F A C U LT Y P R O F I L E
Andrew Healy: “Way Beyond a Professional Camp Counselor” Andrew Healy (dean of students) with Kimberly Poulin P’18,’ 21 (assistant dean of students, director of community engagement, and learning specialist)
LA’s dean of students is living his dream by Angela Stefano
Before Andrew Healy arrived on the elm tree–shaded hillside nearly a decade and a half ago, he spent a couple of years teaching math at a boarding school in Connecticut. His tenure there was short, but extremely impactful, influencing the ethos that has helped him as Lawrence Academy’s dean of students for the better part of a decade and be a beloved Spanish teacher, coach, advisor, and dorm parent for even longer. Andrew majored in economics and Spanish (and later earned a master’s degree in Spanish) at Vermont’s Middlebury College, but when he opened the textbook he was to teach from that first year in Connecticut, he found that he’d forgotten much of the math he excelled at in high school. The experience, he reflects, “reshaped how I approach
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teaching; it reshaped how I prioritized what the lessons are and what we’re trying to accomplish with the students.” Andrew understood that his students needed to leave his class with a grasp of the material, but he could also show them the importance of the skills you learn while learning: the abilities to solve problems; question, research, and form opinions; communicate; and self-advocate. It’s a mindset that aligns perfectly with LA’s goal to recognize, inspire, support, and empower (RISE) students, setting them up for success when they graduate and move on to new adventures. “I really do believe,” Andrew says, “we’re using our subject matter, we’re using our position, we’re using the opportunities that we have in everything that we do, to instill in the students those soft skills that are going to allow them to achieve success.”
