By Rachel Konieczny
Co-Photo Editor
Authentic. That word describes Dennis DePerro, Ph.D., the 21st president of St. Bonaventure University, according to Board of Trustees Chair Robert Daugherty.
The university community welcomed DePerro last Monday morning at a press conference.
DePerro, named university president on Friday, Nov. 18, will take office June 1, 2017.
“I cannot tell you how humbled and how honored I am to be the 21st president of one of the finest Catholic universities in the Northeast,” Deperro said. “Thank you for giving me that opportunity.”
Andrew Roth, Ph.D., interim president of St. Bonaventure, said DePerro fits the description of the next president Roth suggested the Faculty Senate seek.
Roth said he looks at leadership through four factors, all embodied by DePerro.
“I believe that nothing happens until someone makes it happen, no one does anything alone, you need to dream big and lastly, it’s amazing what you can accomplish if you don’t care who gets the credit,” Roth said. “[DePerro], in my mind, fits all of those. He is a leader who knows that execution is important. He executes, therefore he’s a person who can make things happen.”
DePerro, current dean of the Purcell School of Professional Studies at Le Moyne College in Syracuse, helped secure a $6.5 million gift for the school last year, according to a university press release.
Leslie Quick III, co-chair of the presidential search committee and member of the Board of Trustees, said St. Bonaventure conducted a modified search that required commitment to confidentiality.
Quick said the university used the Witt/Kieffer executive search firm to identify 900 candidates for the university president position, from which 12 presidential search committee members completed a comprehensive analysis of 54 applicants.
The committee narrowed the search to nine finalists, interviewed them in early October and brought the remaining three finalists to campus for interviews by constituency groups consisting of students, faculty, alumni and administration.
“We felt a strong obligation to hear as many voices as possible from the listening sessions that we conducted in the spring to get your thoughts on the qualities you desired from our next president, to the interviews you participated in last weekend,” Quick said to the campus community.
Daugherty said DePerro has the ability to confront a myriad of contemporary issues concerning higher education and to adapt to his environment.
“Perhaps most important, he has a deep belief and love for our Catholic-Franciscan tradition,” Daugherty said. “I can assure you that at his core he is a Franciscan. We wanted somebody who breathes it, lives it, exudes it and I think he will do all that for us and so much more.”
DePerro said he recognizes the challenges facing St. Bonaventure and acknowledges the broken business model of American higher education.
“I see a lot of, quite honestly what I would term as, low-hanging fruit,” DePerro said, in part referencing the university’s liberal arts programs. “I see a lot of opportunity for the university to really, truly, increase its enrollment and through partnerships in other means to increase its revenue streams so that we really, truly, can make St. Bonaventure financially sustainable.”
DePerro said the university’s strategic plan, approved on June 11, is inclusive and can be used as a tool to help make the university a better place.
Roth agreed and said his role over the next seven months until DePerro becomes president is twofold.
“One, [my role as interim president] would be to continue the implementation of the strategic plan and to ensure the ongoing operations of the university,” Roth said. “But then, I think in many ways, I would function as a consultant to the Board of Trustees and to [DePerro].”
DePerro called on the campus community to help him as university president.
“I need you to help me. I need you to work together,” DePerro said. “I need you to be collaborative, innovative [and] creative. We need new programs. We need new partnerships. I need your prayers, and I ask you for them today.”
DePerro said he hopes his upcoming presidency will be viewed by historians as a special moment in St. Bonaventure’s history. He closed with a promise.
“I will always give St. Bonaventure my very best,” DePerro said.
koniecrc14@bonaventure.edu
