{"id":6027,"date":"2008-06-29T13:49:54","date_gmt":"2008-06-29T12:49:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=6027"},"modified":"2008-06-29T16:37:30","modified_gmt":"2008-06-29T15:37:30","slug":"the-dean-of-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/?p=6027","title":{"rendered":"The Dean of Students"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img src='http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/Laxmi.jpg'  align=\"left\" alt='' \/><em>An interview from the Bhaktivedanta College newsletter<br \/>\n<\/em><br \/>\n<strong>Answers by Laxmimoni Dasi<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Q: What you were doing before coming to the college?<br \/>\nFor twenty-nine years I was the Principal of the Vaishnava Academy for Girls, in America. I was also involved in ISKCON education on other levels, as a child-protection advocate, a trainer, and a judge and as a member of ISKCON&#8217;s Ministry for Educational Development. <\/p>\n<p>Q: What inspired you to serve as the Dean of Students?<br \/>\nOne reason is that I am inspired by the team of wonderful devotees developing the college and training the students. Another is that I am inclined to remain connected to ISKCON&#8217;s educational development. The process of education is the backbone of ISKCON, on all levels, and I have always felt that whatever little good thing I can do becomes many times more valuable if I teach many others to do it.<\/p>\n<p>Q: What are your responsibilities?<br \/>\nCounseling the students and working with the administration to improve the facilities and programs.<\/p>\n<p>Q: What was accomplished in your first year?<br \/>\nThis year the administrative team clarified the college&#8217;s direction. By examining the needs and opportunities in ISKCON and defining the college&#8217;s spiritual expectations of the students, we paved the way for success in the future. As a team we clarified our vision and how we want to achieve our goals and what we want to communicate to the students by detailed discussion. So we have a more determined system, and that should bring increased clarity into our dealings with the students. A new building is being constructed, which will increase our facilities. Now the groundwork is laid for the college to become a dynamic force in Srila Prabhupada&#8217;s mission of spreading Krishna consciousness.<\/p>\n<p>Q: Tell us something about your experiences with the students?<br \/>\nMost students have almost no prior experience living in a temple. They do not all know the standards of temple life or the Vaishnava etiquette between men and women. We have students of many ages, so there is a bit of a challenge in bridging the generation gap; their social needs are different. And we have students from about fifteen countries; the language and cultural differences are challenging.<\/p>\n<p>Q: What are the plans to develop this service?<br \/>\nWe hope to offer exciting and enjoyable recreational, social, and cultural activities within the community of Radhadesh and more mentorship opportunities for the new students.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/laxcdmi.jpg\" alt=\"Hare Krishna\" \/><strong>By Laxmimoni Dasi<\/strong><\/p>\n<p> This year the administrative team clarified the college&#8217;s direction. By examining the needs and opportunities in ISKCON and defining the college&#8217;s spiritual expectations of the students, we paved the way for success in the future.<!--more--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-questions-and-answers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=6027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6027\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.dandavats.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}