Freshmen may have met Chancellor McMillan in front of Griggs Hall at Bulldog Welcome Week. He introduced himself to faculty and staff at Wells Field House before classes began. The Chancellor even kayaked around Hearding Island while sitting in on an outdoors education class. 

Newly-elected interim chancellor David McMillan is out there in the UMD community making connections. 

After an unsuccessful search for a new chancellor left UMD leaderless this past summer, Duluth community and higher education leaders encouraged former UMN regent board member McMillan to apply for the position. On July 13, McMillan was appointed in a 9-2 vote to serve as UMD’s chancellor through the summer of 2024.  

The vote did not come without controversy. In Dec. 2021, McMillan was one of nine regents who voted for a substantial pay raise for UMN system president Joan Gabel. Critics claim this suggests a quid pro quo status between the two leaders.

McMillan, however, assured that any potential conflict of interest wasn’t something the UMD community should be concerned about.

“I left the board of regents the day before I applied,” McMillan said. “I have been clear about this: I never planned to pursue [chancellorship]. I didn’t have any conversation whatsoever with our president. She exited the decision-making role and put it in the hands of the board of regents.” 

McMillan looks to put the controversy behind him. That starts with returning to his stomping grounds of UMD. 

Graduating from UMD in 1983, McMillan has a substantial career along the shores of Lake Superior. McMillan believes that the experience he gained through his previous leadership role as Senior Vice President at Minnesota Power will allow for a successful chancellorship at UMD. 

“UMD matters to this region and to this community,” McMillan said. “It’s a huge employer. It’s a huge part of our socio-economic underpinning. It’s an economic driver.” 

Establishing a solid base for the UMD campus is one of McMillan’s top priorities over the next two years. In terms of improving the student experience at UMD, the Chancellor marked enrollment as a primary issue he’s looking to tackle. 

“I don’t want to be in reactive mode,” McMillan said. “What I want to do is help this team–this campus–find some kind of stability. I want to find an enrollment equilibrium. That’s one of my early goals: figure out what is the level of enrollment we can sustain and invest around student success.” 

He explained that enrollment comes in two parts. One being recruitment–emphasizing UMD’s selling points for incoming students–and the other being retention. McMillan argues that retention may be the more crucial of the two factors. 

“We’ve got to do better at recruiting but we’ve got to do a lot better at retaining,” McMillian said. 

The Chancellor looks to find where UMD can most effectively invest in student success. Learning how to support struggling students is a primary component to McMillan’s goal for academic achievement. Adopting an active learning model, particularly in lecture hall settings, is one way to combat academic inadequacy. 

“There’s a chemistry adjunct professor who’s done research on the impact of using an active learning model in a big lecture hall,” McMillan said. “His research shows it can make a significant improvement when using a more active form of teaching.”

McMillan hopes he can entice professors and faculty to utilize a more engaging form of teaching. Although McMillan doesn’t have classroom experience as a teacher, he is more than willing to dive into classrooms and learn right alongside the students. 

“I learn best when I’m doing,” McMillan said. “If you want me to learn something about what you’re doing, invite me. Professor Shanks came up to me while I was having a cup of coffee and said ‘you said you wanted to come and learn, so come to my class.’ So that’s what I did.”

Classroom time offers McMillan a full-circle relationship with UMD. 

“UMD launched me.” McMillan said. “It gave me my launch on life. It gave me the tools I needed to go out and have a successful career, a successful opportunity in leadership and a successful family. All that’s because of Duluth. Without UMD, none of that could have happened. 

At this point, he has no intention to apply as the permanent replacement. McMillan plans to keep his focus on setting up a stable base for the years to come after his term ends at UMD in 2024.