The SIU marching band announced Randy Dunn’s entrance into the building as the media, administration and several students welcomed him with loud applause and eager ears Thursday afternoon in the student services building.

Chancellor Rita Cheng introduced Dunn to the press by welcoming him back to the university. Dunn worked as professor in the college of education and human services beginning in 1995  and became department chair in 2000, before leaving to work with Rod Blagojevich.

Dunn said he was excited to be back in Carbondale. Though he left his job at Youngtown State University several months into his tenure, he said he left to take his dream job and believed most people would understand his desire to move back home.

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Dunn said he wants to focus on encouraging student voices to make themselves heard.

“I really do hope that I’m reflective of a solid leadership that’s characterized by a number of words: inclusive, collaborative, democratic,” he said. “One that tries to pull people in to get many voices to guide decision making.”

Dunn said by working together, the administration would be able to better care for the issues on campus.

The position as president is not to dictate over the campuses but to add value and build on the goals Carbondale and Edwardsville have taken on, he said.

“Research, technology is all part of that,” Dunn said. “But I’m not just talking about innovation in those fields, I’m talking social innovation, entrepreneurship, economic development, innovative thinking across all these domains that we can have an impact on as a university system.”

Dunn said SIU serves as a model for other state universities.

“I have a firm belief that the best state universities in the country are those that are aligned, linked with their regions intricately, intimately and integrally,” he said. “And I’ll tell you what, there’s no place that holds that more so than SIU for the footprint it serves.”

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He said he hopes to keep the university system operating efficiently and effectively.

“The great old days aren’t coming back in public higher education,” he said. “We are going to have to figure out how to be more nimble, responsive, maneuver better, set clear priorities and make sure we’re streamlined in our operations.”

Sarah Niebrugge can be reached at [email protected], on Twitter at @SNiebrugge_DE or at 536-3311 ext. 268.