At the start of the 2023-2024 school year, Deerfield Academy welcomed professional motivational speaker Trevon Bryant as the Assistant Dean of Residential Life.
Prior to working at Deerfield, Mr. Bryant studied human development and family studies as an undergraduate student athlete and adolescent development as a graduate student at the University of New Hampshire.
After his graduation, he stayed at UNH as a residential hall director and professional motivational speaker for three years. During that period, he traveled to various universities to speak on leadership and character development, culminating that time with his own publication of a chapter in a bestselling book on Amazon: “Character is Your Ticket to the Promised Land” in From Letters to Leaders, written by a group of motivational speakers with whom Mr. Bryant worked closely.
11th Grade Class Dean and Head Football Coach Brian Barbato was Mr. Bryant’s football coach at UNH. Mr Barbato personally recruited Mr. Bryant from Florida in 2014, and the two have stayed in connection since then.
Commenting on Mr. Bryant’s hiring process at Deerfield, Mr. Barbato said, “When Mr. Bryant started checking [out] Deerfield… he met with folks in this place and we didn’t know what type of role [he would take on]. But knowing him and his energy and having seen some of his podcasts and things of that nature, [we] could tell that he would fit into this community of high character and family value.”
The school discovered room for Mr. Bryant’s motivation, inspiration, and mindset coaching for students’ personal development in the Student Life Office. With his knowledge and experience, Mr. Bryant said he hopes to guide “adolescents [and] young teens through that developmental stage where students are really trying to find that identity and just establish who they want to be in this world.”
Mr. Bryan spoke to the Class of 2024 last spring in a senior leadership meeting, exercising his motivational speaking skills and first introducing himself to the Deerfield community.
At Deerfield, Mr. Bryant is working with both the student body and athletic teams. He expressed that he wants students to “realize and understand that… leadership is not a matter of just a title. Leadership is [based on] your actions and who you are. And what you do or who you are, it’s really based on your character — your character drives what you do and who you become.” In that pursuit, he is currently implementing a new curriculum on character development that focuses on four pillars of character: care, respect, integrity, and citizenship.
Students will work through active exercises with faculty residents, who will encourage them to reflect on their character and to work to enrich the Deerfield community. The Student Life Office released Mr. Bryant’s inaugural program on integrity for 11th and 12th graders on September 25. In the long term, Mr. Bryant will also be involved in proctor selections, proctor training, and housing assignments.
In his work with athletic teams, Mr. Bryant hopes to collaborate with athletes who face adversity with overcoming injuries, their mental state, or those who are unhappy with their performance, encouraging them to alter their mindset to better their performance or to help them perceive their situations differently.
Student-athletes at Deerfield place “high levels of expectations on themselves, which can be a lot for young students in high school who are experiencing the world all at once,” Mr. Bryant said. As a former student-athlete, he said he is committed to “[equipping] students with the skills… the mind set, and the tools they need in order to face adversity and still be the best leaders and players that they can be.”
Just recently, Mr. Bryant spoke with the Girls’ Varsity Soccer team on unity, team culture, and communication, and is currently working with the football team. CJ Williams ’24, who plays Offensive Tackle for the Boys Varsity Football team, described Mr. Bryant as having “positively impacted the team, helping [them] forge stronger connections… especially because he played in college.”
Through his workshops with athletes, Mr. Bryant wants them to realize “there’s nothing wrong with the pressure that they’re putting on themselves.” He also aims to help them “learn how to spread [out] that pressure and be patient with allowing space to develop and not looking [for] everything to work out right now — to pace their eagerness to be successful.”
Mr. Bryant left students with this message: “Together, we’re better. Together, we’re stronger. We win together, we lose together,” he said. But most importantly, we live [and learn] together. And as long as you’re taking the opportunity to learn from your experiences as you live — and you do it together, with the community that you’re with, success will always be [in your] path.”