I iStock ADVICE So You Want to Be a Dean? You’d better be skilled at risk management and compromise By Dan Butin JANUARY 13, 2016 am done. After six years of founding and leading the School of Education and Social Policy at Merrimack College, I have returned to the faculty. In those six years I hired 17 faculty members, started seven academic programs, and worked with two presidents, four provosts, and eight deans. I started out idealistic, and adamant that I could develop a better model of a school of education. What could be so hard, I thought, in "operationalizing" one’s ideas? What I have since learned: Nothing is more exciting or complicated in higher education as turning ideas into reality. It is way harder than rocket science.