David Dooley’s life has been (accidentally) devoted to higher education
David Dooley reflects on his career working in higher education. Photo from uri.edu.
Dog-lover, nerdy scientist and natural introvert are just some of the ways you could describe the University president we all know, David Dooley. But his journey to the top may not be what you would expect.
“It was a total accident,” Dooley said of becoming an administrator in the field of higher education. “Never anything I had planned or aspired to do; it was just the way life turned out.”
Dooley had never thought of becoming a president at any university when his career in higher education began, but as fate would have it, he was first thrust into the position at Montana State University.
At the time, he was the interim provost at Montana State. Though the president of the University at the time was a “fine man,” Dooley said it became clear that he would not be offered the permanent provost position. After working together for several months, the administrators realized they were “fundamentally incompatible.”
Confident that he would return to his job as the head of the chemistry and biochemistry department at Montana State, Dooley was content with returning to a position he loved. Ultimately, Dooley did not return to this position since the presiding University president tragically died of a heart attack before choosing a different provost to take over his temporary stay.
This resulted in a longer position in administration than he had originally planned. In efforts to find an interim president, Dooley served alongside the team of vice presidents at Montana State University to find a temporary replacement.
“It was one of the things that convinced me of the value of teamwork,” said Dooley. “I mean how do you deal with that? Your president dies suddenly, somebody’s got to take the lead and we decided to do it as a group.”
A few months after the new president arrived, Dooley said the new president visited his office and asked Dooley to be a candidate for provost, confident that he would ultimately be picked for the position.
After being chosen as the new provost at Montana State, Dooley came to love the job. He said that he always enjoyed the full breadth of human knowledge and study.
“One of the great things about it was that it has you connected to the entire university,” Dooley said. “You know, I worked on everything with the president: from intercollegiate athletics, to nursing, to business, to science of all kinds, to the humanities and foreign languages [to] arts and architecture and I loved all of that.”
Ten years later, Dooley’s tenure as provost in Montana ended and he received offers to serve as president for various universities throughout the United States. That was when Dooley was approached by the University of Rhode Island’s search firm about becoming president in Kingston.
In the end, URI’s institution and community made such a great impression on Dooley that he decided to turn down his other offers and was ultimately selected as the Rhody president in May 2009.
After spending time at University of California San Diego, the California Institute of Technology, Amherst College, Stanford University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dooley stands by his word that the students at the URI are the most impressive. Students who double and triple major, those who go to school and work, student researchers and a Greek Life system that raises money for philanthropic causes are just a few examples of the students who go above and beyond, that he is so proud of.
“It’s pervasive amongst the students how community-minded they are, how giving they are, how dedicated they are [and] how hard they work,” Dooley said.
A great sense of collegiality, cooperation and motivation at the University has continually inspired President Dooley.
The faculty, staff and leadership at URI came together in several instances during trying times and improved the institution as a collaborative group. Specifically, the University faced a fiscal crisis soon after Dooley’s arrival when the state had cut its budget by $25 million in the span of two-and-a-half years. He saw the community come together and strive to overcome this obstacle.
Even now as the world faces a pandemic and national reckoning over systemic racism, the “we can do this together” spirit so thoroughly ingrained in the URI fabric and culture is working to advance the University past these challenges, according to Dooley.
As the coronavirus pandemic caused the University to transition to a remote-learning model, Dooley said the disappointment seen in students who were excited to participate in all of the in-person activities, like commencement, was disheartening.
“We can’t have the same kind of gatherings; we can’t welcome people to the campus; we can’t come together as a community of students, faculty, staff and visitors the way we have typically done in every year that I’ve been president and for decades before that,” Dooley said when speaking of the in-person traditions such as Alumni and Family Weekend.
Having worked through both the challenging times and the wonderful times alongside Dooley, Provost Donald DeHayes said that the past 12 years together have been a rare, special opportunity.
“It’s really been an honor to be working with him, more or less as his sidekick,” DeHayes said. “President Dooley has just tremendous values and is also extraordinarily student-focused while at the same time an ardent believer in the academic core mission of the University and our research enterprise.”
As for achievements during his tenure at URI, Dooley was given a short, yet big list of things to accomplish upon his arrival from the Board of Governors for Higher Education.
The Board of Governors, which has since been replaced by the Rhode Island Board of Education, had its attention divided amongst three extremely different institutions: URI, Rhode Island College and the Community College of Rhode Island. Dooley said it couldn’t best serve the institution and were disconnected from it, some never having been on the campus save for board meetings. This led to the creation of a new Board of Trustees at the University, an accomplishment under Dooley’s belt as president of URI.
“The Board is now focused entirely on the University of Rhode Island, it’s their sole concern,” Dooley said. “And I think that that governance structure is exactly what URI needed to continue its growth and continue its path toward ever greater levels of achievement and excellence.”
Another task was to position URI as a reliable, dependable, highly-productive partner with the state of Rhode Island, the private sector and non-profit sectors. Now a valuable resource for the entire state, Dooley believes the institution has succeeded. Resources the University has begun to provide for the state include the Rhode Island Cell Therapy Training Institute, Rhode Island Materials Innovation Center and others.
“We are a resource now for the entire state in a way that perhaps we hadn’t prioritized in the past,” Dooley said. “That was something the Board of Governors made clear; that we needed to do more of that. And I think the institution has really succeeded in that.”
Growing the research capacity at the University has seen dramatic growth during Dooley’s tenure. Faculty are publishing more than ever, and are winning more awards and contracts with higher profile research among international leaders in the various academic fields.
The University’s focus on student success through a student-centered culture was an effort throughout the entire campus. This was a foremost priority which has shown increased retention and graduation rates according to Dooley, with students more likely to finish in four or four and a half years than before. Enrollment has also increased, as more prospective students apply to URI with its increased name recognition due to the improvement of research capabilities.
“I think our students really have the attitude that they can go out and accomplish great things,” Dooley said when speaking of the leading culture at URI.
This unique skill of strategically positioning the University in the best possible way, according to DeHayes, has been essential in successfully shaping the University in critically important ways under Dooley’s tenure.
Prior to becoming this “accidental administrator,” Dooley enjoyed being a scientist and professor researching chemistry at Montana State University. He discovered as an undergraduate TA that he enjoyed explaining science to people and teaching.
“I know it’s really geeky and awful and boring, but I love chemistry,” Dooley said. “Which almost no one can understand except other chemists, but it’s true; I love the field. I love to think about it. I enjoyed every bit of it I ever did, and I loved doing research with my students and my research staff.”
Stepping out of this environment where the self-proclaimed introvert was comfortable was a challenge for him. As a provost and a president required to speak publicly more frequently, it got better but has always been hard work.
Dooley said that his wife, Lynn Baker-Dooley, would joke with him after a busy public day because she “couldn’t get him to say another word if [she] worked all night at it because you’re just done with talking to anybody.”
“It’s hard work for me to give speeches, it’s hard work for me to just meet people frankly,” Dooley said. “I enjoy meeting with people, but to meet people I don’t know or barely know and just socialize in that way; that takes an effort. It’s not my natural way of being.”
As a child, Dooley grew up in Central Valley, California in small farm towns, his favorite activities spent outdoors by himself or with his siblings. So, it isn’t too surprising that his favorite place at URI is the arboretum, by the botanical gardens on campus, particularly in the summer when the flowers are in bloom and campus is less busy.
His dog, Rhody who joined Dooley on his journey to Rhode Island back in 2009, also loves it there because of all the bunnies he can chase. Dooley said he also loves the woods across the street from Flagg Road, and enjoys watching the birds and the deer that live there. Rhody loves URI and enjoys the beach possibly more than the students who attend the University.
“We couldn’t even use the word ‘beach’ or the word ‘ocean’ or ‘seawall’ or ‘Narragansett’ hardly,” Dooley said of Rhody. “So we finally ended up just saying ‘let’s go to the place where there’s sand.’ And he finally started to figure that out about a year ago that that meant the beach.”
As URI remains a school whose community is invested in its basketball teams, Dooley shared his favorite men’s team memory as the year they went to the NCAA tournament after winning the Atlantic 10 tournament.
“I will go on record saying the referees stole the second game against Oregon from us,” said Dooley. “Some of the most outrageously bad calls I’ve ever seen in an NCAA tournament.”
It was a remarkable time with an energized campus as well as many alumni that traveled to see the games in the tournament, according to Dooley. This return to the national stage in basketball was one that excited him.
Dooley’s wife, Lynn, played basketball when she was in college. Both have remained huge fans of the basketball programs at URI, with Lynn missing only a handful of games during their time at the University. He hopes that there will be a season this year so that the athletes can safely play.
As for the University of Rhode Island, Dooley has high hopes for its future.
“I hope URI maintains the confidence it has developed in itself,” said Dooley, “because it is truly an extraordinary place because it has extraordinary people, and I think now a really tremendous culture that can be a model to lots of other institutions and lots of other communities.”
After retirement, Dooley plans to “do nothing,” and walk the mountains of Montana and Arizona after a long, originally unplanned career in higher education administration.