Edna Dugan's strongest memory of her 13-year Cornell career was several years ago when the area was more of a construction site than the state-of-the-art house system it is today. Dugan, assistant vice president for student and academic services, remembers looking through the arch of Alice Cook House and, for the first time, seeing Carl Becker House too. "I gasped a little and thought, 'We're moving along.'"

As the West Campus House System's (WCHS) top administrator, Dugan has moved along the $200 million project from its inception in 1998 to completion this year. Five houses now accommodate 1,800 upperclassmen with faculty, staff and graduate advisers in small communities that offer intellectual, cultural and social activities and foster peer leadership. With West Campus now complete, Dugan will retire June 30, she said. "It's not a bad time to go."

Over the years she has managed the budget, planning and construction for each of the five houses; co-chaired the committees that named each house and selected their professors and deans; co-chaired the WCHS Council for the past nine years; and served as a house fellow since the program's inception.

"She made it all possible, made the translation of what was an academic vision into the concrete -- literally -- reality that it is now," said Isaac Kramnick, the Richard J. Schwartz Professor of Government who spearheaded the vision for the WCHS program.

Dugan is proudest of her ability to work with others for a common goal, she said. "One person alone doesn't achieve that much. My achievements pale in comparison to what we've achieved as a group."

Her ability to partner with faculty in particular smoothed the process, said Ross Brann, the Milton R. Konvitz Professor of Judeo-Islamic Studies and Alice Cook House professor-dean and Dugan's co-chair of the WCHS Council. "It's not often that senior administrative staff are so gifted in understanding the somewhat peculiar ways in which faculty work," Brann said. "Edna was brilliant at that. She has a unique way of focusing discussion on the issues and finding creative solutions to them."

Dugan came to Ithaca in 1995, the spouse of physics professor Gerald Dugan. She joined Cornell a year later as director of finance and administration for student and academic services. With an MBA and corporate experience, she began creating financial models to revamp the housing system in 1997. That work laid the foundation for the North Campus Residential Initiative, which created all-freshman housing and the WCHS.

That was the year then-President Hunter Rawlings made his sweeping seven-point plan to revamp campus housing. Point five outlined what would become the West Campus Residential Initiative -- and Dugan's involvement for the next 11 years.

The process had its challenges. Fundraising did not keep pace with expectations; the university is now paying for the house system with debt. And she fretted about students living in the completed houses while construction roared next door. But the WCHS ended not just on budget but two years early.

From the beginning, Dugan saw the house system, with its faculty leadership, as a way not only to attract the brightest students to Cornell but also prepare them for the world. "If students gained confidence from meeting, say, Janet Reno '60 over breakfast, or John Cleese or retired General Anthony Zinni, what would that do for them both in graduate school and in the job market? We are preparing the best students to become leaders, to become people who do great things."

Dugan will spend her retirement enjoying extra time reading, playing tennis and taking a few classes -- perhaps taught by some of the many professors she's worked with over the years.

The university will not fill Dugan's position when she leaves, as part of its cost-savings strategy, said Susan Murphy, vice president for student and academic services.

It couldn't even if it tried, Brann said. "We assume, in a big institution like this, that everyone is replaceable. Edna is not."