Page 29 - The Bell Tower - Summer/Fall 2015

S PO T L I G H T
O N A L U M N I
Just How Far a UMFK University Studies Degree Took Him
Dr. Stephen Dean points the way from atop a pollarded tree in the Epping Forest near London, England.
In 2006, Stephen Duane Dean Jr. graduated from UMFK with a degree in university stud- ies, but this young man demonstrated over the following years that a UMFK degree can transform a person’s life.
“I called it history, but it was technically university studies,” he said during a tele- phone interview in April of 2015. That rather unremarkable-sounding degree, combined with the experience of learning at UMFK, has transformed Dean from a young kid in Milo, Maine, to a world traveler exploring Europe and the Far East.
Dean is the first person in his family
to attend university. He said other schools would not consider him, a young man from a town of 2000 people where the median income almost half that of the rest of the state. Yet the admissions office at UMFK saw something in Dean, and the university accepted him into their program.
While attending college, Dean threw himself into campus life as well as making connections with the community. He was active in university organizations, volun- teered for the first World Cup Biathlon event in Fort Kent, and he even worked at the Christmas Tree farm in St. Agatha. “That was very interesting,” he said.
Dean said the culture of the university, its personal approach with students and its connections to the surrounding community made his first post-high school experience valuable. “It was quite a close-knit communi- ty where you could go to the movie theater and you would see everybody you know. You could go to Bee Jay’s Tavern and see every- body you know.”
Stephen said walking across the com- munity made college less intimidating. “It’s not alienating like larger campuses with their vast Walmart-esque conglomeration of buildings.”
While at UMFK, Stephen found men- tors within the faculty. He credits two men, specifically, who shaped the path on which he found himself. “It was really based off
of the training I received at UMFK. I was quite well trained by Dinsmore and Vladimir Suchan. These two individuals shaped how I approach history.” Dr. Richard Dinsmore was a professor of European history who died in 2005.Professor Suchan taught interdisciplin-
ary studies.
At times, Dean said, he struggled
with his studies. The signature “personal attention” from faculty and staff helped him through those struggles. Years later, he would discover he had dyslexia. “I was diagnosed with dyslexia quite late, and
I think [the reason] the diagnosis came so late is from the sheer persistence from professors. They never denied [me] a mark because of my strange writing style.”
After graduation, Dean went to Augusta and worked as an intern at the Maine State Archives. “I was able to do that largely because I received a fair bit of funding through Richard Dinsmore after his death in my final year.
“I was the recipient of an award
he created [The Professor Richard B. Dinsmore Memorial Scholarship] which gave me some financial stability,” said Dean.
After his internship, Stephen Dean used his degree to travel to South Korea where he taught English for a year. Then he moved to London.
In England he decided to pursue a master’s degree in intellectual history and political thought, which he earned at Queen Mary University of London. After his mas- ter’s degree, he decided to go even further. “I really like England, and I decided I wanted to stay. I got into a Ph.D. program at Kings College London,” he said.
Stephen explained that he would never have felt confident enough to rub shoul- ders with graduates from Cambridge and Harvard except for the benefit of his UMFK experience. The Maine University had prepared him for anything. “I went from UMFK to a school where others were com- ing from Cambridge, Harvard, that sort of thing. UMFK gave me the tools to speak and engage with people who come from a high level background.”
During his time in London, Stephen taught at inner city schools in London and worked with special needs students. He also came across other world traveling gradu- ates from UMFK. He recalls finding his friend and fellow alumnus, Takefumi Kawahara in Japan.
“I’ve run across UMFK graduates as I’ve moved around.”
Now he works as a headhunter for a London firm that searches for quantitatively skilled people, such as professionals who work at CERN or NASA, to help banks and hedge funds create automated trading appli- cations.
It’s been a wild ride for Dr. Stephen Dean, a journey that has taken him from
a small rural town west of Bangor all the way to Japan and South Korea, and then to England. Dean said his experience at UMFK was a pivot point in his life, a chance where he learned to make his own life decisions.
“I’m very thankful for being given a chance, coming from a nontraditional back- ground, without any attempt from anyone to tell me what I had to achieve. This gave me a chance to choose what I wanted to do next.”
Stephen said he plans to visit Fort Kent again in the near future.
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