children, Bailey and Connor.