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. The term comes from the Latin decanus, a leader of "ten," taken from the Medieval monasteries (particularly those following the Cluny reform) 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 cathedral, or a section of a diocese (a "deanery"). When the universities grew out of the cathedral and monastery schools, the title of dean was used for officials with various administrative duties. Many junior high schools and high schools have a teacher or administrator referred to as a dean who is in charge of student discipline and to some degree administrative... full article at wikipedia