By Des Moines Register
Des Moines, IA-Des Moines Area Community College’s fourth and longest-serving president, Rob Denson, is retiring after 22 years at the helm of the now 12-location, nearly 22,000-student institution.
Denson surpassed the 20-year record of predecessor Joseph Borgen in December 2023. He will remain in the job until Dec. 30 of this year, the college said in a news release.
The DMACC trustees will hire a consultant to conduct a national search for a replacement, the release said.
Previously president of Northeast Iowa Community College, Denson has spent more than 40 years in higher education. Since he joined DMACC, the release said, the enrollment of the 58-year-old college has increased 50%. It also has added six locations to the six Denson visited on his first day, with facilities in Ankeny, Boone, Carroll, Newton, West Des Moines, Ames, Perry and Templeton and in Des Moines at its Des/Moines Urban, Capitol, Evelyn K. Davis and Southridge locations.
“We have accomplished many milestones together over the years as we have adapted and thrived,” Denson said in the news release. He cited new and expanding academic programs, enhanced student support services, more than $100 million in new and renovated facilities and local and national partnerships.
“I’m most proud of each and every one of the thousands of students who have walked across our stage at graduation,” he said in the release. “By enrolling at DMACC these Iowans have opened new doors to careers, greater prosperity and success for themselves, their families, and communities.”
His term as president hasn’t been entirely without controversy. In the past year, he tangled with Drake University over a lawsuit accusing DMACC of co-opting a Drake design when the community college adopted a square-D logo that the court decided did indeed bear a striking resemblance to the private college’s, and ordered DMACC to remove.
Proceedings in the case continue.
A big, blue partnership
DMACC Board President Joe Pugel led the candidate search that resulted in Denson’s hiring, and said in the release that Denson stood out from other candidates with his “a student-first mindset and the ability to form important partnerships.”
“It’s easy to look at the new bricks and mortar across the College to see how DMACC has flourished under Rob’s leadership, but I think the key to his success has been his ability to recognize the needs of our students, faculty and staff, and the communities we serve, then find solutions to those needs,” Pugel said.
One of the partnerships Denson forged reflects his personal style, which, according to the release, includes starting his workday before 5:30 a.m. and maintaining an open-door policy at his office. He told the Des Moines Register in 2023 that he forged the tie when he was still president of Northeast Iowa Community College and bonded with a truck dealer in Dubuque over his fond memories of working his way through Iowa State University driving a semi for a feed mill in his boyhood home of Homestead.
The dealer began lending him semis to use and the relationship has carried over in his time at DMACC with a series of loaner trucks in the school’s blue color. He has used them to publicize the college, driving in parades and other events with trailers emblazoned with DMACC promotions.
“We, my wife and I, go, and it’s just a good time to meet people and communities. We love it,” he told the Register.
At the time, he professed to have no retirement plans, but said that when he did step down, he would continue to spend time on the road driving the trucks “just to continue to feed my love of driving semis.”
The college’s news release said he will remain a resident of Ankeny with his wife, Pat, and maintain his close ties with DMACC.
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