New Hampshire’s flagship university has named a former 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 June 30 and will visit all three UNH campuses in Durham, Concord and Manchester on Monday and Tuesday.
Dean becomes the 20th university president 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 racist incidents at the school.
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.
“The students, staff and faculty of UNH deserve to hear how James W. Dean Jr. intends to promote diversity and inclusion within UNH,” Chaffee added.
Dean is the former provost and executive vice chancellor at UNC-Chapel Hill, from which he stepped down in August 2017 after four years in the position, according to the school newspaper, the Daily Tar Heel. Before that, he was dean of UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School, where he launched an online MBA program.
At UNH, Dean will earn an annual base pay of $445,000, in addition to other performance-based compensation. As provost and executive chancellor, his salary was $469,742, according to UNC salary records published by the Charlotte News and Observer.
Huddleston made $415,000 in base pay as of June 2017, according to data from the University System of New Hampshire.
Dean applied elsewhere to become a university president. He was named one of eight finalists in February to become the president of the University of Central Florida.
Rogers Johnson, the head of the Seacoast NAACP, was critical of UNH’s hiring process because it was closed off to all outsiders and the school declined to name any finalists.
Johnson said the NAACP’s primary goal was to hire a candidate who could explain his experience promoting diversity and inclusion on a college campus, not getting UNH to hire a nonwhite president.
“This candidate probably would have answered those questions to our satisfaction, but we never got a chance to ask,” Johnson said. “They are so closed and nontransparent, it prevents people from trusting them.”
The closed nature of the process obscured whether any minority candidates applied or were even considered, Johnson said.
Johnson said he’s willing to give Dean the benefit of the doubt, since he’s coming from UNC, which, like most southern public universities, does not tolerate racial bias.
“I’m assuming Mr. Dean is an individual who is dedicated to diversity and inclusiveness,” Johnson said.
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.
At UNH, Dean was lauded for his experience and leadership by the people who hired him.
“He not only understands but embraces the importance and challenges of access, affordability, diversity and inclusion,” said John Small, chairman of the search committee and the USNH board of trustees. “He is also eager to bring his experience in leadership and building relationships with businesses to the university for the benefit of our students. Jim is thoughtful, approachable, visionary and an exceptional team builder – he will be an outstanding president for UNH.”
(Jonathan Van Fleet can be reached at 369-3303, jvanfleet@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @CMonitor_JVF.)