Jacob Rosen, Editor-in-Chief
This past week, I wrote a feature story on the 10th anniversary of Daniel Curran’s arrival as University of Dayton president. While working on the story, I had the rare opportunity to sit down in Curran’s office for 45 minutes to ask him dozens of questions about how he arrived at UD, what he likes best about campus now and the school’s future.
As the first part of a three-part outtakes series of extended quotes from my interview, this post covers Curran’s thoughts on the back-and-forth search process that led him to Dayton in 2002.
Flyer News: What does 10 years mean to you?
Daniel Curran: “Ten years have gone very fast for me. For me, probably the biggest thing it means is 10 classes have graduated during my tenure. And that’s the most exciting thing for me that all these graduates are going out into the world and making a difference. So again, it’s 10 years of UD graduates.”
FN: What first attracted you to UD as a Philadelphia guy, a St. Joseph’s University guy?
DC: “Well you know, it’s an interesting story. I was approached to be a part of the Dayton search in January of ’01 and I turned down being a candidate. I always liked Dayton, it was one of the top five schools I would consider going to. But the president at St. Joe’s [Nicholas Rashford] had been diagnosed with Parkinson’s and we actually were building the house we thought we would retire in, in Villanova. And so when they came to me in January, I said ‘No, I can’t be a candidate.’ And then they went through the search and brought in I think it was three candidates in October of ’01 and it just didn’t work out. They didn’t find someone that would fit the university and I had almost resigned myself to the fact that I wasn’t going to be going to Dayton. ….
