President’s Biography

Dean McCurdy joined Colby-Sawyer as the college’s 10th president in June 2025. Throughout his career, he has been an effective and innovative leader at both small private liberal arts colleges and comprehensive community colleges.  

Most recently, Dean served as provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Ivy Tech Community College, a 19-campus system in Indiana. Previously, he served as chancellor of the Kokomo campus. In his roles in Indiana, he spurred record enrollment and boosted student achievement through experiential education and workforce development. Dean also led a successful campus comprehensive campaign, oversaw the largest college program for high school students in the country, managed a campus redesign and established employer-based tuition assistance programs for adult learners.  

At Kalamazoo Valley Community College in Michigan, Dean served as associate vice president for instruction. He founded the Bronson Healthy Living Campus — a partnership between the college and local healthcare providers — that catalyzes urban revitalization, community health and workforce development through sustainable food education, preparation and distribution. 

At Albion College in Michigan, Dean was the A. Merton Chickering Professor of Biology and an award-winning teacher and researcher. He chaired the biology department, directed the honors program and oversaw student research projects.  

Early in his career, he served as a visiting professor at Bowdoin College and as the field manager of its Coastal Studies Center.  

As an ecologist, Dean has published extensively on fish, crustaceans, shorebirds, various parasites and turtles living in coastal and inland environments in Maine, Nova Scotia and Suriname, South America. 

Dean holds a bachelor’s degree with honors in biology from Acadia University and a doctoral degree in biology from Carleton University. He completed a post-doctoral fellowship with the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.