[3] He co-led the college's 10-year reaccreditation for the New England Association of Schools and Colleges[4] and the launch of the college's Plan for 2023 strategic plan and its first-ever implementation plan; he led the expansion of the tenure track faculty including the recruitment and hiring of 43 tenure-track faculty in four years and launched new policies on diversity, equity, and inclusion for faculty searches;[5][6][7][8][9][10] he oversaw the development of the Fimbel Maker and Innovation Lab;[11] he launched new enrollment management policies to reduce class sizes across the curriculum resulting in an increase from 65% to 75% of classes campus-wide under 20 students.
[16] In 2020, Western co-led the campus Covid-19 Pandemic Response and the transition of the curriculum and curricular support structures to remote on-line learning and oversaw the faculty adoption of the college's Flexible Immersive Teaching model to ensure equity and access to students accessing the curriculum from on-campus and from remote learning environments around the world.
[17] Jon Western was an analyst who worked on Balkans and East Europe in the U.S. State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research in 1992, when hostilities broke out in the Bosnian War.
[20] According to Samantha Power in her book, "A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide, "it was the largest wave of resignations in State Department history.
The departure of so many promising young officers reflected a degree of despair but also a capacity for disappointment among officials not evident in... previous genocides.