Mr. Daugherty: Your Friendly Neighborhood Dean of Students

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Corey Vita, Staff Contributor

From humble beginnings in Chatham to disciplining students in the Bahamas, Mr. Daugherty has a wide range of experience and talent under his belt. He is currently the Dean of Students at Oratory and also holds the titles of varsity basketball coach, assistant varsity soccer coach, gym teacher, and driver’s education aficionado. His deep love for Oratory and everything we stand for is prevalent through the decisions he makes to lead a student body that is very unique. Perhaps the best part about Oratory is that you can be yourself here and mostly everyone gets along. There is no real “bullying” and his task as Dean of Students is responsible for creating that environment that we embrace every single day. As stated by Mr. Daugherty, “you can be proud to be a gamer, you can be proud to play card games, or you can be a great athlete. We have all different kinds of kids, but everyone gets along, and that’s a cool thing.”

His laid back, but stern persona may be attributed to his experience before he even stepped foot inside of Oratory. Dreams and aspirations are what every child believes to achieve. For Mr. Daugherty, that ambition was becoming a college basketball coach. He was always an athlete, playing soccer throughout high school and helping out the St. Bonaventure basketball team during college, but he always wanted to be the in charge of the team. During his summers, he would head out to the Poconos for basketball camps to feed his aspirations. He would meet fellow coaches who were still chasing their dreams of making it at the collegiate level. However, the gentlemen he met still weren’t making it at the ages of 45 and 50 years old. No one wants to wait until their life is halfway over, just to Maybe get a big break and become a professional coach. Then, during his junior year of college he had an epiphany. He wouldn’t want to spend his entire life chasing a dream that may never come to fruition. Being a coach was his end game and he figured the best way to approach that lifestyle was to get involved with teaching. Gaining experience with students, whether through the physical education department or a training type of program, would be the most beneficial to his passion of coaching. Since his realization that professional coaching was too daunting of a task, he pursued high school athletics. It made sense. He could work on his leadership skills in a school system, but still get to pursue his dream of coaching basketball. Towards the end of his senior year of college he went to Freeport, Bahamas to teach for a few months. It may be a shocker that a student who is about to graduate college lived in a house on the beach in the Bahamas. However, the real surprise was the corporal punishment that was implemented by the school system he was assigned to. He even recalled his very first day on the job. He pulled up the driveway and two students were forcibly holding desks above their heads as a means of punishment for bad behavior. Mr. Daugherty has a well-mannered and respectable moral code and the tactics being used by this school would not fly while he was there. To the backlash of faculty and administrators, he implemented his own rules and various consequences that didn’t involve physical reprimand. To the shock of the administrators, his tactics worked and the students started behaving better. He was so good, in fact, the school offered him a job upon his three month completion. Fortunately for us, he turned down that offer and went back to the U.S. to teach.

Fast forward a few years and past a period of teaching at a school in Brooklyn, Mr. Daugherty landed his job at Oratory Prep. He couldn’t express enough to me the fact that he unequivocally loves his job here. Oratory is a phenomenal place to attend, but Mr. Daugherty believes it may the best place to work for. The faculty genuinely appreciate their jobs, the school, and the students. For those reading this article who have not had the privilege of meeting and having a conversation with Mr. Daugherty, I highly encourage you go out of your way and do so. He isn’t your typical Dean of Students and he wants to know all of us on more than just a faculty to student level. His door is always open and he’s an open book. His goal is to get to know everybody in some capacity and he wants students to feel comfortable to have a discussion with him. He embodies what the Oratory spirit and mission statement represent. He works hard for his family, cares about others, and is always looking towards a positive future. Hopefully his influence will last many years down the road and future Oratory students can get to know the man who is a friend to all Rams.