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Sindy Abadie named special assistant to the vice president, Academic Affairs

Sindy AbadieSindy Abadie began her career as an adjunct 14 years ago and was promoted to full time instructor a year later. Since then, she has served as a Business and Legal Studies associate professor and most recently as Achieving the Dream Director and co-chair of the Student Success Council.

Abadie is taking on a new role with Southwest as Special Assistant to the Vice President for Academic Affairs. President Tracy D. Hall tapped Abadie for the role last month following the announced departure of Vice President for Academic Affairs Dr. Chris Ezell.

Having served as VP for Academic Affairs for St. Louis Community College prior to her arrival at Southwest, President Hall will take on the duties of the VP for Academic Affairs while the College searches for Dr. Ezell’s replacement. She says serving as president and vice president during the transition means that an assistant who has their finger on the pulse of the faculty is critical. “This transition is an excellent opportunity for me to work even more closely with faculty,” Dr. Hall said. “Sindy was an obvious choice as she has done outstanding work with ATD and has a stellar reputation as a longstanding faculty member. She is highly respected and exceptionally competent. I look forward to working with her in this new capacity.”

Abadie says her main goal as special assistant is to work with Dr. Hall to ensure Academic Affairs continues to move forward with its ATD efforts and day-to-day operations during the transition. “I will help manage the Office of Academic Affairs and work with the team to ensure there is no interruption or diminishment in the office’s service to students, faculty, and Academic Affairs staff,” she said. “There are so many exciting things going on academically at the College—from the new Funeral Service Education program launch to SWIFT to our ongoing assessment of our offerings.  I want to see this outstanding progress continue and throttle up.”

One way Abadie plans to throttle up in Academic Affairs is to improve communication within the division and to the broader college community.  “There have been many changes over the last three years and our employees need to be informed and involved,” she said. One way to do this is through a new monthly newsletter that Abadie says will debut within the next few weeks or so. 

“Communication flow has been a challenge in the past,” she said. “I am very excited about tackling this issue. The goal is to lessen our dependence on emails or information funneling through the chain of command and present it in a central location so that faculty feel connected and informed about division news and developments.”

Abadie also plans to centralize communication flow into the Academic Affairs Office. She has set up an email that faculty and staff can use to communicate concerns with the office: facultyconcerns@southwest.tn.edu . “Faculty and staff can send an email to this address and I will personally check it daily and follow up on all concerns while maintaining confidentiality.”

Abadie also has her eye on processes.  “I want to streamline and modernize processes and procedures wherever possible so that we are more effective in our service and nimble in our response.

“The ultimate goal is student success and for me, this means supporting and empowering our employees in what they do because that leads to successful outcomes.”

Abadie earned a bachelor’s degree in marketing from University of Mississippi and an MBA from University of Memphis. She may be reached via email at csabadie@southwest.tn.edu or (901) 333-4715. Her office is located in Academic Affairs in the Farris Administration Building on the Macon Cove Campus, second floor.