English and American Studies lecturer Joel Silverman will step down as dean of Morse College to become the Director of Academic and Educational Affairs for Yale College, he announced in an email to the Morse community on Monday.

Silverman, who has served in his role since 2007, will step down at the end of this academic year to join the Office of Academic Affairs. In his email, Silverman said he is excited about his new role but sad to leave the college his family has called home for the last 10 years.

“During this time, I’ve gotten to know some 1,500 Morse students,” Silverman wrote. “Those students, along with the physical space that is Morse, loom large in my memory and in my affection.”

Silverman said his new role will allow him to work closely with the 14 residential college deans, and their senior administrative assistants, to ensure equity and efficiency in the application of academic regulations across the colleges. He noted that it is an exciting time in Yale’s history to take on this strategic leadership role.

In his email, Silverman acknowledged Morse’s current and former leadership, administrative staff and the college fellows, who he said were tremendous resources both to students and to his own personal and professional experience.

Silverman also thanked and praised Morse undergraduates, adding that they have balanced intense academic and extracurricular passions with “the desire to create a home away from home.”

“Before I came to Yale in 2005, I had no sense of the true power of community,” Silverman wrote. “But Morse’s Masters and Heads, our administrative staff, our dining hall workers and facilities crew, our fellows, our graduate affiliates — and most important, you, the undergraduates — have taught me what community looks like.”