Class Dean

Name: Chuck Dunning

Current position: Associate Director, University Career Services; Dean of the Class of 2008

Years at TCU: 3

Education: B.A. & M.Ed., University of North Texas

I want everyone in the Class of 2008 to think of me as your personal liaison to the rest of the TCU community. If you don’t know where to go with some question or need, then please contact me at c.dunning@tcu.edu, or call the UCS front desk at 817-257-7860.   I’m also on Facebook at http://tcu.facebook.com/profile.php?id=18312812.  My office is in UCS, just outside the back entrance of the Student Center, near Frog Bytes.  I have drop-in hours Monday through Thursday, and you can call the front desk to verify exactly which hours I am available.  If you want to drop in for a visit, the folks at the front desk will have you fill out a card and let me know you are waiting. 

My other involvement at TCU includes the following:  Frog Camp; Successful Graduation Committee; Spirituality, Faith & Religious Life Committee; and serving as an advisor for Pi Kappa Phi.               

I grew up in Haltom City, just northeast of Fort Worth, and graduated from Haltom High School in 1979.  After a failed attempt at Texas A&M, I dropped out of college for 6 years.  During that time I had a lot of different jobs, trying to discover a career that didn’t require a college degree.  It looked like I was finally going to settle on being an electrician, but then a back injury at work gave me a new opportunity and new motivation to return to college.  The Texas Rehabilitation Commission provided career counseling, through which I discovered an entirely new direction for my life in human services.  I started taking courses at Tarrant County College, and eventually transferred to the University of North Texas.  Soon thereafter, in 1988, I got married and Susan and I have been living happily ever after.

By the time undergraduate studies were completed, I knew that I wanted to work with college students, helping them navigate some of the challenges I had encountered when I first tried college.  While I was working on a master’s in college and university counseling, I did an internship here at TCU.  After completing grad school I went to work in mental health, but kept an eye on TCU.  In 2000 I applied and was hired as an assistant director in Career Services at TCU.

My personal interests have always included philosophy, mythology, religion and spirituality.  I’ve been doing comparative studies in these areas since I was a teenager, and philosophy was my undergraduate minor.  Meditation and prayer have been very important parts of my own spiritual journey for over 20 years now, and I enjoy helping other people learn how to incorporate meditation in their lives.  As a career professional I am seriously interested in how people’s philosophies and beliefs affect their career decisions, what it means to have a sense of “calling” in one’s life, and how introspective practices can help lead to greater clarity.

Susan and I are nature lovers; we enjoy tent camping and hiking, mostly in New Mexico and Colorado, and are always looking for waterfalls.  We have two cats, Lefty and Rio, who have us very well trained to serve them as the little princes they are.

Chuck Dunning, Class of '08 Dean