Career Flight Patterns

Associate deans of students share their backgrounds, ambitions

December 4, 2007

Associate deans of students Leonard Brown (left) and Tim Poirier.

Timothy Poirier and Leonard Brown Jr. '92, took different flight paths to reach the same positions at Dickinson—associate dean of students.

Poirier came to Dickinson in January from Moravian College in Bethlehem, Pa., where he worked in residential life and with the Greek community. Prior to that, he spent 17 years at Daniel Webster College in Nashua, N.H., as an undergraduate, certified flight instructor and administrator in both academic and student affairs.

Brown returned to his alma mater in July after working for a decade in several positions at Loyola College in Maryland. He also has worked at the University of Maryland-Baltimore County and Frostburg State University in Frostburg, Md.

Poirier, who oversees student conduct and residential life, hopes to incorporate his flying experience to chart a new course at Dickinson.

"As a flight instructor, I viewed myself as a partner in the students' learning process," Poirier said. "The aircraft was their 'laboratory' and my job was to ensure they could experiment safely and reflect meaningfully on that experimentation. I'm often struck by how similar this is to the learning associated with living in a residential community."

Cultivating a 'mentoring environment'

Poirier said he would like to see students, especially upper-level men and women, assume greater responsibility for their community through self-governance and a residential program that creates a mentoring environment.

"I think upper-level students are best equipped to socialize incoming students to the norms of the community," Poirier said. "If we can create a true executive core of the student body that assumes an organic, as opposed to programmatic, oversight of this process, we'd be in very good shape. For me, the key elements are the motivation and expectations that are mutually agreed upon by students, faculty and college administration."

Brown said he is working on a planning document for the student life division that he expects will yield long-term rewards.

"I look forward to sharing the vision articulated in the document with the college community and working as a division to realize our goals," said Brown, who is the Bonner Program director and oversees community service and religious life, diversity initiatives, leadership, strategic planning and assessment for student life.

"We have a unique opportunity to support the intellectual and academic life of the campus," he said. "We can achieve this not by more programming, but rather intentionally creating the conditions where a vibrant and student-driven intellectual life is a natural part of the student experience."

Keeping students grounded

Brown, who earned a B.A. in psychology at Dickinson and a master's in college student personnel at Western Illinois University, is pursuing another master's in theology. His interests include social justice, identity development, assessment and judicial affairs. He and his wife Jennifer have three daughters, Maia and twins Ava and Ella.

Poirier earned a master's in counseling psychology from Antioch New England Graduate School in 2002. He lives with his son Quinn and daughter Abigail, and, as a native of the Boston area, is a proud member of Red Sox Nation.

Poirier said his experience in the cockpit is helping him navigate new challenges, including telling some students they weren't cut out to be pilots.

"I thought flying would be my career, but once I began teaching my focus quickly changed from 'bigger, faster, higher' to the great professional and personal satisfaction I derived from being part of my students' success," he said. "I enjoyed developing creative challenges to push those with the commitment and talent to be truly outstanding. I also seemed to have a talent for helping students reach the conclusion that a career as a pilot was not for them when this was appropriate, as it usually required lots of patience and gentle counsel."

The Dickinson experience

Brown said he carved out his career path during his senior year at Dickinson when he did an independent study with an emphasis on higher-education administration.

"This really prepared me for my first year in graduate school," he said. "There were administrators who assisted me in the graduate-school search process and really encouraged me to go to a program that would provide me with a different experience than a small liberal-arts school."

The advice "was extremely valuable in my own growth and ultimately in my initial job search," Brown said, adding that his leadership experience at Dickinson, as a senior resident adviser and on the admissions and financial-aid committees, gave him practical skills still useful today in higher education administration.

"I was a psychology major, and the critical-thinking skills I developed were the most valuable," Brown said. "The research skills I learned as a psychology major also put me way ahead of my peer group in graduate school and remain essential to my work today."

Brown said he is experienced at adapting to new ideas and changing landscapes and molding those ideas to the needs of the specific culture and community where he has worked.

"There are no canned ideas or programs that I plan to plop down on this campus, but I am hopeful that as new ideas and opportunities present themselves, which make sense here, I will be able to take advantage of them in a manner that contributes to the college," he said.