7,305 Days: The legacy of George Dennison
Story By Justin Franz - Published in the Montana Kaimin April 30, 2010
Jogging up the middle of the street before dawn, just as he does every morning, George Dennison treads with the caution of a man not wanting to raise any more dust. His short, quick steps reflect how he’s living his professional life right now. With just 15 weeks left in his tenure as president of the University of Montana, Dennison, 74, isn’t about to do anything drastic.
He’s on the last lap of a 20-year run that afforded him few breathers, with thousands of days that ended past 5 p.m. He simply kept on running — except now it’s a race toward freedom that began three months ago, on Jan. 25.
On that cold winter day, Dennison stood on the stage of the University Theatre to deliver a special address. For 20 minutes or so, he went over the challenges facing the University of Montana in 2010: tuition increases, budget concerns and four-day weeks. Then he raised a storm.
“Finally, this occasion affords me the opportunity to inform the campus and larger communities that I have notified the Commissioner of Higher Education and the Regents that I will retire from the Presidency of the University of Montana on August 15,” Dennison said, stunning his listeners and bringing them to their feet in a minute-long standing ovation.
Ever since Dennison reached retirement age more than 10 years ago, the campus community had been wondering what this moment would be like and when it would come.
The man himself says he always knew the answer.
“When I took the position in 1990, I told myself at the time that 20 years is about right and anybody who goes beyond 20 years is probably pushing it,” he said recently. “Twenty years is about right because it seems to take five years to get a sense of the place, takes another five to develop some plans you want to work on in conjunction with everyone on campus and then you need to see them materialize.”
He embarked on his run as a university administrator with much less forethought. Dennison said he never saw himself as president of a university when he was a student here in the early 1960s. Back then, he was newly married and had two sons. He was primarily interested in pursuing a degree in history and raising his family. He worked at the Missoula Mercantile that would later become Macy’s, selling women’s shoes.
On the side, he played in a rock band, The Starfires. It was a way to make some extra money rather than start a career as a professional musician. He rarely plays the guitar anymore, holding up his hands to demonstrate that they lack the calluses that come with constant practice.
“That’s something you’ve got to stay with,” he said.
Dennison decided to focus on school rather than on his music. As a Navy man, he would have had the opportunity to get money for education through the G.I. Bill. But that would have required him to serve more time, at the expense of helping raise his kids.
“I ultimately decided to do it on my own, rather than the enormous obligation of the Navy,” he said.
Leaving the service also meant he could devote more time to his passion: history.
Talking to Dennison is at times like talking to a book of guidelines. When the conversation revolves around university affairs, his answers are often safe and devoid of emotion. Yet the man who calls himself a “historian at heart” lights up when history becomes the topic of conversation.
“If you don’t know where you’ve been, you don’t have a good chance of getting somewhere else,” he said.
His face, which sometimes resembles a mask, becomes animated and the dark shadows under his eyes recede before a curious smile as he talks about obscure Supreme Court justices and senators, spewing facts and figures that would only be known to a man who has dedicated a good portion of his life to the art of history.
It was the art Dennison was pursuing when he was going for his doctorate at the University of Washington in the late 1960s. He then became a history professor at Colorado State, never nurturing any administrative aspiration, he said.
“I enjoyed doing history, I enjoyed teaching, I enjoyed writing,” he said. “All of that work was great fun to me.”
When he was asked in 1976 to assume the position of an associate dean while Colorado State worked to find a replacement for a recent retiree, he accepted, thinking that he would still be able to teach. All he had to do was delay a sabbatical.
But the year turned into the beginning of three decades of administrative work.
“As it turns out they felt I should stay at the associate dean’s job, and I never got that sabbatical,” he said with a laugh.
“It’s difficult to say ‘no’ when a lot of people say you should do this,” he said. “I didn’t think I was going to stay at the job, but then, after I was in it for a year and thought I was doing some good for a lot of different people, I stayed at the job when it was offered to me.”
One administration job led to another. Dennison moved from Colorado State to Western Michigan University, where he served as provost and vice president before he returned to UM in the summer of 1990. He’d come a long way from his early days selling shoes and playing in a band in Missoula when he walked into the spacious corner office of Main Hall on Aug. 15 of that year.
In his 20 years as president, Dennison has had to deal with difficult issues, from the expansion of campus to budgetary concerns. A controversial plan to develop the South Campus into an apartment complex was shot down in 2005, even though it had Dennison’s support. But the last thing he wants to do at the end of his run is dwell on the successes and failures of the past.
“It doesn’t do very much good to spend too many years worrying about, ‘Well, if I’d done this and done that,’” he said. “You can’t live that way.”
Dennison is a careful man who likes to consider all sides.
He often uses his morning runs to think things through.
“‘Prefigure the day’ is what the Native Americans say about if you get up in the morning and do these kinds of things often before the sun is up,” he said.
Running through the peaceful, quiet streets of Missoula at the crack of dawn gives him the chance to meditate and mentally preview his day.
“Sometimes I don’t think about anything,” he said. “I take advantage of being out by myself.”
Dennison might have been a deliberate president, but he said he never was one to delay decisions forever.
“In a position like this you don’t have the luxury of saying, ‘We’re going to wait and wait,’” he said. “Many people will tell you that I do make a decision and they’ll say I’ll defend my decisions, but I’m also quite willing to change my mind if there is better evidence.”
Dennison’s authority was rarely questioned during his 20-year tenure. Even today, with his days numbered, it is hard to find someone who will openly criticize the man.
Richard Drake, chair of the history department and a member of the faculty since 1982, summarizes the campus’ feeling toward Dennison as one of deep respect.
“I can’t imagine all the balls he’s had to keep in the air to do his job,” Drake said. “I can’t think of many people who would’ve succeeded at the task he has.”
One person who has held a different view of Dennison is outgoing ASUM President Matt Fennell.
On April 16, 2008, Fennell was one of nine students who stormed Dennison’s office to protest the university’s refusal to sign on to a workers’ rights agreement that would force the school to stop purchasing apparel from countries with poor labor records.
The protestors staged a sit-in, demanding a meeting with Dennison, who was in China at the time. After five hours, they were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and trespassing. A week later, Dennison gave them seven minutes, in which he told them that the university still wouldn’t sign the agreement, claiming it wasn’t legal.
“I wouldn’t say I held a grudge, but I disagree firmly with his decision then and now,” Fennell said this week.
Fennell said the conflict never affected his ability to work with Dennison once he became ASUM president.
“There has been a mutual respect of each other because of our different positions,” he said. “I hold no personal grudge against George Dennison and I respect the man.”
Looking back at his run as the university’s president, Dennison expresses modest satisfaction. He says that since he first set his feet on campus as president, things have gotten better. He referenced various infrastructure improvements, adding that he was never intent on “creating an empire.”
“I don’t think any one individual does anything,” he said. “I think that things happen because people agree that these are good directions to pursue, and they get behind them and make them happen.”
On his last lap as president, Dennison is intent on getting things “as settled as they can be for the coming year,” including the upcoming budget.
After Aug. 15, he’ll return to the thing he loves most: history. Besides playing more golf, he hopes to write a complete history of the university, which he expects will take three years. He also hopes to teach a history course again, but realizes that it may raise an issue.
“It is very, very clear that anyone who leaves these kinds of positions just has to cut the cord completely,” he said.
The only thing that may not change when he becomes “former President George Dennison” on Aug. 16 is his five-mile trek through the darkness.
“(I’ll) get up and do the same run,” he said.
As he climbs a hill on Higgins Avenue, just below the South Hills, his upper body straightens up for a moment. Gone is the slightly bowed posture in which he walks around the office. He looks forward, toward the flashing traffic lights of early morning. For a moment, he is running full sprint, as if he were almost home free.
Jogging up the middle of the street before dawn, just as he does every morning, George Dennison treads with the caution of a man not wanting to raise any more dust. His short, quick steps reflect how he’s living his professional life right now. With just 15 weeks left in his tenure as president of the University of Montana, Dennison, 74, isn’t about to do anything drastic.
He’s on the last lap of a 20-year run that afforded him few breathers, with thousands of days that ended past 5 p.m. He simply kept on running — except now it’s a race toward freedom that began three months ago, on Jan. 25.
On that cold winter day, Dennison stood on the stage of the University Theatre to deliver a special address. For 20 minutes or so, he went over the challenges facing the University of Montana in 2010: tuition increases, budget concerns and four-day weeks. Then he raised a storm.
“Finally, this occasion affords me the opportunity to inform the campus and larger communities that I have notified the Commissioner of Higher Education and the Regents that I will retire from the Presidency of the University of Montana on August 15,” Dennison said, stunning his listeners and bringing them to their feet in a minute-long standing ovation.
Ever since Dennison reached retirement age more than 10 years ago, the campus community had been wondering what this moment would be like and when it would come.
The man himself says he always knew the answer.
“When I took the position in 1990, I told myself at the time that 20 years is about right and anybody who goes beyond 20 years is probably pushing it,” he said recently. “Twenty years is about right because it seems to take five years to get a sense of the place, takes another five to develop some plans you want to work on in conjunction with everyone on campus and then you need to see them materialize.”
He embarked on his run as a university administrator with much less forethought. Dennison said he never saw himself as president of a university when he was a student here in the early 1960s. Back then, he was newly married and had two sons. He was primarily interested in pursuing a degree in history and raising his family. He worked at the Missoula Mercantile that would later become Macy’s, selling women’s shoes.
On the side, he played in a rock band, The Starfires. It was a way to make some extra money rather than start a career as a professional musician. He rarely plays the guitar anymore, holding up his hands to demonstrate that they lack the calluses that come with constant practice.
“That’s something you’ve got to stay with,” he said.
Dennison decided to focus on school rather than on his music. As a Navy man, he would have had the opportunity to get money for education through the G.I. Bill. But that would have required him to serve more time, at the expense of helping raise his kids.
“I ultimately decided to do it on my own, rather than the enormous obligation of the Navy,” he said.
Leaving the service also meant he could devote more time to his passion: history.
Talking to Dennison is at times like talking to a book of guidelines. When the conversation revolves around university affairs, his answers are often safe and devoid of emotion. Yet the man who calls himself a “historian at heart” lights up when history becomes the topic of conversation.
“If you don’t know where you’ve been, you don’t have a good chance of getting somewhere else,” he said.
His face, which sometimes resembles a mask, becomes animated and the dark shadows under his eyes recede before a curious smile as he talks about obscure Supreme Court justices and senators, spewing facts and figures that would only be known to a man who has dedicated a good portion of his life to the art of history.
It was the art Dennison was pursuing when he was going for his doctorate at the University of Washington in the late 1960s. He then became a history professor at Colorado State, never nurturing any administrative aspiration, he said.
“I enjoyed doing history, I enjoyed teaching, I enjoyed writing,” he said. “All of that work was great fun to me.”
When he was asked in 1976 to assume the position of an associate dean while Colorado State worked to find a replacement for a recent retiree, he accepted, thinking that he would still be able to teach. All he had to do was delay a sabbatical.
But the year turned into the beginning of three decades of administrative work.
“As it turns out they felt I should stay at the associate dean’s job, and I never got that sabbatical,” he said with a laugh.
“It’s difficult to say ‘no’ when a lot of people say you should do this,” he said. “I didn’t think I was going to stay at the job, but then, after I was in it for a year and thought I was doing some good for a lot of different people, I stayed at the job when it was offered to me.”
One administration job led to another. Dennison moved from Colorado State to Western Michigan University, where he served as provost and vice president before he returned to UM in the summer of 1990. He’d come a long way from his early days selling shoes and playing in a band in Missoula when he walked into the spacious corner office of Main Hall on Aug. 15 of that year.
In his 20 years as president, Dennison has had to deal with difficult issues, from the expansion of campus to budgetary concerns. A controversial plan to develop the South Campus into an apartment complex was shot down in 2005, even though it had Dennison’s support. But the last thing he wants to do at the end of his run is dwell on the successes and failures of the past.
“It doesn’t do very much good to spend too many years worrying about, ‘Well, if I’d done this and done that,’” he said. “You can’t live that way.”
Dennison is a careful man who likes to consider all sides.
He often uses his morning runs to think things through.
“‘Prefigure the day’ is what the Native Americans say about if you get up in the morning and do these kinds of things often before the sun is up,” he said.
Running through the peaceful, quiet streets of Missoula at the crack of dawn gives him the chance to meditate and mentally preview his day.
“Sometimes I don’t think about anything,” he said. “I take advantage of being out by myself.”
Dennison might have been a deliberate president, but he said he never was one to delay decisions forever.
“In a position like this you don’t have the luxury of saying, ‘We’re going to wait and wait,’” he said. “Many people will tell you that I do make a decision and they’ll say I’ll defend my decisions, but I’m also quite willing to change my mind if there is better evidence.”
Dennison’s authority was rarely questioned during his 20-year tenure. Even today, with his days numbered, it is hard to find someone who will openly criticize the man.
Richard Drake, chair of the history department and a member of the faculty since 1982, summarizes the campus’ feeling toward Dennison as one of deep respect.
“I can’t imagine all the balls he’s had to keep in the air to do his job,” Drake said. “I can’t think of many people who would’ve succeeded at the task he has.”
One person who has held a different view of Dennison is outgoing ASUM President Matt Fennell.
On April 16, 2008, Fennell was one of nine students who stormed Dennison’s office to protest the university’s refusal to sign on to a workers’ rights agreement that would force the school to stop purchasing apparel from countries with poor labor records.
The protestors staged a sit-in, demanding a meeting with Dennison, who was in China at the time. After five hours, they were arrested and charged with disorderly conduct and trespassing. A week later, Dennison gave them seven minutes, in which he told them that the university still wouldn’t sign the agreement, claiming it wasn’t legal.
“I wouldn’t say I held a grudge, but I disagree firmly with his decision then and now,” Fennell said this week.
Fennell said the conflict never affected his ability to work with Dennison once he became ASUM president.
“There has been a mutual respect of each other because of our different positions,” he said. “I hold no personal grudge against George Dennison and I respect the man.”
Looking back at his run as the university’s president, Dennison expresses modest satisfaction. He says that since he first set his feet on campus as president, things have gotten better. He referenced various infrastructure improvements, adding that he was never intent on “creating an empire.”
“I don’t think any one individual does anything,” he said. “I think that things happen because people agree that these are good directions to pursue, and they get behind them and make them happen.”
On his last lap as president, Dennison is intent on getting things “as settled as they can be for the coming year,” including the upcoming budget.
After Aug. 15, he’ll return to the thing he loves most: history. Besides playing more golf, he hopes to write a complete history of the university, which he expects will take three years. He also hopes to teach a history course again, but realizes that it may raise an issue.
“It is very, very clear that anyone who leaves these kinds of positions just has to cut the cord completely,” he said.
The only thing that may not change when he becomes “former President George Dennison” on Aug. 16 is his five-mile trek through the darkness.
“(I’ll) get up and do the same run,” he said.
As he climbs a hill on Higgins Avenue, just below the South Hills, his upper body straightens up for a moment. Gone is the slightly bowed posture in which he walks around the office. He looks forward, toward the flashing traffic lights of early morning. For a moment, he is running full sprint, as if he were almost home free.