‘Incredibly invested in community’: Friends, colleagues remember VP of Campus Life Eric Estes

Eric Estes, a leader in education, passed away on June 4 at the age of 55. Estes served as the University’s vice president of campus life since 2016. 

Born in Seoul, South Korea, Estes was adopted just before the age of two and raised in Cherry Hill, New Jersey. He is survived by his mother Angela Estes and his brother Christopher.

While Estes’s work at Brown focused on student life, he began his academic career studying history. Estes earned his Bachelor of Arts with honors from Trinity College in 1991 before going on to earn his master’s, also in history, from Syracuse University in 1993.

In 1995, Estes was named a Fulbright Scholar and moved to Germany to conduct research on gender and social reproduction. He earned his PhD in history from Syracuse in 2001.

His career in academia began in 2000 at Duke University as a Mellon Foundation fellow, teaching courses on women and war, 20th century history, the Holocaust and the politics of sexuality. In 2004, Estes moved to Oberlin College, where he taught courses in comparative American studies and history while serving as the associate dean of students and director of the Multicultural Resource Center. 

In 2011, Estes was named Oberlin’s dean of students. One year later, he also became the college’s inaugural vice president.

Estes arrived at Brown in 2016 as the vice president for campus life and student services, where he was responsible for overseeing over a dozen non-academic offices and centers. These included the Office of the Chaplains and Religious Life, Health Services and affinity centers such as the LGBTQ Center, Brown Center for Students of Color and the Sarah Doyle Center for Women and Gender.

Estes also served as a member of the Trinity College Board of Trustees.

In the months following his passing, The Herald spoke with several of Eric Estes’s friends and colleagues, who remember his ability to easily connect with others and his commitment to celebrating identity and culture. 

Ability to connect with people no matter who they are

Shelley Lee, a professor of American studies and history at Brown, met Estes when she began working at Oberlin in 2007.

He was “disarmingly friendly,” she said, recalling “how easy it was to connect with him.”

Lee noted that in higher education, there is often a divide between academics and student life, but Estes took pride in bridging the two.

“He was able to see and make these connections between the curricular life of the college and student life in ways that I think other people had a harder time making,” she said.

Like Lee, Richard Baldoz, an associate professor of American studies at Brown and close friend of Estes, was also working at Oberlin when he first met Estes.

For him, Estes’s ability to find “the middle ground” stood out. 

He was able to build “consensus between different constituencies whose interests are often kind of divergent,” Baldoz said. “I think that’s one of his great talents.”

Lisa Bisaccia, who is currently on the Trinity College Board of Trustees, got to know Estes during their time together on the board. She recalls building their friendship over common interests like music and history.

“He had a great ability to put people at ease,” she said. He “made them feel that their opinions mattered … and that he wanted to understand and hear what they had to say.”

Commitment to celebrating identity and culture

Caitlin O’Neill, the director of the LGBTQ Center, was an undergraduate student at Oberlin when they met Estes through his work at the school’s Multicultural Resource Center, which supports students from underrepresented and marginalized communities.

Estes struck O’Neill as someone who was kind, funny, “sharp as a tack” and “incredibly invested in community,” they said. 

He “just had a really insightful way of getting to the bottom of university politics, the needs of a campus community and the needs of faculty and staff in order to synthesize a robust program,” O’Neill added. 

O’Neill cited Estes’s upbringing in a multiracial family and his status as a transnational adoptee as factors that may have been influential in shaping his passion for building community.

When O’Neill arrived at Brown in 2019, they reunited with Estes through their work at the LGBTQ Center, noting that Estes was “instrumental” in increasing the center’s staffing and funding before working in its relocation to Stonewall House.

“We went from two rooms to two stories,” O’Neill said. Estes “understood implicitly that to invest in your student body is to invest in the people who are working with them everyday.”

Vincent Harris, the associate dean and director of the Brown Center for Students of Color, echoed O’Neill’s sentiment. He believes that two of Estes’s main goals were to ensure that the BCSC had a “solid foundation” and that “the team felt supported” in light of staffing changes.

Estes also worked to make sure “students knew that the BCSC was accessible,” Harris said.

According to Harris, Estes supported the launch of the BCSC Heritage Series, which aims to offer a variety of programs “surrounding topics of race, cultural celebration, social justice and resistance,” according to the BCSC website.

Harris, who has a thank-you note from Estes adorning the wall of his office, said Estes’s leadership impacted him personally.

“I identify as a Black, queer gay man. Eric was also an Asian-American man of color and gay,” Harris said. Seeing Estes in a senior leadership role was “transformative for me and my identity personally.”

“It provided me with motivation to show up more as my full self,” he added.

Someone who showed up

Even in an administrative position, Estes “got his hands on the ground, engaged with the students and also worked side-by-side with the professional staff,” Harris said.

“There was a kind of humanity about him that … spilled beyond the office,” said Lina Fruzzetti, a professor of anthropology.

O’Neill added that when Estes had the opportunity, he would attend the African Students’ Association annual culture shows, serve food to students at BCSC events and stop by the LGBTQ Center.

Bisaccia, who served with Estes on the capital campaign committee for the Boys and Girls Club of Rhode Island, described Estes as a “philanthropist,” but stressed that his contributions at Trinity College and the Boys and Girls Club went beyond monetary donations.

“He showed up, he gave up his time, he participated in things and he shared his expertise with both organizations,” she said. “He was just a very giving man and cared a lot about the community of Providence.” 

Opening up his home

For many, the gatherings that Estes hosted in his home fostered community. .

“He really liked having people over at his house and feeding them,” Lee said. “Those kinds of little moments are really worthwhile and profound.” 

Harris said he believes Estes “felt responsible for welcoming others,” often making an effort to accommodate dietary restrictions.

“He was a really good cook,” Baldoz added.

Matthew Guterl, a professor of Africana studies and American studies, noted that Estes’s gatherings were “inspiring.”

President Christina Paxson P’19 P’MD’20 echoed this sentiment.

“His house on Charlesfield Street was the center of his community-building,” Paxson wrote in an email to The Herald. “He hosted gatherings of people in times of celebration and sorrow, tension and discord and when he felt that some members of our community needed a little extra care.”

“It doesn’t matter who you are,” Fruzzetti said. “Difference was accepted” at Estes’s gatherings.

A dog lover

Before the COVID-19 pandemic began, Guterl noted that Estes would often come over to his home for family dinners and barbecues.

After the pandemic began, Estes and Guterl began discussing the possibility of coparenting a dog named Eleanor.

“She came from an abusive household, she had lost her previous owner suddenly and she was an emotionally complicated dog,” Guterl said. “Caring for other people and for animals meant a lot to” Estes. The group bought Eleanor food and biscuits and took her to the vet. Estes even bought a larger car to accommodate her.

Estes passed away exactly four years after the group first got Eleanor. At Estes’s memorial service in September, Guterl noted that Eleanor often reminds him of Estes.

“Some nights … we find ourselves amazed by the bigger family we now routinely discover in spaces once inhabited by Eric,” he said, recalling Estes “searching for dessert in the freezer, asking for a specific cocktail or casually conversing with Eleanor as if she were human.”

“In these moments of heartbreaking clarity, we see Eric in every face,” he added. “We catch his tone in every kindness.”