Features

Dean of Students Megan Perry Spears Resigns After 12 Years of Service

By Molly MacGregor (mmacgregor@css.edu)

February 7, 2025

     Few people at the College of St. Scholastica were as well known as the former Dean of Students Megan Perry-Spears, known affectionately by her initials: MPS. The news of the sudden resignation was announced in an email to students on Jan. 9, leaving many wondering what to expect for the new semester. 

     Freshman and Student Body Vice President Ellie Norvitch shared her reaction to the news at a goodbye event with Perry-Spears held on Jan. 15. “ It wasn’t something I thought was going to be coming, especially with how committed she was to this school and all the long-term plans she had. There’s no one like MPS. No one does everything she does in the capacity that she does, even the best people. That’s a really hard void to fill.” 

     The CSS community showed up in droves to show support and say their goodbyes to Perry-Spears. The Flex Space in the Student Center had a line of students, faculty and staff awaiting their turn to talk with Perry-Spears that wrapped nearly around the entire (rather large) room. History student Daniel Barber said, “As a transfer student, the Dean made me feel really welcome. I met a lot of great people at events she had for people like me.” 

     Barber touches on a core tenant that guided Perry-Spears through 12 years at the college: making each student feel welcomed, cared for and able to connect with the people around them. The Script sat down with Perry-Spears for a reflective conversation that decidedly avoided the backstory of her resignation. Perry-Spears might not have shared the answers that many are longing for, but she did impart her fierce love for this community and her hope that every member of it continues to care for one another in her absence. 

    Perry-Spears’ journey to this job began as an undergraduate at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn. She was elected as student body president shortly after Rodney King was viciously beaten by four police officers in Los Angeles. “It kind of erupted things,” Perry-Spears said. “There was so much pain that needed to be talked about and experiences that needed to be healed and systems that needed to be changed. It was a really tumultuous time and, as the Student Body President, I worked a lot with the Dean of Students.”

     After college, Perry-Spears taught ninth-grade history and led the school’s Discipline Council, where she helped students who broke the rules identify the reasons why. “I found those conversations to be really meaningful. Working with students who had broken the rules and were sort of at their worst, and helping them learn from that to become their best, I found it really meaningful,” she said. 

     After earning a Master of Divinity and working for a short time at UMD, Perry-Spears was hired at CSS as the Dean of Students, a place where she could finally utilize her full range of skills. “I was using 60 percent of my palette at UMD. But when I went to St. Scholastica, this whole palette opened up to me because I could use language about holy human beings, right? I could talk about honoring each person as Christ, welcoming each person how Christ would be welcomed. That's a radical, radical idea.” 

     Perry-Spears hopes that this idea of radical acceptance will be carried forward by CSS students for generations to come, but especially right now. Referencing the current tumultuous political climate, she said “There’s gonna be a lot of change over the next four years, and I think that the consequences are going to be far-reaching in ways that we don't understand yet. Some old wisdom is worth sticking to, and the tradition of the Benedictines has withstood a lot.” 

     For Perry-Spears, the Benedictine value of community is particularly important right now. “There’s going to be a lot,” she said, “that tries to divide people and tries to make it easier just to put your head in the sand.” She implores students to do the opposite, referencing a TikTok in which the creator of the video encouraged people to “be more like drunk girls in a bathroom,” explained Perry-Spears. “You know, you braid each other's hair, you got each other's back. Someone needs a tampon? We got you.” 

     While Perry-Spears is not encouraging students to get drunk and hang out in a bathroom, she is asking us to take care of our community in the fierce way that drunk girls in the bathroom care for each other. “Be scrappy, we got your back, let’s take care of eachother. I feel like the Benedictines are a scrappy, let’s-take-care-of-each-other kind of people, and we need to keep doing that. Loving your neighbor is especially important when it’s hard and you don't want to. It wouldn’t be a commandment if it was easy, right?” 

     Perry-Spears spoke about her continuing relationship with this campus community as a “relational memory.” Although her physical time at the College has come to an end that feels abrupt and surprising for many, Perry-Spears said that the people here will continue to be an important part of her life. “The people, the experiences, the stories will continue to impact me over time. I love these people, and I'm going to be connected to them for my whole life,” she said. 

          Perry-Spears’s resignation leaves a one-of-a-kind gap in the student support network. Both she and Dory Kempf, the person to whom many of Perry-Spears’s duties will now fall, want students to understand that there is a team of people who students can turn to. “My face is the one that students sometimes connect with,” said Perry-Spears. “The reality is that it can’t be done well by one person, right?” 

     Kempf reflected this sentiment when she explained that, “Scholastica is Scholastica because there’s a team of people who care deeply for students.” Students can direct concerns to Kempf directly (dkempf@css.edu), but she explained that students can also “walk into anybody's office, and we have a community of  people who will help that student get to the right place if they need that.”

     While there is a strong network of people to support students, the whole campus will feel the effects of losing Perry-Spears. Norvitch told The Script that she has been involved in meetings to detail the job description for the now open position. Kempf explained that “there’s lots of different ways to do the work of a dean of students, and we’re working to envision what that looks like going forward. The job description that Megan came under is different from what she was actually doing.” As of right now, the timeline for the search is unclear. 

     Although it can be tempting to retreat inwards during times of anxiety, anger and uncertainty, Perry-Spears calls on students to do the opposite. Leaning into community, taking care of one another like drunk girls in a bathroom and recognizing the holiness in each person has a profound effect that can ripple out far beyond CSS. “I really believe,” she said, “in the generational impact. When somebody has been seen and known and loved and supported for who they are, that experience never goes away. When somebody feels valued, they go out and help heal the world. We can start storms of love.”