Faculty Interview: Darcy Tanner
The third floor of the library recently celebrated the arrival of a new staff member to join the Math/Stats/Comp-Sci family. Darcy Tanner is the new Faculty Administrative Coordinator (FAC) for Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science, taking on the responsibilities of the recently retired Lisa Mickola. The administration opted not to replace Lisa Mickola, instead dividing her position among the other FACs. One of those was Tanner, who had worked as the FAC for Anthropology, Political Science, and Religion since 2023. In this recent shift, she dropped Religion and took up Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science.
Before coming to Reed, Tanner worked a variety of administrative jobs. She described how, upon arrival, “I had a lot of experience and event planning experience spanning from mortgages and real estate to conferences in the risk management and treasury worlds.”
Tanner and her husband Cameron moved from Michigan to Portland in 2021. He worked at Reed for a short time before she did, and she quite liked what she heard about the culture. Hence, she was very excited when a position opened up three years ago which matched her skill set. She chose to apply to Reed because she liked the prospect of working with students (alongside the great benefits). The last three years as FAC have not disappointed, as she noted that “working with the students is one of my favorite parts of the job, working to see what kind of events they want to see, and making that happen.“
FACs are tasked with “a lot of the behind the scenes logistics,” including but not limited to, event planning, room reservation, catering, making posters, sending out departmental announcements (including your qual and thesis information).
With her new position overseeing the additional departments of Math, Statistics, and Computer Science, Tanner doesn’t necessarily expect her job to change much on the day to day. She mentioned that, although “every department and division functions slightly differently, and the respective people do things differently, it’s still a team. [We] back each other up.” She said she’s enjoyed the work throughout her time at Reed, citing how “different challenges throughout the day keep it fun and exciting.”
Tanner has noticed two nice benefits of her change in responsibilities. The easier of these to see was that her new office has a window (a great improvement). The second was that the Math/Stats/Comp-Sci faculty have much more of an “open door culture” than her previous colleges. Most of the time, professors are in their offices with their doors open, which makes answering quick questions much simpler.
When Darcy isn’t working, or taking care of her two small children, you can find her baking, reading, or running (occasionally with said small children). She’s just gotten back into the latter hobby since taking a four year hiatus after becoming a mom. She plans on running a 10k this October, with aspirations to run the Portland Marathon next year.