McCoy takes top DePauw post, already preaching 'communiversity'

Monday, March 7, 2016

If Mark McCoy didn't actually coin the term "communiversity," he certainly has brought it to life as a motto for the joint community that is Greencastle and DePauw University.

And now that McCoy has been named the 20th president of DePauw, he will be in even greater position to preach "communiversity" -- a recipe for harmony steeped in the theory "community + university = an expanded universe."

Just after his appointment was made official Monday by the DePauw Board of Trustees, McCoy told the Banner Graphic he was excited that the search committee listed one of its highest priorities for the new president as working well within and for the local community.

"They clearly enunciated that Greencastle and Putnam County are incredibly important to DePauw," McCoy said, indicating that pronouncement and his longstanding belief in it indeed heightened his desire to "answer the call" as the university's new president.

"The university takes its role in the community seriously," he assured, praising the "great things our students are doing in the community" as one example.

New DePauw University President Mark McCoy (right) shakes hands with Greencastle Mayor Bill Dory during a reception in McCoy's honor Wednesday morning at the DPU Green Center. Banner Graphic/ERIC BERNSEE

McCoy himself has already been instrumental in doing great things in the community, such as the opening of Music on the Square (M2) -- DePauw's School of Music venture on the courthouse square that not only has provided a unique performance venue but a place for musical instruction of all kinds for local students. Then there's the violin program -- aka the Putnam County String Project -- he's helped initiate at Tzouanakis School with both instruments and instruction provided at no cost to families of an enthusiastic group of emerging fourth-grade musicians.

"My family and I came to Greencastle five years ago," he noted, "and instantly became members of this community. Now we have an opportunity to stay here longer and an opportunity to lead this great university. It was just too good to pass up."

Wife Lisa, a fifth-grade teacher at Tzouanakis, and the McCoys' 10-year-old triplet daughters, Maddie, Sammie and Hadley, are "going to be very happy," he noted.

"We were looking at presidencies in other parts of the country," he acknowledged, "but now we don't have to move away from here.

"I'm glad that next step was here. I happen to love this rural American lifestyle," added McCoy who spent his formative years in the West Virginia-Maryland area.

It was his exposure to musical instruments, McCoy has noted, that changed his life. Yet growing up he never even saw a violin up close nor heard one played until he was 18.

As a first-generation college graduate with three music degrees to his credit, McCoy was raised in a tree-covered region of Appalachia. "A place not unlike Putnam County," he has said.

"Sometimes when I look at life in Greencastle, it seems like a Jimmy Stewart movie," he told the Banner Graphic while expressing how "deeply moved" he gets when he reads the story of how Indiana Asbury College (now DePauw) came to be in Greencastle and its original ties to the community.

"When I think back to our own beginnings, it was the people of Greencastle who asked Indiana Asbury to be in this place," he said. "It was the people of Greencastle who raised the money to keep it here.

"If that's not an example of the perfect town-and-gown relationship, I don't know what is."

McCoy said he wants to return to that point again where Greencastle and DePauw exist "hand in glove."

"Let's get back to that feeling where it's a positive win-win," he said. "There's a lot of good we can do. I look at this as if I've just joined a larger team."

McCoy noted that his own undergraduate development was in a liberal arts environment, so the liberal arts experience remains "very important" to him. It's also something McCoy wants his three children to explore, calling it "a very much more wide-eyed" undertaking.

The challenges ahead don't worry the new president.

"The business model for higher education," McCoy said, "will be a challenge on every campus in America, not just DePauw."

Meanwhile, DePauw's continued work in diversity and inclusion, he suggested, "will never be finished" and will exist forever as an evolving process.

"It's not a box to be checked that it's done," McCoy assured.

DePauw's new boss said he believes the relevance of the liberal arts education in the world today is invaluable and perhaps more relevant than ever before.

"I'm optimistic and ready," McCoy concluded.

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  • What a great choice! I look for even better years as DPU and Greencastle grow together.

    -- Posted by mandp523 on Mon, Mar 7, 2016, at 7:52 PM
  • What a great choice!! It is so exciting to see someone already living and having a career here in Putnam County selected. I don't think that DPU could have made a better choice. With so many DPU faculty members and administrators choosing to live outside of Putnam County this choice speaks volumes about DPU's commitment to our community. Congratulations Mark on your selection and I look forward to many great years ahead for all of us.

    -- Posted by gustave&zelma on Mon, Mar 7, 2016, at 10:54 PM
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