Forward Together
A few months into her tenure, President Andrea E. Chapdelaine is invested, excited and determined to do the hard work.
It feels strange to imagine the new president of Connecticut College, Andrea E. Chapdelaine, ever being alone. Sure, she goes for solo sunrise runs and likes to have a few minutes to herself in her office each morning, but people are central to her life and work—and that’s been the case for a long time.
On campus, Chapdelaine often eats meals with students at Harris Refectory and attends their evening events. She makes a concerted effort to have face time with faculty and staff, sometimes walking into academic and administrative buildings just to say hello, and she immerses herself in events in the greater New London community. Meanwhile, in her house near the Williams Street entrance to the Arboretum, her husband of 29 years, David Tetreault, and their bernedoodle, Koda—short for Kodachrome—keep her company. The couple’s grown sons, Daniel and Benjamin, live short car rides away. And now, her extended family will see more of her, too.
Chapdelaine grew up in western Massachusetts as the youngest of five children whose grandparents all emigrated from Canada. The family spent weekends at Misquamicut Beach in Rhode Island and winters ice fishing and snowmobiling at Mount Monadnock in New Hampshire. “It was a good childhood, it really was,” Chapdelaine says. “My dad and mom were very committed to their faith and family. We were everything to them.”
Chapdelaine’s father, William, left school in eighth grade to help support his mother and siblings and earned his high school diploma later, while working full-time. Her mother, Jacqueline, spent two years studying at Boston College before leaving to start a family. “They both dreamed of a college education for their children,” Chapdelaine says, “and we were really blessed that they were going to do what they could to make that happen.”
William opened the family business, Chap de Laine’s Interiors, Inc., in 1957. Every Saturday, the parents and each child who was able would clean, organize and “do whatever needed doing,” Chapdelaine remembers. “It was important that we all help and learn the value of hard work.” The commercial and residential furnishings company in South Hadley, Massachusetts, is still going strong today under the longtime leadership of Chapdelaine’s sister Lisanne.