TCU President Daniel W. Pullin, formerly dean of the Neeley School of Business, harnessed a Harvard MBA to propel Neeley to become the state’s top-ranked business school for undergraduates. Conferred as TCU President during an investiture ceremony in November 2023, Pullin blends nearly 20 years of higher education experience with an early foundation in world-renowned business organizations to support and advance TCU’s mission.

Currently leading the charge to develop TCU’s next strategic plan, Pullin aims to add value to the student experience by embracing technology with the goal of bolstering classroom learning and supporting the university’s culture of thought leadership. Pullin shared his vision for how innovation will transform research and creative activity at TCU in the 21st century.

STUDENT RESEARCH, INTERNSHIP EXPERIENCES

“Increasingly, our students are becoming comfortable with data gathering and analysis, critical thinking, working with a diverse set of stakeholders — whether TCU faculty or people beyond our institution. Ultimately, on the back of an insightful question, they are learning to drive to an answer that can make a difference, that provides new knowledge to the world, that gets us closer to truth. Many of our students are at a tender juncture in their lives and careers. This gives them an edge that they can’t get in many other places.”

“This is an entrepreneurial institution, a place where if you can dream it, you can do it,” TCU President Daniel W. Pullin said. Photo by Amy Peterson

PRIORITIZE PERSONNEL

“We will continue to position TCU as a destination for talent. We’re not just attracting people to TCU — we’re pouring into people and investing in them to keep them here and ultimately propel them so that they can make the strongest contribution possible. Part of that involves making sure that the culture is ripe for faculty and staff to flourish. To that end, we will encourage prudent risk-taking so that our dreamers can dream and our creators can create.”

STATE-OF-THE-ART INFRASTRUCTURE

“The campus master plan, approved by the Board of Trustees in 2023, will help share what the built environment here looks like for the next 10, 20 years and beyond. A component of that conversation is to make sure that we have the right innovation centers, hubs, laboratories and performance halls. We also need creative spaces, including our classrooms and common areas, so that we create an environment where intellectual collisions occur and knowledge can be generated.”

A CONNECTED CAMPUS COMMUNITY

“If you think about some of the greatest challenges in the world, whether they’re economic challenges, social challenges or environmental challenges, almost definitionally you have to have people from different perspectives working together toward a common cause. Our culture and community at TCU set us up to do that. When we start to envision what innovation looks like moving forward, we have to ask what more might we do to bring our faculty, students and other stakeholders together in teams to quite literally create the future.”

CAN-DO SPIRIT

“This is an entrepreneurial institution, a place where if you can dream it, you can do it. That entrepreneurial mindset is resonant across campus. I love how faculty from virtually every college are working alongside entrepreneurship faculty, bringing those teaching innovations into their own disciplines. Some of the most foundational skills in conducting high-impact research are founded in creativity, logic, critical thinking, math, writing, communicating and motivating others to understand your insights and then do something about them. That’s the hallmark of a liberal arts education.”