McKaig to retire at end of school year

Dean of Students Dick McKaig said Monday he will retire at the end of this school year.

“I just turn 65 next summer,” McKaig said. “It’s one of those timing things.”

McKaig arrived at IU in 1971 and since 1991 has worked as dean of students, a job that made McKaig an administrator of and advocate for the IU student body.

“He will be sorely missed,” said IU Student Association President Luke Fields. “I think he’s been a real asset to the IU family.”

His work has been recognized nationally. In 2005, McKaig received the Scott Goodnight Award for Outstanding Performance as a Dean by the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators.

“He has the remarkable skill of answering a question as if he’s hearing it for the first time,” said IU-Bloomington Chancellor Ken Gros Louis.

He said he is yet to hear a student complain about the dean, even though McKaig has been working in student affairs since “some of the students’ parents were in diapers,” Gros Louis said.

He complimented McKaig’s enthusiasm, “fresh” attitude and habit of treating each student as an individual, not one of many.

He also recalled the many times McKaig put his body on the line to help others.

“Dick would always volunteer to be in the dunk tank,” he said about Rec Sports’ Spirit of Sport All-Nighter, a charity event that raises money for children in the Indiana Special Olympics. On Friday, McKaig was at Midnight Madness, taking pies in the face to benefit Riley’s Children Hospital.

But McKaig said he’s not done yet; he said he plans to make the most of his last year at IU.

“I intend to go out with a productive year,” he said, citing a list of activities in this year’s schedule. “There are just a lot of things that are going to make this a very special year in a lot of ways.”

McKaig said he is not sure what he’ll do in retirement.

“It really depends on how I can be helpful,” he said. “Some of that will probably get defined after next year.”

While McKaig said he would miss the day-to-day interactions with students, he’s looking forward to not being on-call 24/7 and having more time to spend with his family.

“I’ll probably be around Bloomington volunteering and spending more time with my grandkids,” McKaig said. “I might try a trip to Europe.”

There will be a committee to recommend McKaig’s successor, Fields and Gros Louis said.

Fields said he has already considered what qualities they will be looking for in McKaig’s replacement, the most important one is being “as big of an advocate for students as Dick McKaig has been.”

Though the Office of the Provost has final authority regarding the new hire, Gros Louis estimated that five or six of the roughly 12 to 14 committee members will be students.

“We’ll be represented on the search and screening committee,” Fields said. “This is our advocate... Our presence is expected and has been requested.”

Fields said he expects a decision to be reached sometime this semester.

But whoever the candidates might be, McKaig had one basic piece of advice for his successor.

“I’d probably say ‘keep in touch with students, and let them take it from there,’” he said.