By Anne Baker
With a background as a successful lawyer, Madeleine Estabrook will bring a more business-oriented sensibility to University Health and Counseling Services (UHCS) and give it a fresh start, she said.
Estabrook, who began her term as executive director of UHCS Monday, comes from Boston law firm Edwards, Angell, Palmer and Dodge, where she specialized in health care law and advised health care providers, according to her biography on the law firm’s website. Her background gives her an advantage in dealing with the problems UHCS faces, she said.
“I don’t have a clinical background,” she said. “I have, however, represented health care facilities and reviewed their systems from both an operational standpoint and a clinical standpoint to create ways of operation that are efficient, effective, high-quality and meet the needs that are identified by the administration.”
Estabrook first started working with Northeastern last summer, said Philomena Mantella, senior vice president for enrollment and student life, when she was hired as a consultant to help evaluate UHCS. As Estabrooks began to work with the institution, she developed a fondness for UHCS and eventually applied for the position of executive director, Mantella said.
Estabrook’s application came as a “big surprise,” Mantella said.
“She kind of fell in love with the college environment and the center and the people in the center, and she actually applied for the job,” Mantella said. “I would not have anticipated that we could ever have recruited Madeline.”
The position had been left vacant after former director Roberta Berrien, who had been there for about 2 1/2 years announced her resignation last fall. Berrien’s term as executive director, which Mantella called “controversial,” saw 23 employees of the center resign, many citing poor employee-management relations with Berrien.
Chris Bourne, who is Student Government Association vice president for student affairs and served as the student voice on the search committee for the new executive director, said Estabrook’s appointment had a fair amount of support from the staff.
“She definitely had the most support from the committee and the staff from UHCS,” Bourne said. “They were all really happy to hear that she had been appointed as director.”
Bourne said Estabrook’s experience as a health care provider consultant gives her the capabilities to fix the problems at UHCS many students have voiced concerns about.
“She’s been able to advise and see what works and what doesn’t for so many different kinds of organization,” he said. “She’s going to be able to bring all that knowledge to UHCS to make it the best possible service for students that it can be.”
Estabrooks said the biggest problem she has identified in her short term as executive director for the center is how to be accessible to students.
“I think UHCS’s biggest issue is how to meet the access needs,” she said. “How to make sure that we have enough time, ability, hours in the day, people here that can meet the growing needs of a very large population and how to best meet that.”
Mantella said Estabrooks will provide UHCS with the opportunity for a fresh start.
“I really think the center needs to have a fair and new and fresh start, and with this director, I think we can get that fair and new and fresh start,” she said.
Estabrooks said although she is aware of the challenges UHCS faces, she is looking forward to her new job.
“I think I’m adopting all kinds of varied clients here
