Courtesy of Victoria Howard
I first learned that President Dan Mahony offers to have lunch with students at some point during Welcome Week when I transferred to Winthrop at the start of my sophomore year. I was surprised and excited to hear that the president of the university was so open to sitting down with students.
As time passed and I learned more about our president, who the student body affectionately refers to as Dan the Man, I started to appreciate him more and more. From seeing him around campus at student events to seeing his Instagram posts where he showcases the achievements of students he meets, everything I saw about him made my respect grow even deeper.
Throughout sophomore year, I kept telling myself that I would work up the courage to email the president’s office and set up a time to get lunch together, but it wasn’t until getting back to school for my junior year that I finally did.
Setting up lunch with the president was easier than I thought it would be. All I did was email president@winthrop.edu and within a few hours, his office assistant, Tammie, reached back out. It only took around five emails for us to set the time, Aug. 29 at noon.
As the day approached and I told my friends about the meeting, my excitement grew along with my nerves. I started to plan out questions to ask and things to discuss with the president, but I still felt nervous. What if he wasn’t as cool as he seemed on Instagram? What if the student body had hyped him up so much that he was unable to live up to those expectations?
Dear reader, I am here to let you know that Winthrop’s 11th president lives up to all the expectations and memes.
When Savannah Scott, TJ’s Science and Tech editor, and I first walked into the president’s office, we were greeted warmly by his office assistant. When Dan the Man first came out he shook our hands and made sure to ask us about The Johnsonian before asking us if we would like to go to Markley’s or Thomson for lunch.
We chose Thomson and as we set off across campus to reach the cafeteria, Savannah and I started to ask him more questions about Winthrop and he asked us about ourselves. Throughout the walk over we talked about how great it was to be at a smaller school where we felt connected to all the other students as well as the faculty and staff.
We each talked about our families, the president talking about his daughter beginning the process of choosing a college and me talking about supporting my sister who is in the middle of that same experience.
By the time we reached the cafeteria, I was hot and sweaty, but feeling much more comfortable around the president. Dan really was the man when he kindly paid for our meals before we sat down to eat. Mahony ate a salad with a hamburger patty cut up for extra protein. I thought to myself how much I admired his dedication to health while I ate my mac and cheese and tater tots.
Our first topic of conversation began with him asking us questions about our majors and what we planned on doing after graduating. This immediately sent a shot of fear down my spine as I still am very unsure about my post-graduate plans and I didn’t want to disappoint Dan. Luckily for me, Savannah talked about her own plans and whether or not she would like to continue journalism after school or go into the public relations field.
Dan offered advice to Savannah about how to find the right path for herself. I let these supportive words of wisdom sink in, so by the time Dan switched the conversation over to me, I felt comfortable explaining how I sort of knew what I wanted to do, but was questioning myself at every turn.
Dan, probably having heard the same story from plenty of other students in his time at Winthrop and at schools previously, listened intently and assured me that it was okay not to have everything figured out quite yet. He also told me that my plans to intern and figure out where to go from there were a good idea.We then moved on to more light-hearted topics, such as the Alessia Cara concert and the iconic memes of him.
Dan let us know that while he won’t be able to attend the Alessia Cara concert, he hopes that the success of the concert will encourage more performers of Cara’s caliber to choose Winthrop as a tour stop. He spoke about how having performers like Alessia come does a lot for Winthrop, including getting the school’s name more out there, helping raise more money and making the school more appealing for new students.
We brought up the iconic Winthrop meme pages that began to spring up last year and asked him about what he thinks of them. Dan laughed when we brought them up and admitted that while it was a little weird sometimes, the ones that he has seen have made him laugh. He told us that it all seemed to be in good fun and was respectful, so he was happy to see them.
It was around this point that a student came up to Dan and asked if he could ask some questions. Dan, being the ever-gracious president he is, said of course and the student sat down with us. He and Dan discussed Alessia Cara coming and the possibility of more artists coming and once the student left Savannah asked Dan if similar things happened often. He told us that yes they did, but he was happy when it did because it was another example of the student body and faculty feeling close on campus.
Savannah and I used this as a chance to express how highly we thought of him because of his willingness to sit down and have lunch with students. The president almost tried to shake it off like it was no big deal, but we pressed on saying that it was and that we were very grateful.
I then told him that sometimes he might be too fantastic. I joked around with him saying that sometimes in the TJ office we would wonder if he would ever mess up so that we could have a crazy huge story to break. Dan thought this was funny and said that he would keep trying not to cause any issues. I sighed lamenting the fact that we will not be able to break any scandalous news about the university’s president.
It was about then that I realized we’d been sitting at the table in Thomson for well over an hour and that I should probably go do my homework for my next class. On the walk back toward his office, Dan the Man once again showed his true colors of being a fantastic president when he offered Savannah and I more wisdom on succeeding at Winthrop.
We reached the office and I took a photo with him, something that I’d been hoping to have taken since I first established my fan of Dan status the year before. We ended the meeting with more handshakes and Dan wishing us well with The Johnsonian and in life. Overall, my lunch with Dan the Man was exactly what I had wanted it to be. I got to meet him directly and tell him about my Winthrop experience. I learned more about the president and what his life is like alongside the job he does for the university. On top of all that, I was able to confirm what the Winthrop community has known from the moment he first took office in 2015. And that is that Dan, is in fact, the Man.
