Three weeks ago, as I hauled my many bags and boxes into my Ziv suite, a young boy was outside tossing around a ball. During my third trip back downstairs, I caught him throwing the ball into one of my boxes. Just as I was about to say something, he asked me: "Do you live in this house?"A little taken aback, since I had never heard a residence hall referred to as a "house," I replied: "Yes, do you?"

"Yeah, on the first floor," he said.

I was confused but delighted when he then held the door open for me as I moved the rest of my belongings inside.

I mentioned the encounter to my suitemate, thinking the boy was just there for the summer, but she pointed to a sign hanging on the door of the first floor suite that read "Jamele Adams and family." It suddenly clicked: Adams was the new dean and he lived in my building.

Fast forward two weeks, as he rushed in late to our early morning meeting, Jamele Adams, assistant dean of students for the support of diversity, immediately extended his hand to shake mine and ushered me into his office.

"I heard you met my son Brandon," he said.

Although Adams said living in the staff apartment in Ziv is temporary, he said he thinks students have been very welcoming. He and his family attended some orientation events, and he also plans to begin a "dinner with the dean" program for students who want a home-cooked meal.

"It's fine, it's wonderful living on campus," he said. "Our CA is cool, she gave us a door sign, so we were excited about that. We don't want to impede on student life, we don't want students to feel deterred by this."

Adams is a tall man who often wears bright clothing and though sometimes soft-spoken, he seems to command a presence in the room. His very long title only begins to describe the differences he hopes to make while at Brandeis.

Actually, Adams wants to change his title because he hopes that one day, Brandeis will not need a position specifically designated to support diversity.

Ideally, he said, diversity would be "naturally fitting here in the thought processes of all the departments." He added that he believes the University is well on its way to this point. Eventually, he said Brandeis can be the "benchmark" and "barometer by which other universities measure how well they're doing in regard to diversity."

Adams officially started at Brandeis July 1, and first visited the campus in April after accepting the position. He has previously worked at Montclair State University as Director of Marketing and Retention and at Kenyon as a first-year counselor and adjunct psychology professor. At Kenyon College, he also helped with the new student orientation. Before that, Adams launched an office at Ashland University dedicated to meeting the needs of diversity on campus. This was his first professional position; he was just 19.

Right before he came to Brandeis, Adams worked for New York Yankee Derek Jeter for two years with the New York Jeter Leaders Foundation. Adams said a number of aspects about Brandeis attracted him to the job, particularly the sincerity of the students and members of the hiring committee.

Students were "honest and upfront and really open" when describing their vision for Adams' position, he said. "That was good for me to hear ... they were very much in tune with the type of professional that I am."

The hiring committee, too, was pleasantly frank. When Adams applied for the job, he was given more than just a typical job notice and an enticing description of Brandeis. Adam was also told about some of the more challenging diversity-related moments in the University's history, including the racial incidents involving WBRS and the Justice and the protest in Ford Hall.

"I took all of that information and really became even more fueled to want to be here," Adams said.

His visit in April, which he called "beautiful" mostly because of the reception he received from students, faculty and staff, included a performance in Culture X, where he performed spoken word, or freestyle poetry.

"I can't think of a more ideal way to receive someone new to the University family," he said.

Slamming, which is the competitive side to poetry, has been a passion of Adams' for about six years. He wrote his first poem during his first semester as an undergraduate at Penn State University, and continues to use poetry as an outlet to express himself. It was not until he was working at Kenyon College that he got involved with slamming.

"Somebody read one of my poems-it was about my aunt surviving domestic violence-and they said, 'You should share this at this poetry spot I know about,'" Adams recalled. "I didn't even know about doing poetry in cafs or lounges or different venues."

When Adams arrived at Snaps and Taps, a place to read poetry in Columbus, Ohio, there was a slam competition underway and the only way he could read his poem was to enter the battle.

"They had another slot open and I've never been a shy person," he said. "So I said, 'Why not?' I entered into the competition and [felt] so amazed by the feeling and the energy I received from the audience that I continued to come back.

"I didn't win; that was another thing that brought me back. I was like, 'I can't believe I didn't win, I can't understand it.'"

After that first appearance, Adams frequented Snaps and Taps and said he began to see the power of words as a positive influence, as an art form and as an educational tool.

He cited his favorite self-authored poem as "My Life is different than Yours." It deals with the haves and the have-nots, and trying to make a difference in the world by acknowledging that we're all individuals and have unique lives." The poem also encourages "leaving a legacy of positive influence versus being a complainer."

"That poem actually landed me on CNN to discuss its content ... That's not why I like it, though," he said, laughing.

So far Adams has participated in training for Community Advisors and Orientation Leaders and is planning to hold programs in residence halls, which he said will run on students' time schedules. He chuckled as he concluded that this would probably be around 9 or 10 p.m.

"If this were a 9-to-5 job, I wouldn't want it, actually," Adams said. "A 9-to-5 work schedule doesn't work for any position in higher education at all."

Besides meeting his ideal size, location and reputation criteria, Brandeis appealed to Adams as an institution where he can later retire.

"I didn't want to move around anymore," Adams said. "I wanted to stay for a minimum of 20 years-so that is the kind of commitment and dedication I brought to the interview process and I'm looking forward to doing maybe 25 to 30 years at this point.