By Heather Monahan
Features Editor
If you don’t live on the East Side of campus, you may not have met Dean Atkins, one of three new resident directors at St. Bonaventure. Even if you have met him, you may not know much about him other than deducing that he’s from the United Kingdom, based on his accent.
“I’m from Highwickham, England,” Atkins said. “I moved over to the U.S. when I was 18 and went to community college in Upstate New York. Then I transferred to Mercyhurst my sophomore year.”
The now 24-year-old received his undergraduate degree in accounting at Mercyhurst, where he was a resident assistant for three years. He then stayed to get his graduate degree. While doing so, he was a hall director and an assistant director.
When he moved back to England after graduation, Atkins knew something was different.
“Once you’ve lived in another country for six years, it doesn’t feel like home anymore,” he said. “So I got home and was like ‘Why is this so different?’ And I missed (the States) and being over here. I planted my roots and set my life up here, so I just had to come back.”
It was then that Atkins began applying for jobs and eventually set up a job interview with St. Bonaventure, a school he was somewhat familiar with.
“I was on the soccer team at Mercyhurst, and we would scrimmage (Bonaventure) in the spring season,” Atkins said. “So I’ve been here and visited the campus before.”
While he’s used to extreme weather from living in Erie, Pa., Atkins said snow is still somewhat foreign to him.
“The winters are tough, because we don’t really get snow in England,” he said. “Like a centimeter of snow falls in England, and the whole country shuts down.”
Atkins is the resident director for Francis Hall, Townhouses and Garden Apartments, but he said he has a plethora of ideas to make sure all students are enjoying their four years at St. Bonaventure to the best of their ability, particularly the seniors.
“People tend to silo themselves into their four-person apartment with their friends,” Atkins said. “You’ll see (people across the hall) in passing as you’re leaving in the morning with a piece of toast in your mouth, running to class. But you don’t necessarily interact with them as much.”
Still being so young, Atkins knows how he felt after college and what he wishes he’d done.
“You miss it. You miss those interactions and your friends and all those connections that you built,” he said. “And it seems a shame that you only make so many connections before you stop because you’ve made your friends.”
So far Atkins, along with senior sports studies major and resident assistant Chelsea McBee, has brought to life the first-ever Bona’s Bow-Tie Bash and Outdoor Movie Nights.
Their next idea? A beer tasting for seniors.
“You’re not going to be a poor college student forever, drinking Natty Light and bags of wine,” Atkins said. “You’re gonna be older and I’d like to think you’re going to go onto great jobs after graduating from Bonaventure. Then you can afford a nicer wine, some good beer.”
While classes focus on preparing students for jobs after graduation, Atkins said he hopes residence life events will help prepare us for the real world outside of jobs.
“If your boss asks you to go for a drink with him after work on a Friday or you’ve got a business meeting of some kind, knowing what a good beer is or how to order wine with dinner is important,” he said. “That’s what we’re getting at, is making sure you’re getting everything you can out of being at college and making those connections while you can.”
