Joyce Lopes, vice president of administration and finance at Sonoma State University will be exiting her tenure at the university and moving to Western Washington State University, taking on the role of Vice president of Business and Financial Affairs as of July 2021.

Her time at SSU has been nothing short of eventful as she was the overseer of vital roles on campus such as managing human resources, budgeting and accounting, Title IX services, and other programs during her time at SSU.

Her scope of work and responsibility with crisis management on campus has been successful as she was at SSU during the 2017 Tubbs Fire, and gave aid to students who were undocumented and needed additional emergency services provided by the school.

Lopes said, “I joined SSU just a couple months before the Tubbs Fire of 2017 and was so impressed by the campus response to the emergency…. we had an acute awareness of the long-lasting disparate impacts for the less socio-economically privileged in our community once the rebuild efforts started. We heard first-hand from our students that undocumented victims experienced disproportionate loss given the difficulties they had accessing aid from FEMA and other agencies.”

President Sakaki shared her positive experience working with Lopes and her successful efforts on campus, “All of us appreciate her many contributions to our Seawolf community. She did her best work facing some of the toughest challenges, and we are better for having her on board. I know she will continue her commitment to student and faculty success in her new role.”

During her time at SSU Lopes spearheaded an effort to raise funds for students by creating the NomaCares donation. That fund went towards helping students negatively impacted by fires, COVID-19 or experiencing other timely hardships.

Lopes said, “From the initial efforts overseeing the Emergency Operations Center and securing and distributing donations via our NomaCares campaign…I am proud to have had the opportunity to lead recovery efforts [during those times] of crisis.

Lopes teamed up with over 300 individuals who are a multi-division of staff during her tenure and executed emergency financial aid for SSU’s undocumented population integration of, “ fire ecology into our curriculum and research priorities to the acquisition of workforce housing and plan for expanded student housing.”

She also notes the significant impacts and challenges past fires and COVID-19 has had on people of color and says she worked on “providing access, resources, services, and support to our diverse student, faculty and staff populations.”

Lopes hopes that her experience at SSU will help with her new job at Western Washington University. She expects to transition knowledge of being a leader at a university during crisis and emergency situations and infuse Sonoma States’ core values into the strategic implementation of aid for students in need of resources during times of emergency.

The Vice President hopes to build on the lessons learned during her time at this CSU and is eager to integrate them into her new title at Western Washington University.