Abby Priehs is the Director of Residential Life within Cornell’s Office of Housing and Residential Life (HRL). Abby has a key role in overseeing housing and residential life operations.  

Abby has a key role in overseeing housing and residential life operations, ensuring a supportive, engaging, safe, and secure on-campus environment for residents. Her role includes fostering a caring and inclusive living environment, supporting the well-being of students, and collaborating with campus partners to enhance the residential experience. Abby also plays an essential part in developing policies, managing staff, and responding to evolving student needs.

 Before coming to Cornell, Abby has spent her entire 20+ year career in higher education working in housing and residence life at six different mid- to large-size institutions in five different U.S. states from California to Vermont. Abby started her love for on-campus housing in the days before there were cell phones, only landlines on campus, and no one had a computer in their room. Despite the evolving technological advances and dynamic student needs, Abby knows that one thing has remained the same, the transformational experience students receive by living and growing with others in the residence halls. When Abby arrived at Cornell, she worked with the HRL team to create an intentional interaction model where live-in student leaders interact one-on-one with their residents in a constructed manner responding to their needs whether they are a first-year student or a senior who has lived on campus all four years. Abby knows that the on-campus housing experience is unlike any other experience in college and the growth and development occurring in on-campus housing is difficult to replicate in other collegiate environments. Not only do students explore who they are, but also who they aspire to be. Different than other non-Cornell University community living spaces, Abby, along with the Housing and Residential Life team and the HRL live-in student leaders, have the privilege to help create an environment for students to be academically successful and develop their socio-emotional competencies.

Abby and the rest of the HRL Team encourage residents, their families, Cornell campus partners, and/or Cornell University stakeholders to reach out if there is anything they can assist with in the on-campus living experience.