Gretchen Carlson Natter is Pitt’s new assistant dean of students for community and inclusion

Gretchen Carlson Natter has been named assistant dean of students for community and inclusion within Pitt’s Division of Student Affairs, effective June 1.

As assistant dean, Natter will lead the Community and Inclusion Team, providing leadership for advancing the division’s strategic focus on improving students’ social and academic development through community. She will supervise the Office of Inclusion and Belonging, Fraternity and Sorority Life, PittServes and student media outlets The Pitt News and WPTS. By advancing forward-thinking and innovative ideas, Natter will keep the Division of Student Affairs at the forefront of trends and best practices to serve students.

Natter comes to Pitt from Gettysburg College, a nationally ranked liberal arts college in Pennsylvania, where she currently serves as assistant dean of college life and as executive director of the school’s Center for Public Service. In this role, she has partnered with academic colleagues to implement faculty fellowships for community-based learning and research, co-created a program to reinterpret community-level data in new ways, provided cross-institutional leadership to facilitate collective change and helped develop fellowship opportunities for students, among other accomplishments.

Natter earned her Master of Arts in Community Change and Civic Leadership at Antioch University Midwest and her bachelor’s degree in education at Baldwin-Wallace College. She believes in and advocates for “the transformative potential of higher education, as well as the power of people to collectively create change when acting on a common vision.”