UNH names James Dean Jr. as new president
James. W. Dean Jr. Courtesy
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By JONATHAN VAN FLEET
Monitor staff
Wednesday, April 04, 2018
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New Hampshire’s flagship university has named an administrator from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, as its next president.
After a nationwide search, James Dean Jr. was chosen to succeed Mark Huddleston, who is retiring after 11 years as university president. Dean will start on June 30 and will visit all three UNH campuses in Durham, Concord and Manchester between on Monday and Tuesday.
Dean comes in at a time when New Hampshire has the highest in-state tuition in the country and the state’s graduates have the highest average college debt.
In addition, UNH has tried to promote diversity and racial equality at the Durham campus, following racially charged incidents at the school.
Dean acknowledged some of these challenges in a short video released by UNH.
“UNH faces, however, a number of real challenges – how to ensure the continued success of our graduates; how to compete for the best students in New Hampshire and beyond; how to foster diversity and inclusion so that everyone at the university can thrive; how to articulate a compelling case for public higher education; how to build and improve relationships with the citizens of New Hampshire and their elected representatives; how to solve problems that face New Hampshire, the nation, and indeed the world; how to use our resources wisely to accomplish our mission; and how to generate new resources,” Dean said.
The ACLU of New Hampshire and Seacoast NAACP had urged the university to make the hiring process less secretive and use each candidate’s “documented success in promoting diversity and inclusion,” as a key factor in making its final selection.
“The ACLU-NH repeatedly encouraged the University of New Hampshire to use the hiring of a new president as an opportunity to promote diversity and inclusion, and to send a clear message that the university is committed to learning from previous events,” Devon Chaffee, ACLU-NH executive director said in a statement Wednesday. “While we welcome the incoming president’s general reference to these issues in his initial online address, we urge him to be more specific about his track record on and commitment to these issues as he visits the campus in the coming weeks. The students, staff and faculty of UNH deserve to hear how James W. Dean Jr. intends to promote diversity and inclusion within UNH.”
Most recently, Dean was the executive vice chancellor and provost at UNC-Chapel Hill, and before that he was dean of UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, where he launched an online MBA program.
Dean will earn an annual base pay of $445,000, in addition to other performance-based compensation. Huddleston made $415,000 in base pay as of June 2017, according to data from the University System of New Hampshire.
Gov. Chris Sununu welcomed Dean to New Hampshire.
“I had the pleasure of meeting Jim during the interview process and was struck by his thoughtful approach, experience and understanding of the need for the president of the state’s flagship public university to build relationships with businesses as well as the state’s leadership and its residents,” Sununu said in a statement. “Given Jim’s experience as a provost and business school dean, I look forward to working with him to keep our best and brightest students in the state and to continue to build the skilled workforce our businesses and the state’s economy need to thrive.”