Matthew Daum named dean of MSU’s College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and associate provost

Following a competitive national search, Matthew Daum has been approved by the Michigan State University Board of Trustees to serve as dean of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, or CANR, and associate provost.

Daum has provided interim leadership to CANR since July 1, 2024, when he succeeded outgoing dean, Kelly Millenbah.

Daum joins MSU Today to talk about his industry background before returning to his alma mater to lead the School of Packaging. He describes the college’s diverse curriculum, research, and outreach activities. He talks about why he wants to be dean and details some of his goals for the college.

Conversation Highlights:

(0:36) – Describe your background before returning to your alma mater. And what attracted you back?

(3:27) – Talk about the diverse curriculum, research, and outreach activities in the college.

(5:21) – Why do you want to be dean?

(6:35) – How would you describe your leadership and management style?

(8:22) – Describe your associate provost role.

(9:24) – What are some of your short-term goals for the college?

(11:59) – What about some longer-term goals?

(13:15) – What are challenges and opportunities ahead for the college, MSU, and higher education?

(16:03) – Final thoughts

Listen to “MSU Today with Russ White” on the radio and through Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and wherever you get your shows.

Conversation Transcript:

Speaker 1:

Well, it's a pleasure to welcome Matt Daum back to MSU Today. Matt is the brand new dean of MSU'S renowned College of Agriculture and Natural Resources, although he has been the interim dean since last July 1st, 2024, and Matt and I talked a few times in his previous role as chair of our renowned School of Packaging. So Matt, great to have you back.

Speaker 2:

Thanks Russ. I am thrilled to be back and appreciate you coming over here for this conversation.

Speaker 1:

And why don't you start a little bit, you're not new to MSU, you've been around a while, but tell listeners a little bit of your background maybe before you came to MSU and why you decided to come here.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I've been here since 2020, so I moved my family here during the pandemic. Before that I actually was in industry, so I was in Idaho. I worked for a company called Hewlett Packard based in Boise, Idaho. We were there for over 25 years, almost 26 years, and was in executive management roles there. And almost kind of out of the blue got a call from a friend who said, Hey Matt, the School of Packaging has their director job open. Would you be interested? And I said, no, why would I be interested at that? I liked where I lived, I liked the company I worked for. I liked the work that I was doing. And so I kind of just blew it off, frankly. Well, he called again and he said, Matt, you want to keep making widgets or do you want to come back and impact the next generation? That got my attention.

It actually came at a good time because if you know the print industry, which I was in, it was struggling. And I was also at a point in my career where I felt like wanted to spend a little more time with family and was willing to take a new risk. And I was from Michigan and got my degrees from the College and School of Packaging in particular. So I went and explored and the dean at the time, we had a great conversation about what he was looking for and I thought, you know what? I can do this. Let me give it a shot. And so that's how I ended up at MSU. I will say that my degree, my packaging degree from MSU opened up all kinds of doors for me, and that's true of a lot of degrees here at Michigan State. It gives you a great foundation to do a lot of different things, but that degree in particular got me into a globally recognized fantastic company that made huge investment in its employees, made investment in me. I started as an engineer, but then I ended up in management and leadership roles. And so that's how I was trained was to lead and manage all kinds of different functions and businesses really. And so I'm very, very grateful for the land grant mission and the degree that I got and the success that led for me.

Speaker 1:

And Matt, let's talk a little bit about this wonderful College of Agriculture and Natural Resources at MSU. We don't have enough time for you to talk about all the cool things going on, but touch on a little bit of the diverse curriculum, the outreach, the research, so much goes on here.

Speaker 2:

It's a huge college and I did not appreciate that until I actually stepped into the interim dean role and then realize, wow, there's a lot here. So from an academic point of view, there are 12 academic units proper. We've got everything from packaging to construction management, landscape architecture, ag engineering, fisheries and wildlife, ag economics, and many more. And so if you have any interest in agriculture or natural resources built environments, we have it. And that sets us apart. And in fact, our college, I think is unique. It is unique in Michigan. We are able to offer those kinds of degrees that other universities don't have. So that's the academic side. We also have MSU Extension and most people know that MSU Extension operates in all counties in Michigan. I like to think of it as we take the research from the university and we bring it out to the people in the communities and apply it to make communities better, healthy, et cetera. Four H, most people know 4-H and many other programs like that shout out to Quentin Tyler, he's our senior director for extension and does a fantastic job. The other piece is what we call AgBioResearch. And so George Smith, fantastic leader of that organization. That's the research portfolio on behalf of the whole university related to ag and natural resource that cuts across seven different colleges. It's quite a large research portfolio. So all of those things together comprise the College of Ag and Natural Resources.

Speaker 1:

And so Matt, why did you want to be the dean and lead this college?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I get asked that question every so often, especially now when we're in a little more tough environment. Why would you want to go and do that? There's a couple reasons. So one is personally, I feel like my whole career has, I think led up to this point in terms of leadership. I love bringing an organization into a new frontier. That's really what if you boil it down, that's really my passion. And where I feel I have strength is to lead organizations into new territory. This was a fantastic opportunity to do that. The second piece is I am a serial learner. I love learning new things. I never become like an expert really in anything, but I love learning. And so this is a massive p...