![\"Duquesne](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/0462307d-9bb0-499d-b351-8657e621502b.jpeg\" "\\"Duquesne")
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Duquesne University President David Dausey, front row, middle, stands with college presidents and other leaders following his inauguration ceremony Sept. 17 at Duquesne. Dausey attended and later served as provost at Mercyhurst University.<\/p>\n
PROVIDED BY DUQUESNE UNIVERSITY<\/p>\n
USA TODAY Network, Reuters<\/p>\n
Returning home to Pittsburgh in 2018 was the toughest decision David Dausey has made in his professional life.<\/p>\n
At the time, he was provost at Mercyhurst University, his alma mater and the place where he met his wife. The couple and their young children loved Erie, especially playing outdoors at Asbury Woods.<\/p>\n
Duquesne University was hiring a new provost. It offered Dausey a higher-profile job and an opportunity to go back home, where family members still lived.<\/p>\n
“It was bittersweet, to be honest,” Dausey, 51, said in a recent phone interview. “My wife and I had become immersed in Erie, and it was the hardest thing to leave. We miss Erie completely.”<\/p>\n
Dausey may have had mixed feelings about relocating to Pittsburgh but taking the job at Duquesne has proven to be life changing. He was inaugurated Sept. 17 as the university’s 14th president.<\/p>\n
Overseeing a university with 8,179 students represents the latest achievement for Dausey, a first-generation college student whose initial school was the Community College of Allegheny County.<\/p>\n
“I started out as someone who didn’t do well in high school and barely graduated,” Dausey said. “I went to community college while waiting tables and doing other odd jobs. … Higher education was where I really discovered my passion.”<\/p>\n
Dausey transferred to Mercyhurst, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology. He furthered his education by attending Yale University, the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard University, and became an epidemiologist.<\/p>\n
He traveled the world working as an epidemiologist before returning to Mercyhurst in 2011 to help the Erie university launch its public health program. Dausey was promoted to provost in 2015.<\/p>\n
“It had become clear that with a young family, I could no longer travel around the globe doing epidemiological work,” Dausey said. “I moved into more academic work, like managing faculty, mentoring, and helping bring on new faculty. I was good at that and I started taking on increased responsibilities.”<\/p>\n
Dausey also gained the attention of leaders at Duquesne. He was offered the provost job in 2018.<\/p>\n
COVID-19 caused Dausey’s two worlds to collide<\/p>\n
Less than two years after accepting the job, the COVID-19 pandemic arrived. Dausey, who had participated in high-level exercises on how to respond to worldwide pandemics, now led the Pittsburgh university’s efforts at dealing with a real one.<\/p>\n
“It was a collision of both of my worlds,” Dausey said. “It was different from the exercises that we did in that there was no coordinated communication at the federal level, and certain inconsistencies at the national and state levels, that we had to work through on campus.”<\/p>\n
Having someone with Dausey’s experience helped Duquesne allow students to return to campus in fall 2020, when many other schools were only teaching remotely.<\/p>\n
“When many of the universities were struggling during COVID, just getting by if you will, under Dr. Dausey’s leadership we opened a medical school,” Daria LaTorre, Duquesne’s vice provost for strategic initiatives, said in a Duquesne Duke article. <\/p>\n
What became the Nasuti College of Osteopathic Medicine began as an idea on Dausey’s white board.<\/p>\n
He would challenge members of his team to come up with “big, hairy, audacious goals” to help Duquesne move into the future.<\/p>\n
“It was one of the ‘bhags’ from the white board that we pursued,” Dausey said. “We opened it in three years (January 2024), despite working on it through the pandemic.”<\/p>\n
University officials have called the college “one of the most significant academic initiatives in Duquesne’s history” and listed it as one of the main accomplishments during Dausey’s eight years as executive vice president and provost.<\/p>\n
Dausey says ‘Change needs to happen’ with higher education<\/p>\n
Dausey was named Duquesne’s president in November and took office July 1. Part of his mission is to tackle what he sees as the university’s biggest issue.<\/p>\n
“It’s the identity of higher education and what we are set out to do,” Dausey said. “People are questioning the value of a college degree, and what knowledge exchange looks like in an era of artificial intelligence and technological advances.<\/p>\n
“Change needs to happen,” Dausey added. “It will likely happen faster than higher education is prepared to do it.”<\/p>\n
Contact David Bruce at dbruce@usatodayco.com. Follow him on X @ETNBruce.<\/p>\n
(This story was updated because an earlier version included an inaccuracy.)<\/p>\n
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Leaving Erie was ‘hardest thing’ for new Duquesne University president<\/p>\n
Reporting by David Bruce, Erie Times-News \/ Erie Times-News<\/p>\n
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n
![\"Duquesne](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/09\/3641ffee-08a2-4d36-8dd1-a1c6387774a1.jpeg\" "\\"3641ffee-08a2-4d36-8dd1-a1c6387774a1\\"")
Duquesne University President David Dausey, right, embraces Mercyhurst University President David Livingston following Dausey’s inauguration ceremony Sept. 17 at Duquesne. Dausey previously served as Mercyhurst provost. PROVIDED BY DUQUESNE UNIVERSITY USA TODAY Network, Reuters <\/p>\n
Copyright Reuters or USA Today via Reuters Connect<\/p>\n
This story was originally published September 29, 2026 at 4:57 AM.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Duquesne University President David Dausey, front row, middle, stands with college presidents and other leaders following his inauguration…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":296337,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[136,138,137],"class_list":["post-296336","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-erie","tag-erie","tag-erie-headlines","tag-erie-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296336","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=296336"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/296336\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/296337"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=296336"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=296336"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=296336"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}