Shelves are filled with books on servant leadership. Kevin Kessler defines it in one simple story about the man who defines servant leadership on the SDSU campus—President Barry Dunn.
Kessler, director of athletic bands at SDSU since 2015 and a 1998 SDSU grad, recalls Hobo Week 2017. He and his wife were planning a Bum-a-Meal gathering at Lincoln Hall, then home to the music department. On the day of the gathering, his wife saw Dunn in the University Student Union and invited the Dunns to join them for chili.
Kessler recalled, despite it being a last-minute invitation, the Dunns came and sat at a table with four or five students. “He started asking their names and where they were from. For every hometown, he knew somebody. ‘Oh, do you know such-and-such?’ ‘Yeah, I know …’”
That week’s opponent was Northern Iowa, but there already was talk about the next home game—the Dakota Marker tilt with North Dakota State, which was a sellout.
Dunn, an SDSU alum who became president in May 2016, asked if the students were going to the game. Then he said, “‘Are any of your parents going?’ One girl pipes up, ‘My mom and dad wanted to go but it is sold out.’ Dr. Dunn reaches into his wallet. The girl says, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me, you have tickets?’ Dunn responds, ‘Well, I don’t have tickets on me, but this is my card. Tomorrow, I want you to call this number and tell them I talked to you, and I have a pair of tickets for you.’
“He did that to two kids whose folks wanted to go to the game,” Kessler recalled.
The ending to this story is as equally impressive.
Kessler said, “He gets ready to go. We had sat for a long time, all the food had been eaten and we were sitting still at the table. He gets ready to go, and he starts grabbing their empty plates.”
Then the students all wanted pictures with SDSU’s 20th president. “He hung out and took pictures with all these kids. If that story is not an example of servant leadership, I don’t know what is,” Kessler said.
The students’ president
Of course, stories about the kind-hearted Dunn are as abundant as jackrabbits on the early Dakota prairie.
Kessler shared that at football games it is a Dunn tradition for him to leave the president’s suite and sit with the students.
“He’ll stop and shake hands with band directors, wave at the band and tell them they had a great show. Then he will go into the student seating area and just hang out with them for about a quarter, walking around and saying hello. It has gotten to a point now when students see him coming, they will chant his name.
“How many university presidents do you have the student body chanting their name as he walks into the bleachers?”
It’s a reciprocal love. During this spring’s WNIT basketball tournament run, Dunn worked with boosters to ensure that SDSU students got free entry into the six games that SDSU hosted.
Paiton Burckhard, a senior on the women’s basketball team, appreciated the effort of Dunn and the SDSU athletic administration to ensure that State had the winning bid for each of the WNIT games. “Having that home court advantage was huge for our run in the WNIT,” she said.
Guess who our neighbor is?
Madison Kovarna ’21 is a graduate research assistant in animal science. But her connection with Dunn and his wife, Jane ’77, has nothing to do with her current position, the three years spent at SDSU as an undergraduate or the clubs she was involved with. Kovarna and her roommates were simply neighbors to the Dunns, who became good friends, maybe closer.
In April 2020, Kovarna and five roommates moved into a two-story farmhouse just northwest of Brookings. Unbeknownst to them, their neighbors were the Dunns.
While the SDSU president is provided a house on campus, the Dunns are local. Their farmhouse has been in Jane Dunn’s family for decades, and they spend their summers there.
One of Kovarna’s roommates sent her a photo and asked her if she had seen this person. Kovarna said, “Yes, she was over here the other day talking.” The roommate responded, “That’s Barry Dunn’s wife.”
Cookies to break the ice
Not long after that revelation, about the Fourth of July, “we brought them over some cookies to say ‘Hey, we’re your neighbors. We’re going to be respectful of your space.’ Since then, I would classify us as their adopted grandchildren. They’ve been good, friendly neighbors to us. They even brought cat food for our outdoor cat,” Kovarna said.
The students lived there 13 months, until May 2021.
“Once you get to know him, he’s really good at keeping in touch with you and developing that friendship. He’s such a humble human being. When you get to talk to him, he really just wants to know what you’re up to, which is really refreshing from someone that high up.”
Just check her resume
As graduation neared and Kovarna was compiling her resume, she said, “Hey, Barry would you be willing to be a personal reference on my resume?” Dunn didn’t hesitate. At a subsequent job interview, “the first question this person asked me was ‘How did you get Barry Dunn on your resume and is this a joke?’”
The other former roommates graduated this May. He made a point to ask all six to meet him on the west side of Frost Arena after graduation for a photo “because he’s going to miss us when we’re gone.”
The gals asked to meet with the Dunns on the Friday before graduation to catch up before everyone went separate directions.
Making time for students
“Jane said, ‘We’re really busy, but I’m going to work on moving things around just so we can hang out with you guys.’ That means a lot to a student that our president and his wife are so willing to move around their schedules just to meet with you. Usually, the presidents of universities, you can’t hardly talk to them and if you need to talk to them, you have to go through seven secretaries.
“But if Barry sees you walking down the sidewalk on campus, he will even stop and have conversations with random students. If he sees someone with a cool sweatshirt, he will stop and say ‘Hey, I really like your sweatshirt’ or random comments like that, which is really refreshing to see,” Kovarna said.
Would you Like a Ride?
One person he stopped on the sidewalk was Laura Peterson, who had hardly unpacked her suitcase at the start of her freshman year in 2021 when she met Dunn.
Peterson, a mechanical engineering major from Fredericksburg, Virginia, was walking north on campus from Sanford-Jackrabbit Athletic Complex toward student housing on the south end of campus after a class when she met Dunn.
Dunn and Dennis Hedge, vice president and provost for academic affairs, were headed back to their offices in a golf cart.
Dunn stopped the cart, asked Peterson if she wanted a ride, and after refuting her initial refusal, drove her to her residence hall.
Peterson didn’t initially recognize Dunn, but quickly did as they exchanged small talk.
Dunn’s gesture of kindness wasn’t lost on Peterson. Back at Ben Reifel Hall, she Facetimed her mom, Tina. “You will never guess who I met today. I met The Barry Dunn!” Peterson said with laughter and excitement.
‘Wonderful’ start to the SDSU Experience
Tina and Doug Peterson are 2001 SDSU alums and were so moved by the gesture that Tina wrote Dunn.
“Laura had offers to other universities, but she always remembered us talking fondly of our experiences and the people we encountered at SDSU. This experience reinforces that to her. For the president of the university to take time to have these moments with students is impressive.
“She mentioned your kindness and appreciation for stopping to acknowledge a student walking back from class. Thank you for making her SDSU experience as wonderful as ours was. It is really hard being so far away from her during this time, but knowing she is having moments such as this makes me very happy,” Tina wrote.
While it’s not every day that Dunn gets such a letter, to see Dunn extend an act of kindness to a student is more an everyday occurrence than a newsworthy event.
Sage advice, Solid Heart
Giving a lift to Peterson wasn’t the first or last time he has done that for a student. On football game days, he also will often offer a ride to an elderly fan.
On top of that, Dunn is known to take a student to lunch, pay for a student’s ice cream cone at the Dairy Bar and, on occasion, foot the cost of an SDSU sweatshirt when he sees a student wearing another school’s brand.
John Stiegelmeier ’79, who has served under four presidents in his 34 years on the SDSU coaching staff, said, “President Dunn is one of the most genuine and caring leaders I have ever met. In 2017 we started 3-0 and went to Youngstown. Barry went with us. We played poorly and got beat 19-7. When I got on the plane Barry said that he has some 19-7 losses also, ‘they just don’t put those losses in the paper. Hang in there.’”
Dave Graves
