Caitlin Miller interviewed Doug while a member of the winter Journalism class.

Teacher, advisor and coach, Dougo Houston has been named the new Dean of Academics and will assume his position in the fall of 2009. Dougo has been a member of the Proctor community for twenty-seven years, teaching a variety of courses and coaching different sports teams.

He came to Proctor in 1983, after teaching at a conservative school in Arizona called the Orme School. When he left the Orme School, he was offered a teaching position in Colorado at another school which he was excited about but decided he wanted to check out Proctor as well. After getting to know some of the students and having a good look at the school, including a visit to Mountain Classroom, Dougo said, “ I liked the students here and the liberal views of the school. I also liked the outdoors and I decided I wanted to teach here.”

During his time at Proctor, Dougo has taught a number of math courses, coached several teams, and has been an instructor on Mountain Classroom. Graduating from Michigan State with a degree in mathematics, Dougo has taught many math classes and math electives, but he has also taught physics classes. He was also a teacher on mountain classroom for eight terms, teaching the history of Mountain Classroom and the history of the Southwest. Besides his full commitment to the academics of Proctor, Dougo has also been very involved in the sports program, coaching various sports teams both girls and boys and on the varsity and junior varsity levels. He also coached kayaking and rock climbing and started the snowboarding program. This past school year he coached girl’s junior varsity soccer and girl’s varsity ice hockey.

So why did Dougo want to become the Dean of Academics?  “Because I’m a nerd and I like playing with schedules and making things work and making things work better. I like the idea of helping plan the school.” He mentioned how he likes helping kids learn and that being the Dean of Academics was another way of doing just that. He added: “I’ve been a teacher for years and it’s been interesting to learn how students learn and learn how to teach students. I have had a lot of practice in that and I think I can help people get better at teaching students by looking at different ways of helping students.” He also likes using his skills such as working in patterns, trying new ways of organizing, and scheduling using technology.

Even though Dougo enjoys working with technology and organizing schedules, with a new job comes new challenges. When asked what he thought his greatest challenge would be he said, “The hardest thing for me to deal with will be not working with kids all day. I’ll mostly be working with adults and dealing with problems, so it’s a very big change of focus from the things that I consider as being so much fun versus the other side of things, working with adults and figuring out scheduling. There’s also a lot to manage.” Dougo may not be in the classroom full-time anymore, but he plans on still being a coach and advisor and eventually may teach either one math or physics class a term in the future. But the one thing he said he would never give up was being a hockey coach: “One of the things I said I wouldn’t give up when I took the job was girl’s hockey. I’m still going to be there. They may hire another assistant coach for the times I can’t be there, but I’ll try to be there as much as I can.”

I asked whether he would do things differently from Donna Jonas. He mentioned, “Donna and I actually think alike. She’s worked on trying to make systems happen here at Proctor so things flow easily and everyone knows what’s going on. I’ve been helping her with that. I’ve always been interested in helping with scheduling and those systems and like the way those systems work so I’m not going to make a huge change. I just want to help make them work better.”