Education has always been important to Christopher Callahan and it drives his work in the academic world.
Callahan is the dean of the Walter Conkrite school of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University (ASU) and a finalist in the search for the University of Idaho’s presidential position.
Education has become a driving force for Callahan because he is the first person in his family to graduate from college.
“I am from New York originally, and am the first person in my family to ever have graduated from college, one of the reasons why higher education is so important and why I have devoted so much of the past 30 years to it,” Callahan said.
Callahan said he came from a modest background and his father worked multiple jobs to put him through school and lead him to care about higher education.
“My parents always instilled in me the importance of higher education,” Callahan said.
Callahan said he has been married to his wife, Jean for over 30 years and they have two sons, the youngest of which is a fourth-year student at ASU.
The Callahans’ moved to ASU when their children were in elementary school and committed to not moving again until the boys were out of at least high school, meaning Callahan would stay at ASU for the next decade.
His oldest son is a baseball analytic for the Arizona Diamondbacks and his youngest is finishing up a degree in digital culture at ASU.
“And most importantly, there’s Chase, our old dog who is the last child we have at home now,” Callahan said.
Before starting at ASU, Callahan worked at the University of Maryland, a land-grant institution, for 15 years.
Callahan said his track record of staying at a university for over a decade is proof he could stay at UI for longer than five years.
“Being a journalist at heart, I always use the adage, ‘Don’t tell me, show me,’ so of course I’m going to stay for a long time but most importantly look at the evidence,” Callahan said.
Callahan said he does not believe that long term change can happen in three, four or five years and that he has always been a proponent of staying long enough to make a change.
“If I were to stay at ASU for another 15 years, I would be very happy and we could accomplish lots more, you’re never finished in any position you’re in, but I think the principles and people we’ve put in are going to stay here,” Callahan said.
His wife accompanied him during his visit to the Moscow campus and spoke to community members during their visit.
According to Callahan’s curriculum vitiate, he has worked at two other universities, one of which was a land grant and one that was not.
“UI is a student university focused institution, where its students are primary and that manifests itself in a lot of your programs,” Callahan said.
The small class sizes, the one-on-one relationships which come from the smaller size of UI, are draws for Callahan to UI, along with the size of campus.
Callahan has stayed at the last two universities he’s worked at for over ten years and he said that shows that he can stick around longer than the last few presidents.
“A lot of the challenges facing the university today are very similar to some of the challenges we’ve faced at ASU and so oddly the challenges are just as exciting as all the great assets the university has,” Callahan said.
Kali Nelson can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @kalinelson6
Editor’s note: This is the second article in a series of profiles on finalists for the UI presidency.