The Dean Dream Team

The deans dish on their secrets to success. 

Many students may know our high school deans as the people who simply distribute dress codes and make us sit in silence for thirty minutes after school when we receive too many tardies.

When they approach you at the lunch table, you make a mental checklist of the possible things that you may be getting in trouble for. Do they want to get us in trouble? Do they compete for who can give out the most detention violations? What does their job truly entail?

The Talon went to investigate the real story behind our dean dream team of Mrs. Cecilia Powers and Mr. Dave Levasseur.

The co-dean for four years now, Mr. Dave Levasseur jokes that he did not imagine himself becoming a dean growing up.

“I didn’t grow up like ‘I want to write detentions’ or ‘what kind of trouble can I get you in for a dress code violation,'” he shares.

Before becoming a dean, Mr. Levasseur worked as a teacher at Christian Brothers for six or seven years, but he then felt his vocation was changing.

“God is calling me to do something, and I think for me it’s being helpful to Christian Brothers,” Mr. Levasseur remarks.

The science teacher first got experience teaching in college at St. Mary’s, when he participated in an education field experience at a local school. He then worked as a Lasallian volunteer in Chicago after graduating, where he acquired certain professional skills.

“In Chicago, the Brothers taught me how to teach — I still shake the hands at the door” says Mr. Levasseur.

As a dean, he enjoys “seeing people change over the course of the four years” as well as other personal aspects of the job.

“When things aren’t super crazy, I can just chat somebody up and I enjoy that,” Mr. Levasseur adds.

There are over 1,000 students who attend CB, but Mr. Levasseur enjoys getting to know them all.

“Four years ago, I wouldn’t think that I would know everybody, but now [when I see someone that I don’t know] it’s like ‘dang, I don’t know them!'”

However, being a dean does come with some business that is not so fun.

“My least favorite part is dealing with all of the negative stuff,” he says. “A lot of times I will try to find that positive thing to talk about, but a lot of times I’m only talking to a student if they are out of dress code or came in tardy.”

There are certain, less than ideal tasks that the job of being a dean entails.

“I don’t really enjoy standing in the front of the cafeteria area. I mean, I do it because someone needs to do it, but that’s not very fun” the dean jokes.

The co-dean, Mrs. Cecilia Powers, remarks that “it has been fabulous working together with Mr. Levasseur.”

When is comes to sticky situations, the two seem to work together quite well.

“We have a similar approach to students and the challenging issues that students face,” Mrs. Powers says. “We have a similar approach to discipline and education through discipline.”

“We are very compatible and rarely in disagreement.” she adds.

Although the job seems difficult and less than ideal to most people, Mrs. Powers insists that it is all worth it in the end.

“People tell me all the time that they would never want my job — and I understand why people say that,” the co-dean says. “But working together with Mr. Levasseur and working in the spirit of what is best for students and really what is best for the school community makes it a job that, most of the time, I enjoy.”