Michael Durant and Jee Won Lee joined the Upper School Dean Team for the 2024-2025 school year. The two additional deans will allow for the student-per-dean average to decrease to 25 for the rising sophomore class. Durant previously worked as a college counselor at Miami Country Day School. Durant said he hopes to influence his students to practice a healthy work-life balance.
“I am looking forward to supporting students in their aspirations academically, athletically and artistically,” Durant said. “I want to support students in finding the balance between hard work and the joy of learning.”
Lee previously worked at the United World College of South East Asia in Singapore. She said she hopes to create the same comfortable environment for her students that she experienced when she joined the school community.
“I’ve already felt so warmly welcomed and embraced by the school,” Lee said. “I feel that I can show up authentically, I am inspired by the community members around me and I feel genuine support from all corners of the campus. We want all of our students to feel that sense of belonging, enrichment and support as well. Expanding the dean team will only help to further realize these important goals, which I believe the school already does so well.”
Upper School Dean Sharon Cuseo said the additional deans will allow for a greater concentration on the sophomore class.
“ The biggest impact will be on the experience of sophomores, because sophomores in the previous system got ignored a little bit in the beginning of the year,” Cuseo said. “It wasn’t feasible to give attention to the seniors and get to know the new sophomores, so now if there’s only 25 sophomores to get to know and only 25 seniors getting into college, it will be a much better balance.”
Upper School Dean Adam Levine said the new deans will add additional support for the preexisting activities as well as provide new insight into the college curriculum they plan.
“The deans can also join us for a lot of curricular things we are trying to do such as new programming and revamping the college program that we have,” Levine said. “They’re going to join us on our teams to rethink what we can do to make the college process easier or less stressful for students. They will help to plan seminars and other after school programming. Their expertise in the field is invaluable.”
