When and why did you decide to become Dean of New Students?

Dean Allen Hart, who has been an outstanding dean for three years, is currently on sabbatical. He will be coming back next year. In the meantime, they needed a substitute. Since I just finished publishing a book, I thought it would be a good time to do something a little bit different. I also always got along well with [Dean of Students] Ben Lieber and thought he ran a tight ship.

What do you hope to do in your new job?

My goal is to have a year in which no one experiences a disastrous academic problem. There are lots of support mechanisms in place, but every year some students have difficulties. I just hope to set things up so that we can identify people who are struggling early on and help them out. I know this is an ambitious goal-perhaps too ambitious-but I would consider it a big success if nobody went on academic probation, at least through first semester. I also want students to know that if they have a problem, there's no shame in coming in to speak with me. I'm here to help.

Now on to more serious things. 50 Cent or Beethoven?

To be perfectly honest, Beethoven, though neither appeals to me very much. I'm much more of a David Bowie and Derek and the Dominoes fan. Southern blues appeals to me a lot. I really enjoy the rhythm of rap music, but my ears have not adjusted to the lyrics yet, so it's hard for me to understand what people are saying.

How did you get into Southern blues?

You know, I was part of a team that started a radio station back in high school. I was a DJ and my nickname was the "Bluesmeister." I had a show every Monday afternoon and was even excused from study hall because the radio station was such good PR for the school. On Friday evenings I also did live play-by-plays of the football games from the press booth.

So what do you do now for fun outside of work?

I like to garden-flowers in particular. I also used to play basketball. For about 10 years I played on a faculty intramural team [at Amherst] against students. I have some really fond memories of going to the gym and surprising the students with my accurate jump shot. But now I've graduated to be a player emeritus because my knees can't take it any more.

We all saw you act in the Student Health Educator skits. Ever considered acting as an alternative career choice?

No. The last time I acted was in high school. I played Rolf the telegraph boy in "The Sound of Music." It was really funny. They made me wear lederhosen and sing "I Am Sixteen Going On Seventeen." That really finished my career in acting. The critics were brutal.

What is your favorite book? And-be honest-how many times have you read it?

There's a 12th-century French novelist named Chrétien de Troyes whose work I really like. I read a lot of him and have probably read his pieces at least 20 times. But there is a long list of books that I really love. I like re-reading books because they are different every time. You've changed in the interim, and so you see new elements that previously went unnoticed.

Any bits of advice for your fresh-faced charges?

I think that they should be careful not to overcommit themselves to extracurricular activities until they get a feel for the academic life of college. It's natural to want to get involved, but people take extracurriculars really seriously here-it's easy to think of them as an extra course. Students should be careful not to let them replace course work. Through at least first semester, new students won't necessarily know the expectations for their classes. So they should get the work done first and turn to extracurriculars second.

Is there anything else you would like to tell everyone?

I have a couple of secrets that I'd like to share. [For] the first paper that I wrote in college, I got a C. It was a philosophy paper-which I kept-and my ideas were really worthy of a C. The other secret is that my first experiment in chemistry class turned out so badly that the professor hung up my lab equipment "on the wall of shame" to demonstrate to other students what not to do; it was so bad. While these things might have been viewed as a total disaster, they weren't. They were freshman moments and just short-term obstacles that I needed to overcome. Each exam is not a life-affecting moment. What happens one semester will not impede a student's academic or post-graduate careers. It's just a part of being in college.