Community says farewell to Jim and Jan Dean
The community breakfast also gave the Deans the chance to share future plans and favorite UNH memories. Jim Dean is officially retired as the university’s 20th president, and he and Jan have resettled in North Carolina, where they lived just before moving to Durham in 2018, to take over the reins as president from Mark W. Huddleston.
The Deans’ list of accomplishments is long: under President Dean’s tenure, UNH has ranked as a top value public university in New England and in the top 7 nationally. Through his strategic priorities, he has focused on increasing student aid, ensuring greater on-time graduation rates and tracking graduates’ success once they leave Durham, Manchester and Concord.
And of course, any recollection of Dean’s legacy wouldn’t be complete without one of the biggest challenges faced by any leader: the COVID-19 pandemic. UNH’s response was a model for schools across the country, as transmission on UNH campuses was well below state and national averages, even at the height of the COVID crisis — thanks in large part to a team-based leadership model that allowed the university to create its own testing lab for the university community, as well as communities throughout the state.
Shortly after Dean became president, the university became an R1 research institution, and since then it’s nearly doubled its annual competitive research funding — with growth in several areas, including space science, marine science and sustainability. In the last six years, donors were motivated to give more than $290 million — with $140 million of that going toward financial aid for students. Those gifts range from one dollar to $20 million: most notable are the gift from Dana Hamel to establish the Hamel Honors and Scholars College in a renovated Huddleston Hall, and a $5 million gift from the Landecker Foundation to transform UNH’s open aquaculture site into the UNH Sustainable Seafood Field Laboratory.
From his “bus tour” around the state in 2022 to meet with business and industry leaders and staff, to the formation of the Business Advisory Council, Dean has “walked the walk” when it comes to his “Embrace New Hampshire” initiative — showing UNH’s value to the state, but also listening to employers’ needs to see where partnerships can be forged with UNH.
Jan Dean was active in campus life as well, taking a leading role in the formation of the Student Basic Needs committee, bringing her expertise from a career in nursing. And in the final months of the Dean era, she completed her passion project:”On the Corner of Garrison and Main,” the first complete history of the presidential residence. Jan Dean worked with campus partners, especially archival staff of the UNH Library, to bring together a detailed history of the presidential families who have lived in the house since 1904.
For Jim and Jan, the highs and lows of an unprecedented time at UNH — and in higher ed in general — behind them, the mood at their farewell event was congratulatory.
“It’s bittersweet,” says Jim, as a line of well-wishers formed to give their best wishes to him and Jan at the breakfast. “We’re looking forward to spending more time with our children and grandchildren, but this outpouring of support reminds me of what a special place this is.”