David Anderson began to grasp the sanctity of scholarship as a young boy. His family, after all, stashed the sole copy of his father’s doctoral manuscript in the freezer for safekeeping—the Filet of Dissertation, they called the frozen slab of paper. After those boy-hood days in LaCrosse, Wisc., Anderson graduated from St. Olaf College in North?eld, Minn., in 1974, just hours from his hometown. Like most young people, Anderson dreamed about his future. If he weren’t going to be center ?elder for the New York Yankees, he would be a lawyer. But then an inspirational high school English teacher drew him to British literature in a way he never would have imagined. Through her, Anderson says, Samuel Johnson’s Letter to Lord Chester?eld changed his life. “It’s a wonderful document, Johnson standing up for himself, speaking in clear unambiguous prose—truth to power. And I thought, I love this thing.”
If it’s truth Anderson found in Johnson’s words, it’s truth he would continue to seek. Like his father, Anderson became a professor, teaching his beloved 18th-century British literature in Kansas, Texas, and Florida before becoming the dean of Luther College in Iowa. He was named Denison’s provost in 1999, and engaged in traditional chief academic of?cer matters such as budgets, hiring (nearly one-third of the current faculty), tenure grants, and promotions. He also championed the college’s increased investment in the professional development of young faculty, thereby making Denison more attractive to new talent. He has proven an entertaining and immensely informative draw at Alumni College and gatherings about the country, and he has even taught an English class from time to time. This July, the path that Denison and Anderson have shared splits, as the provost heads back north to his alma mater, St. Olaf College, this time as its new president. “Denison has been good to me, Granville has been good to our family, and I cherish my many friendships at the college,” he re?ects. “I am looking forward to beginning work [at St. Olaf] this summer with excitement at the opportunities and challenges that await and with a humbling awareness of the responsibilities a college president carries, tinged with regret at leaving Denison.”