The search for Seattle University’s new dean for the Albers School of Business and Economics came to an end March 26, as former Associate Dean of the University of Washington’s Foster School of Business Dan Turner was selected for the role. The Spectator was given an opportunity to sit down and talk with Turner about his past experiences and future goals. The following article contains excerpts from this interview, originally conducted on April 24. Initials have been used to indicate the speaker.
TS: Tell me a bit about yourself and your background.
DT: I’m a 26-year Seattle resident. UW [University of Washington] was my first academic job after graduating from [the] Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern. An important thing to know about me is that I’m a first-generation college student. I believe tremendously in the transformative power of education. I’m also a product of a Jesuit undergrad. I’m from St. Louis, Mo. I had an amazing four years at St. Louis University. Please do not look up my academic transcripts, the first two years are fine, but I was definitely finding my way as a first-generation student. I just believe tremendously in the power of values-driven, Jesuit education and educating the whole person.
TS: What’s a fun fact about you that people may find surprising?
DT: I would humbly place myself as a candidate for world’s slowest but most consistent long-distance runner. I run every day, sometimes against medical advice. It’s my time to do something positive for my body, but also to think, reflect, unpack and transform.
TS: What drew you to work in education?
DT: There’s lots of things that people can enjoy in the world, that are sustaining, that literally keep them alive. And for me, given the experience I had as an undergraduate, it’s fundamentally education. The Jesuit backdrop that I had helped my understanding not just of how the world works, but feeling like I now sort of understood my place in it. I did pursue a corporate career, an MBA, that route, but I kept just being called back to education. I saw it as my best opportunity to live my values, and the way to positively impact others. It was just this love of always being a student. Always learning that the world has lessons for us to discover.
TS: How has being a first-generation college student impacted your experience working in higher education?
DT: I hope that I’m more open than someone without that experience would be. The challenges faced are high for folks who don’t have the framework or the same kinds of resources going in. That impacts how I think about presenting these fundamentally transformative programs and experiences to students. If I had a brand, it would be “Dan, the structurally inclusive guy.”
I’m not going to bash the experience that I had as an undergrad. It was very welcoming, but I have this pivotal experience that I remember in a class I took on macroeconomics. The professor posed a question to the group and asked for volunteers. As a first-generation college student, what I was most comfortable with was sitting in the back, being quiet, not saying anything. I knew that if I could keep things under wraps, I wouldn’t feel exposed. I thought the question was kind of obvious, so I must have rolled my eyes or something, and the professor saw that and called on me. I was petrified. I knew the answer. But it took five calls in succession for me to even get my name out. I was just so paralyzed by the fact that the attention would be centered around me.
As I got a little older, I started looking at the literature on education and how you can address this. The pedagogy has really revolved around creating developmental experiences that are structurally inclusive, like creating a space that leverages peer-to-peer conversations in small groups as a starting point for being able to express yourself. Hopefully, at some point, we all reach a stage where that kind of structural inclusion isn’t necessary, but that’s not the world today. It certainly wasn’t the world I experienced.
TS: What drew you to Seattle University?
DT: I think the two most important things to me are culture and the composition of that culture. One of the things I think I would appreciate students knowing about their own community is that, for an outsider, the culture is very cohesive. Every person is individual, they all have their own experience. There’s always this common thread that pulls through. There are things that unite the community in a way that I think I haven’t seen in many other institutions. At the same time, there’s clearly strength in our differences.
TS: What’s something you learned during your time at UW that you hope to bring with you to Seattle U?
DT: One of my favorite concepts in marketing can absolutely be applied to leadership. I’ve done this exercise with many groups of students before. Essentially, you take a group of people who have experience working in some kind of team setting. You give them a list of leadership characteristics and ask them to rank the three or five most important characteristics. Then, have people rate their current leaders on those same characteristics. Marketers do this all the time: if affordability is ranked as important but our product isn’t affordable, that gap is an issue. The percentages vary, but one of the top three items is always that leaders should be inspiring. In one study I read, 55% of people stated that having an inspirational leader was important to them. I’ll let you guess, what do you think the percentage of followers who rate their leaders as inspiring is?
TS: I would assume lower, maybe in the 30s?
DT: That’s very generous, you must have had some great leaders! It was about 11%, the biggest gap across all characteristics. Any time I’ve replicated this, it always comes out that the biggest gap is on this inspirational dimension. How do you address this? By just authentically living your values. Leaders are human. They make mistakes. But you can trust when they say something or do something, that they’re doing it in pursuit of their goals. You have to be authentic in that process. You have to listen to folks as much as you can.
TS: What are some goals you’re hoping to accomplish next year?
That’s a very exciting question! I’m not quite ready to spring a plan just yet. When you join an institution, which I haven’t done for a while, you suffer this challenge that you don’t know what you don’t know. In finance, we call these “unknown unknowns.” It’s helpful to think a lot about what your interests are and what you’re hoping to achieve, but in those first 100 days as a leader you need to be able to listen to the community and understand what they think is important.
There are, of course, some things I can’t give up on. Structurally inclusive learning, thinking openly, asking questions. Currently, the impact of climate stressors on human well-being is important for me to think about. The way that we are living is not very sustainable. Business has helped create that challenge, but I also think of it as a pathway to addressing those challenges. Making sure that academic enterprises, including business, are prepared to address the challenges of the day.
In a more long-term sense, I would love to elevate Seattle University’s reputation in the local business community, regionally, on the world and perhaps global stage. The Albers School has had a really successful, phenomenally long-serving impact. I’d love to be able to help share that story.
TS: Do you have any closing thoughts to share with the people of Seattle University?
DT: The most impactful thing that I can share with students is congratulations. You’ve made the decision to play the long game. Your short-term performance matters, but remember why you’re here. You’re here for a developmental experience, a network of lifelong individuals that elevates your ability to impact the world, not just at your summer internship or at graduation, but over the next five, 10, 20 years.
The other thing that I would say to folks in general is the institution you’re in, whether it’s Seattle U or not, is really competitive. It’s hard to get in. It’s really hard to be here, but everybody experiences that challenge. We have this beautiful ability to lean on one another. We have the chance to offer support to other members of the community. Asking for help isn’t a sign of weakness, it is a sign of strength. It’s important to me that we’re all students, whatever level we’re at.
Turner will begin his time at Seattle U July 1, 2025.
