My first question is—this is just kind of a silly question—what does the ‘F’ in your name stand for?
Frederick. It’s funny because, and I’ve had people do this wrong a lot because my name’s very Irish and Francis is usually, it’s the ‘F’. In fact that was my great-grandfather’s name, Daniel Francis. But my father, I’m a junior, my father was named after his two grandfathers, one of whom was Francis Mahony, the other was Frederick Bateman, who was German and Jewish. So it actually comes from an entirely different side of my family.
I’ve had people actually assume it’s Francis because it’s such a common Irish thing to do.
I’d like to congratulate you on WInthrop ranking number one for the second year—
Oh, on the diversity [employee faculty goals]. Yeah, really proud of that. That was one of the big goals we had on the strategic plan when we started the winthrop plan. I’ve always said I knew we could do positive things, but we’ve moved quicker than I thought we possibly could so it’s been really good.
A lot of successes, a lot of goals [of the Winthrop Plan] have been reached in the past couple years, how would you explain that success?
I always say ‘surround yourself with really good people and you tend to be successful.’ I was the student government president when I was in undergrad. I remember at the end of the year someone wanted to do an interview with me from the paper and talk about why we had had a good year and they said ‘well why do you think we’ve had a good year?’ and they started to list some of the things and I said ‘well, that was Carla. That was Joe.’ There was always somebody who had taken a real lead role on it. I’ve been really fortunate to work with some great people. Whether on the financial side or fundraising, diversity. We’ve just had great support people all around.
You have just under a month left here. What are your plans for the next few weeks?
We’re trying to get a few more things done before I go. Everything from the faculty and staff wanted an Ombuds person so we’re doing a search on that, trying to finish that up, a few other searches that we’re working on, trying to accomplish just a few goals here and there and to make sure a lot of things are settled before I leave.
Can you explain what the Ombuds position is?
It’s just really a person, it’s usually a faculty or staff person that kind of agrees to take on that role. When someone’s maybe having a problem with people in their department, or whatever, it’s some place that they can go to kind of help work through some of those issues. A lot of places had it. We had it at my previous institution. Rather than having to go like you’re reporting something to human resources, it’s really kind of a first step of saying ‘how do I handle this?’ It’s worked well in other places and it’s been pretty effective.
Students, I’m sure you’ve seen on Instagram, Twitter, they’re really feeling the effects of your departure. They’ve been making really creative—and to be honest, funny—memes–
Okay, I haven’t seen all of them! [laughs]
But what are your thoughts on these reactions from students? How does it feel to know that practically an entire student body is begging for you to stay?
The best part of my time at Winthrop has been the relationship with the students. That’s not something that, because until you’re in this role, that’s not something you’ve had. I mean I’ve had relationships with students when I was in the classroom as a professor but it’s a little different in this role. I was never expecting it to be as good as it was. For me, it’s been incredibly rewarding. I think the thing that surprised me the most was when the announcement came out…that I was leaving for Southern Illinois. I was really worried that the students would feel like I abandoned them, like I didn’t care about them and their reaction was quite the opposite. For the most part, it was kind of like a ‘thank you so much for what you did and best of luck in the future.’ It was very reinforcing. It just reinforced why I adored the students here. Their reaction was just incredible and beyond what I expected.
How are you preparing for your position at SIU? It seems like it’s going to be a bit of a difference.
Yeah, definitely different. I’ve been trying to, and I’ve done this before. Every time I’ve had the same situation of where I had about three months between the time it’s announced and the time to start. I’m really just trying to learn as much as I can before I get there about the institution. In this case, it’s multiple institutions within the system. What are some of the problems that maybe I wasn’t told about during the interview process that you’ll need to attack? What are the things that are going really well, which again they have a lot of that, also. So just trying to learn as much as I can so that I’m really prepared when I walk in there on day one. Even getting some of the things started. One of the biggest things, they’re doing a search for the chancellor at the Carbondale campus. They’ve already got the search going so that when I come in March, that was part of the reason it really started in March, was I could be part of the interviews to select the new chancellor but they have already started working on it. A lot of the things they have in progress already, so I’ll step in right away and hit the ground running.
You just briefly mentioned it but was there a main reason for leaving in March instead of finishing out the semester?
Yeah, [the chancellor search] was a big part of it. Some of it was just the things that they needed to do there. Also, they have had an interim in that role for I think over a year and a half, which is a long time, and I think he was ready to go back to being retired and so they wanted to get me there early but the chancellor search was really the biggest thing. And a couple other things that really felt like if we waited until the end of this semester, summertime, not a lot of stuff happens on a university campus, so we would really not be getting things started until next fall. That was part of the reason why.
I’d like to talk to you about the board of trustees meeting that happened last Friday [Jan. 31]. I attended that meeting and there were some moments that were kind of tense.
Yeah. I was not there.
Dr. Jane LaRoche was there and she gave a very emotional speech about your departure. She mentioned a few things that I’d like to ask you about. I know some of the things she mentioned happened in executive session, so if you can’t talk about that, I understand that. Some of the things that stood out about you were, she said: “He’s a ten. He is summa cum laude with honors. He’s not a diamond in the rough — he’s a diamond. He’s not the cat meow — he’s the lion’s roar in a quiet way.”
What were your reactions to these comments?
Again, it’s almost like we were talking about with the students, the amount of support I’ve gotten from people and we talk about the students but it’s been alumni and others, has been overwhelming at times. It’s made me feel very good. Jane’s always been incredibly supportive. No one loves Winthrop more than Jane LaRoche does and her support through the last few years has been really meaningful to me. She’s a good friend and very supportive and those are incredibly kind words coming from her.
She also said that “Dan was not treated fairly, causing him to have to look elsewhere for a job, and you all know what I’m talking about,”
Can you clarify that statement?
Some of that I can’t really clarify. Some of that would probably get into things that happened in executive session. That’s Jane’s feelings about how I was treated and again, I appreciate her support. She’s always been there for me. Whenever there’s been difficulties, she’s always been very supportive.
With her speech, there have been a few rumors floating around about your leaving. Were you planning on leaving this year? Was that your goal?
You mean my goal to leave this year? No, I mean, I was in the last year of my contract, I think you know that. You wrote a very good article about that, so it was the last year and whenever anyone’s in the last year of a contract it gets to the point where you have to start looking around at different opportunities. I felt incredibly fortunate to find the opportunity that I did at Southern Illinois. It’s a very different job than Winthrop in a lot of ways but one that, when my wife and I went up there, really liked and found really appealing. It was a good fit for us. I will say part of it when I started thinking about looking at another job, one of the things I wanted to do was duplicate Winthrop because I’ve loved my experience here so much. At some point I think I realized that’s just stupid. That’s not going to work. You’re never going to find something exactly like what you had at the previous place and that opened me up to different possibilities. Southern Illinois is a different possibility with a lot of opportunities with a medical school and dental school and law school and all types of new things that I’m really excited about.
I was looking into it and there’s a lot of people that are involved with [SIU].
Yeah I think someone said they have as many employees as we have students here so it’s very large, the budget’s probably 10 times the size, which creates both more opportunities and more challenges. I always joked when I got into academia, I just wanted to teach. I wasn’t ever thinking about being an administrator. That was not part of my goal at any point and now I’m going to be president of a university system. That was not in my career plans at all, but it’s turned out that way.
I know you teach a class here. Is that something you will maybe do there?
That’s part of what I plan to do when I get there. We were just talking about that yesterday….They’re putting together their schedule for the fall. But I will teach. I’m going to be on the Carbondale campus through December and then I’m going to move to Edwardsville, which the president has never actually lived in Edwardsville before, so that will be a new thing. But I want to get to know both the main campuses there and then I’ll teach a class on both campuses. Then, once my wife joins me in the summer of ‘21, that’s when we’ll move to Springfield. That’s where the medical school is. That’s where the state capital is and where a lot of my political work will be. So that’s where we’ll be but I will get to teach a class on both campuses, at least in the first year.
You mentioned your wife is coming up in 2021. Is your daughter finishing out her year here?
She’s a junior in high school at Northwestern. That’s another reason why it’s really tough to leave. I’ve said Illinois will be the eighth state where I’ve had a driver’s license in my life, so I’ve done a lot of moving. I’ve moved, I’ve lived in three places in Virginia and three places in Ohio, so there’s been a lot of leaving and moving from different places. This will be by far the hardest thing I’ve ever left. Both because of the relationship with the students, faculty, staff and community here at Winthrop but also because of where my daughter is in school. It’s not ideal to not be here for her senior year but it also would have been less ideal for her to move away from here. She loves Northwestern, loves Rock Hill. This has been a great place for our kids. She’ll stay, and my wife. Obviously we’ll both be back and forth a little bit over the next year and a half and then she’ll join me after Elena finishes high school.
What are your parting words for Winthrop students? Is there anything that you’d like students and faculty to know?
I’ve enjoyed the experience here a lot. Particularly proud of all that’s been accomplished, and again, it’s not me but I think…part of it’s we’re in the best financial position we’ve ever been in. I know our unrestricted net position is higher than it’s ever been, our endowment’s gone up 50 percent in the last three years. We’re in a very good financial position. That’s going to allow us to invest more in our facilities here. We’ve got like $22 million to put into facilities. We have a lot of beautiful buildings but they need some work, so we’re going to be able to do that going forward. The Foundation will allow us to provide more money for scholarships. We’ve got a lot of exciting new programs here. Everything from Esports to the accounting diversity program to the Bachelor’s of Professional Studies and our online programs. I think our reputation as an institution is the best it’s ever been. Our U.S. News & World Report ranking is up. We’re going to break records on applications again this year. Things are going very good for the university. We’ve got a great group of employees, a lot of new vice presidents, associate VP’s, a lot of new directors and they’ve done a great job. When I got here, one of the things, somebody interviewed me and said ‘what would you like people to say when you leave?’ And I said ‘well, that I left it better than when I got here and that the person that comes in after me doesn’t have to hit a three-point shot, they can hit a layup.’ I think we’re in a position now where everything is set up for success. I think enrollment is set and will continue to increase. Fundraising will continue to increase. We’ll be able to put more money into our facilities. All of it’s going to get continually better. I’m happy with where we are as an institution.
