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On Wednesday evening students gathered in the campus coffee shop for “The Assistant Dean on Tap,” in which the College’s assistant dean for student affairs, Dr. Christopher Decaen, answered students’ questions about campus living. “The idea was to give the students an easy and informal opportunity to talk about what they thought of the present morale on campus,” explains Dr. Decaen. “I also wanted to give them a chance to ask about how the rules that form student life here relate to the academic program.”

What followed was a candid conversation about campus policies that can be controversial (e.g., those governing dress code or Internet usage) and their purpose. “I wanted to be able to answer these questions to help students understand the rationales behind the different rules, and how they relate to the kind of life of study we are putting before them,” says Dr. Decaen.

“The forum became an opportunity to dispel mistaken paradigms or metaphors about what we are doing here,” he adds. “For example, I tried to make it clear that we shouldn’t think of the College as a small political body with laws and such, nor being here as a job one has. A more apt metaphor is to compare this to a four-year retreat in which we contemplate the deepest truths about creation and creation’s source, God Himself. This is part of what we mean when we call this place a ‘community of friends.’”

The discussion, which lasted two hours, was by all accounts well-received — so much so that Dr. Decaen hopes to make “On Tap” a regular occurrence, with the next one planned for the spring.

Dr. Christopher Decaen speaks to students in the campus coff