“Q & A” with SDSU President Barry Dunn

BROOKINGS – The second semester of the 2021-22 school year is officially wrapped up. On Saturday, South Dakota State University sent off the graduating class of ’22. In light of the semester ending, SDSU President Barry Dunn was kind enough to sit down with the Register to discuss recent fundraising efforts, the pandemic, legislative changes, enrollment, and the state of college athletics.

*Please note: the interview was edited for clarity, grammar and length

The Register: SDSU has experienced unprecedented success in fundraising efforts over the past few years, including the Bold and Blue campaign. How has SDSU been so successful when many other universities across the country have struggled?

Barry Dunn: I think the (SDSU) Foundation did an excellent job laying the foundation for it. It started immediately as I became president, we did a lot of work with a consulting firm and tested the marketplace, who literally did hundreds and hundreds of interviews with alumni across the United States, friends, major companies and we tested it. We got really positive results from that. If you take a step back a decade ago I think the work that (former SDSU) President Chicoine did with University Media Center with building the brand was the foundational stuff you have to do right. We got that right, had a very successful campaign, and kept that brand very strong. Success breed success so we had a lot of success in a lot of different areas. People could see the campus changing, they could see the positive impact -  I think it just all came together really well. Once the campaign got started, we did pretty well the first year or two but we just broke through during that COVID year, raising 71-72 million dollars. I have one event that I like to call out: It was the online athletic auction in May. We didn’t know what the virus was, we didn’t have a test for it, we didn’t have a treatment for it, we didn’t have a vaccine for it. The leadership and the energy around that very successful online auction and fundraising was just fantastic.

TR: The pandemic created unforeseen challenges in higher education in both the 2020-21 and the 2021-22 school years. Were there any positives that came from COVID related to SDSU and/or higher education in general? If so, what are they?

BD: I think the big thing, which will be seen for decades to come, will be on distance education. I think we changed how courses will be delivered for all time. Some us remember Dakota Digital Network, if you take that covered wagon technology of distance education to what we have accomplished with Zoom, Teams, and cameras – it’s just fantastic and its better now than it was during the pandemic. The second thing, from an administrative point of view, it showed us that we can have effective Zoom/Team meetings where we all don’t have to travel quite as much. So I think it will improve the efficiency of administration. The big one is -  I think you are going to see a reinvestment in science. We developed a vaccine with new technology in record speed so I think that reinvestment in science will help us forever.

TR: Among higher education experts, there is a general consensus that universities across the country will see enrollment fall, some are predicting as high as a 20% drop. Is SDSU concerned about this possible incoming enrollment “cliff” ? If so, what is SDSU doing to prepare/prevent for this change?

BD: We started preparing for (“the cliff”) before COVID. So there were some really solid, very thoughtful demographic studies that woke some of us up, which was four years ago. We started, collectively as a leadership team, learning about it, reading about it and trying to understand why. It’s something that’s pretty hard to get your head around. That ’08-’09 recession saw the birth rate dropped 15% which is very dramatic. It’s going to be an enormous challenge for high schools, K-12 systems, and its going to be an enormous challenge for us. We need to very competitive and again working on the brand. Our capital campaign was focused, kind of before everyone else, to address that challenge and focus on people with scholarships and endowed professors. Number one, you have to get the cost of education down as low as you can but we can only do so much so we have to scholarship it down as much as we can. We’ve had a big increase in scholarships. The other one is academic quality which include endowed professorships. We set a goal for 50 and we are now at 47. We’ll go to 60 or more because that will improve the academic quality of this institution and it will be highly competitive. Third is then facilities like Raven Precision Ag, Frost Arena going to Frist Bank and Trust Arena - you’ve got to have really top notch facilities. We will do another Wellness Center project in the next 5 years so that quality of life on campus will be really important. We hear a lot about accreditation and we talk about it lot but if we can’t show that our academic programs are equal to our better than Minnesota State’s, the University of Minnesota, Creighton than we won’t be competitive. We had a goal for 61, we’ve reached 60. Communicating to potential parents and potential students that we have academic quality, accreditation, scholarships, great faculty, beautiful facilities – that will be the key.

TR: Scobey Hall is scheduled to be demolished this summer. Does SDSU have future plans for that space?

BD: We have come to the end of the Master Plan for the campus and we are almost to the end of one that President Chicoine developed. So we are hiring a firm to help us go through another campus Master Plan so what that space will be will be determined by that campus master plan process. It could be parking, could be greenspace, could be a park, or could be some housing of some kind.

TR: This year’s legislative sessions resulted in the SD BOR implementing a “tuition-freeze” for all regental universities in South Dakota. What are your thoughts on the freeze?

BD: Given the 7 or 8% consumer price index, its unbelievable. I was with colleagues and presidents at a Missouri Valley Football Conference meeting a few weeks ago which included presidents and chancellors from schools in Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois, Indiana and Minnesota, and they are all very concerned about raising tuition and fees 5+ percent. We are sitting here because of our new SEDCO contract and our cost of attendance will be the same as it was last year. That will be unheard of so that’s a great thing. If we had raised tuition 4-5%, that stays forever. That’s the new baseline and then you add 3% or 1% the next year. So not having to make that big jump that everyone else will have to take is huge. Other schools didn’t have the solution that was provided to us by the state legislature and governor, which is fantastic.

TR: Recently, President Biden has hinted that he may cancel federal student loan debt. While things seems very preliminary, in theory, if Biden were to cancel some amount of student loans, what effect could this have on SDSU?

BD: It would be positive. I think higher education would benefit from that positive with literally millions of student loans cancelled. It would be huge. How that would carry to this current student – is that just for existing student loans or would that be for student loans coming forward? There’s lots of detail still to be determined. The democrats have promised to eliminate student debt and do all kinds of work. All of those things would help higher education. Its very political in terms of who is going to pay for it and I can’t answer all those questions. The pandemic clearly showed that we need more and better educated people. The statistics on who got sick and who died are striking. The level of education played a huge role in the impact of the pandemic so increasing the percentage of the population that is well educated improves their lives and improves all of our lives. That’s our goal. The other thing was – why did Brookings County have the lowest level of COVID in the state? We have the highest proportion of post-secondary education in this state. Education mattered, in terms of impact here in South Dakota, and across the United States. I’m a big fan of post-secondary education.

TR: The NCAA has been undergoing some significant changes over the past few years, whether that be the new NIL laws, the rise of the transfer portal, conference realignment, leadership changes, etc. Where do you see SDSU fitting into this ever changing landscape in 5 years? 10 years?

BD: I think NIL and the current transfer rules are not helpful to a mid-major university. We have certainly seen it play out in the last couple of weeks here. While it did help us get a Chris Oladokun (last year’s quarterback for SDSU) to campus, it certainly hurt us with some other student-athletes. In those meetings with other chancellors and presidents, there is enormous frustration because they are mid-majors too and we don’t have the resources to compete with the large universities with NIL or the transfer portal. Our chances, especially in something like men’s basketball - or possibly football – will certainly be challenging for our coaches and athletic department to be competitive when you are trying to hold a roster together and keep those top student-athletes. So it’s going to be really challenging, and I have lots of concern about it. I don’t think there is a strategy in place to address it right now, it just looks very chaotic.

Contact Addison DeHaven at adehaven@brookingsregister.com