After 10 years teaching history at Fieldston, Karen Drohan is stepping into a new role as dean for the class of 2029. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before coming to Fieldston, Drohan taught in California for 23 years, serving as chair of the history department at a school in the Los Angeles area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI decided to come back to the East Coast. I grew up here\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019d known about Fieldston my entire educational career. It\u2019s got a great reputation as a progressive institution and the opportunity to teach at this school was too appealing for me. I got very lucky, and the school seemed to want me as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At Fieldston she has taught classes like Modern World History, The Modern Middle East, and the Holocaust. She has a reputation for skills building, library and research work, producing good essay writers and confident public speakers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Drohan, the draw of the dean\u2019s role is the chance to focus on every part of a student\u2019s life. \u201cOne of the things that I love doing as a teacher is working with the whole student,\u201d she explains. \u201cI love being able to focus on my subject matter, which is history, but also to be an advisor to students and to see all their experiences\u2026academic, social, artistic experiences, athletics\u2026whatever they happen to be passionate about and helping to support those passions and develop these passions. The Dean\u2019s role is very much a whole student role.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thirty years and counting in the classroom have shaped her perspective. \u201cOne of the things that I\u2019ve learned is to relax,\u201d she says. \u201cStudents at a school like Fieldston\u2026get overly stressed out about everything that\u2019s going on\u2026we are all, as human beings, much more able to be successful when we slow down, when we relax, when we don\u2019t take on too much and we do fewer things better. One of the things I will be encouraging students is to do less and do it better.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Drohan has also been an advisor every year, taking three advisories through to graduation. \u201cI\u2019ve never taken any time off from being an advisor, and that\u2019s really shaped how I feel about moving into this new role. I love watching students develop their full potential, and maybe that potential isn\u2019t history. Maybe that potential is elsewhere. I have had many students who are overachievers in ways that have been fantastic but haven\u2019t always served them emotionally. I\u2019ve had students who don\u2019t feel like they\u2019re the class star\u2026but when they find their passion\u2026you watch that blossom in ways that are extraordinary and beautiful.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For Drohan, the top responsibility of a dean is clear: \u201cThe social emotional welfare of students\u2026is the most important priority. If you are stressed out, if you are emotionally spent\u2026then you\u2019re never going to be able to be as successful as you could be.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
To put it simply, Drohan says the role also involves distinguishing between students who avoid work and those dealing with overload or outside pressures. \u201cMy job is to tell the difference between those two kids.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dean Drohan\u2019s first step this year will be getting to know every freshman. \u201cOne of my regular practices for my ninth grade Modern World History class is that you have to schedule a 15-minute meeting with me. Now it will be 166 students rather than a class of 18, but I want to have a meeting with every single student. I want to see what their passions are, what their concerns are, what their fears are\u2026Once I know that and they know that I know them, I see them and I value them, then I can support them,\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Drohan hopes to build a culture of \u201csupport and care\u201d among the class of 2029. \u201cWe don\u2019t need to compete with one another\u2026We need to support one another. We need to build one another up. I\u2019m going to encourage my class, the class of 2029, to go to sporting events, the musical theater, to go and see their classmates do the things that their classmates love to do\u2026If you see somebody doing something they love, you see them in a brand new way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dean Drohan\u2019s advice to incoming freshmen is straightforward: \u201cHave fun. School should be fun. Yes, it\u2019s rigorous. Yes, it\u2019s hard. But the bottom line is, learning is fun and if you just have fun with it, if you just open yourself up to the experience, you might discover new passions that you never knew you had.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
She also wants students to know that she wasn\u2019t always a top student herself. \u201cI struggled in school\u2026I almost didn\u2019t graduate college because of math\u2026So I decided that I was going to tell everybody that I was a math major\u2026and I tricked myself into thinking that math was my favorite class. It\u2019s okay to struggle; it\u2019s ok to not know where you\u2019re going as long as you ask for help. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Two skills Drohan hopes her students carry into life beyond high school: \u201cThe hard skill is\u2026organization. The soft skill is confidence.\u201d Drohan shares how she keeps both paper and digital planners and encourages students to create their own systems. \u201cWhatever works to stay organized makes everything easier\u2026Trust yourself. Even if you get something wrong, you will get to the point where you can figure things out.\u201d
<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Drohan also warns students against overloading schedules. \u201cDon\u2019t do that to yourself. You don\u2019t need to for the college process and you don\u2019t need to for your own mental health. Give yourself time every single day in your schedule\u2026Building that organization will help with time management.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Looking ahead, Drohan notes she\u2019s eager to get started. \u201cI\u2019m just very excited to take on this position. I’m very excited to support the class of 2029 and be in a position to support all of the classes at Fieldston.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
After 10 years teaching history at Fieldston, Karen Drohan is stepping into a new role as dean for the class of 2029. Before coming to Fieldston, Drohan taught in California for 23 years, serving as chair of the history department at a school in the Los Angeles area. \u201cI decided to come back to the East Coast. I grew up here\u201d she says. \u201cI\u2019d known about Fieldston my entire educational career. It\u2019s got a great<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341,"featured_media":11938,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[347,644,318],"tags":[],"coauthors":[553],"class_list":["post-11937","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-community","category-features","category-news"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Screenshot-2025-08-10-at-11.49.05-PM.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11937","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11937"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11937\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11939,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11937\/revisions\/11939"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11938"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11937"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fieldstonnews.com\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=11937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}