Assistant Dean Leaves FDO

Assistant Dean of Freshmen Philip A. Bean, who spent the last two years dealing with everything from late study cards to a string of thefts in Greenough Hall, will leave Prescott Street next week to become associate dean of Haverford College.

“I am excited about going back to a small liberal arts college, as I spent much of my adult life studying and working in such communities,” Bean said. Before coming to Harvard, Bean taught at Hamilton College and at Utica College of Syracuse University.

“I am particularly delighted to be going to Haverford,” he said, “which is a superb school with an appealing institutional culture.”

Bean is the latest administrator to say goodbye to the Freshman Dean’s Office, which has seen high turnover in recent years during the tenure of Dean of Freshmen Elizabeth Studley Nathans.

First-years for whom Bean served as an adviser recalled the dean as a supportive and “personable” figure.

“He’d joke and calm down any random freshman freak-outs you might have had about academics,” wrote Robert A. Hodgson ’05 in an e-mail. “He was just a truly nice guy to have on your side for the rest of the year.”

At Haverford, Bean will oversee the college’s 1,100 undergraduates—about twice as many students as were under his watch while assistant dean of freshmen in charge of the Crimson Yard, which includes Hurlbut, Pennypacker, Greenough, Grays and Wigglesworth Halls.

Bean will not be overseeing dorm life at Haverford, which he said “will be a big change,” and he will have fewer disciplinary responsibilities. Instead, Bean said he will focus on “helping shape college policy and coordinat[ing] intervention in support of students who are having academic difficulties.”

“It will be a new mix of responsibilities, and it is one I find more to my liking at this point in my career,” Bean said.

Before serving as assistant dean of freshmen, Bean was executive assistant to Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68 and a proctor in Mower Hall.

Replacing Bean in the Crimson Yard will be Lesley Nye, who served as the interim dean of the Elm Yard when Wendy E. F. Torrence took a maternity leave from the position in the spring.

Nye, who received a doctorate from Harvard last month, has done scholarly research on the first-year experience. She has also taught at a public high school in Houston and worked at a drop-out prevention program in Washington, D.C. through the Teach for America program.

“I have no doubt that she will contribute fresh perspectives on a wide range of important issues,” Bean said of Nye.

—Staff writer Eugenia B. Schraa can be reached at schraa@fas.harvard.edu.