UD president’s impact felt from Dayton to China

Dan Curran was born and raised in Philadelphia. He was educated there and worked for 23 years at Saint Joseph’s University, starting as an assistant professor before working his way up the administration ladder.

His success at Saint Joe’s got the attention of the University of Dayton, and in 2002 he was named UD’s 18th president. One big change hit him quickly: In southwest Ohio, he was a celebrity.

“Coming from Philadelphia, where there’s 50 universities, a university president, nobody knows who they are. Here in Dayton you’re much more visible,” Curran said earlier this month. “You have to make a decision on how you’re going to approach it early on. I was comfortable with that.

“One of the fascinating things that (incoming president) Eric (Spina) has to come to grips with is you are a public figure. You go out to eat and people are going to come up to you. Ninety-nine percent of the interactions are great, and the 1 percent you can’t worry about.

“You’re always on, and you want to represent the university in an appropriate way. We’d have never thought that coming from Philadelphia. No one knows what the president of the University of Pennsylvania looks like, or Saint Joe’s.”

Curran sat down for a rare one-on-one interview over lunch earlier this month, sharing stories and talking about what lies ahead. He is stepping down as president of UD at the end of June, finishing a 14-year-run that dramatically changed the look of the private Catholic, Marianist university.

“Dr. Dan,” as he is known on campus and around town, is the CEO of one of Dayton’s most visible entities, and he is compensated accordingly. His pay in 2014 — reported on the most current tax forms available — was $790,854.

The university reported total revenue of $625.6 million in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2015. More than half of that — $344 million — came from tuition. UD also provided $128.7 million in scholarship aid.

UD’s total expenses were reported at $549 million, including more than $200 million in salaries and benefits.

A major piece of Curran’s legacy is the ramped-up research activity at UD. The university purchased the old NCR world headquarters in 2009, providing room to grow its research institute. Government contracts brought in more than $88 million in fiscal year 2014, a revenue stream second only to tuition.

Curran, who will be honored at an invitation-only event June 4, has served on many boards, including the NCAA Division I board of directors. He’s also written several books, many of them as a co-author with his wife, Claire Renzetti, a professor at the University of Kentucky.

He will begin a one-year sabbatical July 1 and among his destinations will be China and Australia. In 2017, the active 65-year-old sociologist will settle in as a UD professor and spend about five months each year in China, where he will work to strengthen the UD China Institute, another major part of his legacy.

Here is what Curran had to say about some topics important to him and the university:

Improving UD’s research offerings and the campus footprint, which nearly doubled in size since 2002:

“We said early on that we were going to look for companies, major research facilities, to try to come in to collaborate with the research institute and students. Getting GE Aviation to come in was a huge opportunity for UD and the community.

“GE continues to grow; they filled that building (called the EPISCenter). At one time we were going to take the top floor of the offices and before the got in they said they needed more space.”

Curran is proud of UD’s national standing. He likes to ask presidents of other Catholic universities if they know the top three Catholic institutions on the top of the National Science Foundation’s funding list.

"They would always say Notre Dame, Georgetown and another school like Boston College or Loyola. We were always in the top three because of how strong engineering was, and it's stronger now than ever. We had to build on that reputation. Engineering has really taken off."

The popularity of UD's master's degree in renewable energy:

“That program attracts students from Europe, from around the world. I’m stunned at even at commencement. Students from the Middle East are in that program. It’s cutting edge around renewable energy.”

Some faculty have complained about the influx of Chinese students, some whom have trouble speaking English. Curran said about 300 Chinese students go through UD’s intensive English program each year.

“Faculty are constantly being challenged in what they had to do. It’s hard for faculty. The Chinese students usually understand English well, and they write well. But faculty has trouble pulling students out.

“If you go today to a Chinese university or high school, it is one-directional. If I give a lecture … it used to be so bad that (Chinese) students would ask questions on index cards and give them to you because they weren’t used to talking that way. It’s improved dramatically.”

Curran said about 70 students recently departed to study at the UD China Institute, and he is working to build relationships with other universities.

“The group that’s departing for the summer, about 70 students are going to go. We have another group of about 15 students from the University of Pennsylvania that are going to be at the institute, so Penn is involved now. We’re also partnering with Northeastern.”

Curran is no stranger to China. He held a concurrent professorship at Nanjing University in 1999, while he was working for Saint Joe’s. That was 10 years after the Tiananmen Square massacre, in which hundreds of civilians rallying for democracy were killed by the Chinese military.

“I started doing research in China in the mid-’80s. At that time every little contact was so hard to get. When China in general was much more closed, people were concerned about talking. Then after Tiananmen Square, there was a time when the scholars felt very uncomfortable.

“But today, having gone there for Saint Joseph’s and for UD, I have all these contacts and it’s a much more open country to have disccusions around population, migration, social control and justice. I’m enthusiastic about that project.”

He’s looking forward to his sabbatical. The last time he took one, he was a Fulbright scholar and traveled to Australia.

“I have so much stuff to do already. Last time I was on a sabbatical was 1990. I was still a faculty member (at Saint Joseph’s). I put so much stuff into that year that I think I came back more exhausted from the sabbatical.”

When Curran moved to Dayton, he had plenty of housing options, settling on Washington Twp. He currently lives in a condo near Far Hills Avenue, just off campus.

“People asked me when I first came, ‘Are you going to move into the (student-housing) ghetto?’ I said, ‘I have two children going to school. I don’t think that’s a very wise idea. I don’t think my wife would care for it much, either.’ That was because (former president) Brother Ray (Fitz) lives in the ghetto. There used to be four Marianist houses.”

Before he officially became a candidate for the UD job, he brought his family to town. His two young sons were “recruited” by Shaka Smart, who at the time was director of basketball operations for the Flyers. Smart went on to guide VCU to the Final Four and now is head coach at Texas.

"They took the boys over to the arena. The head of basketball operations gives them a tour and has them in the locker room they're used to the dreary Saint Joe's locker rooms. It was Shaka. We hit it off right away. The way he interacted with these kids, I would've been in trouble if I didn't take the job when they offered it to me because my kids were recruited by Shaka!"

Curran is a basketball junkie, and when asked about his favorite presidential perk he took about a half-second to answer: basketball tickets. He told a story about negotiating his second UD contract with Dan Sadlier, who at the time was the board of trustees chair.

“Dan said, ‘What do you want?’ I said, ‘Well, I’m pretty happy with my contract, so we brought in a consultant. I said one thing is, I do want four tickets for life to men’s and women’s basketball games. He said yeah, OK. So one day the consultant sends a draft and I said, ‘Dan, my tickets aren’t in the contract.’ He said, ‘You were serious about that?’ I said, ‘Yes, I’m absolutely serious.’ He said, ‘Well listen then. You’re not going to get four tickets. You stay five years, you get two tickets. You stay 10 years, you get four tickets.’ Dan didn’t miss a step. Now, no one said if I stayed 15 years I’d get two more.”

About the Author