Dean

In academic administration, a dean is a person with significant authority over a specific academic unit, or over a specific area of concern, or both. They usually run universities or colleges, but some deans are present in middle schools and high schools as well. The term comes from the Latin decanus, "a leader of ten", taken from the medieval monasteries (particularly those following the Cluniac Reforms) which were often extremely large, with hundreds of monks (the size of a small college campus). The monks were organized into groups of ten for administrative purposes, along the lines of military platoons, headed by a senior monk, the decanus. The term was later used to denote the head of a community of priests, as the chapter of a...