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When Allen Groves met Cerri Banks, who was a potential candidate for his deputy in the Office of Student Experience, what was supposed to be a 15 or 20 minute Zoom call turned into an hour and a half of the pair connecting over their ideas for SU and their past work in higher education.

“We came away from it just having such an extraordinary connection,” said Groves, who is now SU’s senior vice president and chief student experience officer. “We felt, ‘yeah, that this is something we need to do.’”

Banks, who was SU’s vice president for student experience and deputy to the senior vice president, died on July 31. She was 55 years old. Colleagues and friends — many of whom were one and the same — said Banks balanced her ideals. She was a scholar, a practitioner, passionate, practical, warm and professional.

Banks — a three-time alumna who received her bachelor’s, master’s and doctorate from SU — started as a non-traditional student. She was in her early 30s when she obtained her bachelor’s.

In 1998, while Banks was pursuing her bachelor’s degree in inclusive elementary and special education, she enrolled in a language arts methods course. The class was Kelly Chandler-Olcott’s first appointment as a faculty member at SU. Today, she serves as the interim dean of the School of Education.

“(Banks) was older and had quite a bit more life experience that she brought to that group in such a lovely way,” Chandler-Olcott said. “She was open to learning from everyone and never presented herself as an authority.”

Chandler-Olcott joked with Banks that she probably deserved some refund for the class, calling her a “de-facto teaching assistant” with the way her intelligence and thoughtfulness contributed to her classroom.

Groves shared a similar reading of Banks’ intelligence.

“Cerri had an exceptional intellect — she was very, very smart — and her instincts were uncommonly good,” he said.

A decade following the completion of the language arts methods course, Cerri would sit on the School of Education’s Board of Visitors, sticking with the school that provided all three of her degrees.

Meredith Davis, former associate vice president of student engagement at SU, worked under Banks for months of her tenure within the university’s leadership. With Banks as her supervisor, Davis was apprehensive about friendship with her boss. After Davis left SU though, the two quickly became closer.

“She was a sister, girlfriend, colleague,” Davis said. “She was someone I could talk to, be myself with, shoot ideas off of or talk about life and some of the complexities of being a Black (female) professional in higher ed (with).”

Groves worked with Banks throughout her time in SU’s administration. In addition to being close colleagues, Groves said the pair became friends outside of their work. Their offices were across the hall from one another. Banks would walk into Groves’ office, sit down in a chair near his desk and talk about what was on her mind.

“There are a rare number of people in whom you can confide unreservedly what your concerns are,” Groves said. “You have to have a remarkable amount of trust with someone to kick around these kinds of ideas and, to be quite frank, to make yourself vulnerable.”

During her time in the Office of Student Experience, Banks also worked closely with Stand With Survivors SU, an organization several students formed last fall after protesting against sexual assault outside of multiple Interfraternity Council chapters. Though Banks eventually collaborated with the organization, their relationship was not always warm.

Carla Guariglia, the co-founder and former president of SWSSU and a senior at SU, said her first interaction with Banks was at a sit-in the organization staged. Partially through contact with Banks and Dean of Students Rob Hradsky, the organization started to meet with officials at SU.

SWSSU’s biggest fear was the power dynamic between school officials and members of her organization, Guarglia said. The students were worried administrators at SU would not take them seriously.

“We were kind of skeptical at first thinking that maybe they just wanted to talk to us so that we would stop everything that we were doing,” Guariglia said. “But, when we would do meetings with Rob and Cerri, it became clear that that was not the case.”

Banks was a scholar of student activism, and helped work on a book titled “No Justice! No Peace! College Student Activism, Race Relations, and Media Cultures.” She also wrote about the relationship between Black university administrators and the activism of Black Students for the University of California’s National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement.

“She never saw (SWSSU) as an attack on the university,” Groves said. “She saw it as ‘okay, these students have a concern about something. Let’s hear them out.’”

Guariglia said Banks did hear them out.

“She was being genuine the entire time,” Guarglia said. “It just took us a little bit to realize that.”

Both Guarglia and Groves said they are not just grieving Banks’ memory, but also thinking about the work she was on the verge of accomplishing.

“It’s upsetting because of all the work that we could’ve done together in the future,” Guarglia said. “But I’m still really glad to have known her as a person.”

Groves echoed a similar sentiment, saying he feels blessed that he was able to spend a year with Banks. He said he feels cheated by the fact Banks was on the cusp of so many projects at SU.

“It’s a relationship I’ll never forget and a person I’ll never forget,” he said.

CORRECTION: In a previous version of this story, Cerri Banks’ title was misstated. The Daily Orange regrets this error.

Published on August 28, 2022 at 11:38 pm

Contact Kyle: kschouin@syr.edu | @Kyle_Chouinard