Jan. 5—GRAND FORKS — In discussing his imminent departure from office, Joshua Wynne adamantly avoids the word “retirement.” He insists it not be used.
He’ll continue to operate his private practice as a cardiologist in Fargo, he said, and will teach at UND’s School of Medicine and Health Sciences, where he’s been a faculty member since 2006.
But not as its dean. Wynne announced in October that he’ll be stepping down from UND leadership — he’s also vice president for health affairs — at the end of the academic year. University leadership is putting together a search committee to select his replacement.
“I do feel ambivalent, and one of the reasons is I enjoy what we’re doing,” Wynne said. “And we’re doing the right things, but it felt like the right time.”
Wynne has had a storied career in his nearly two decades at UND. His 14 years and counting as dean make him one of the longest-serving current medical school leaders in the country. He ran the university as an interim president during a tumultuous year that began with President Mark Kennedy’s abrupt departure and closed in the opening months of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“He’s been in higher-ed and medicine for a long time, so he’s seen what works,” said President Andrew Armacost. “He’s always been a voice of reason and great ideas.”
The Herald made him its
Person of the Year in 2019
, while the North Dakota Medical Association honored him with its Physician Community and Professional Services award in October.
At one point, he was the dean of the medical school, vice president for health affairs, and chief health strategist for North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum — all at the same time. It came after he served the dual role of leader of the medical school and as UND’s interim president.
“My life has not always been balanced,” he observed. “Our students do work harder and do it better.”
Leaving UND leadership now is personally and professionally pragmatic, he said. It will mean more time to spend with his grandchildren (he has five; the second-oldest just turned 2).
It’s a chance for new blood to lead the School of Medicine and Health Sciences after Wynne’s unusually long tenure at the top. An American Association of Medical Colleges study from 2010 estimated the median tenure of a first-time permanent med school dean is six years.
He also doesn’t want to appear as a “lame duck” before the next legislative session and make promises he won’t be around to fulfill.
“In the industry, it’s a pretty accepted best practice that turnover at the top is a good idea, and 15 years at the top seems like a good best practice,” Wynne said.
Wynne came from Detroit to North Dakota with his wife, Susan Farkas, a fellow cardiologist, 19 years ago.
He had come to take an associate’s dean position and, by his own admission, he was there to get a few years’ experience and prove himself in administrative leadership before taking a dean position someplace else.
But signature North Dakota niceness made an impression on the East Coast native and his spouse. As he and Farkas prepared for their first winter, his neighbors didn’t just offer to help dig them out if they found themselves snowed in: they threatened to never speak to the couple again if they didn’t ask for help.
“I think of North Dakotans as pretty individualistic, pretty self-sufficient, and yet in times of need they’re there for their neighbors,” Wynne said. “That’s what makes the place special — the combination of people who stand on their own, but stand together.”
When he steps down — and he likes to emphasize that he is most certainly stepping down — he’ll cede leadership of a medical school radically transformed during his tenure. His years at UND have come with the creation of six new academic departments, massive increases in sponsored research, the country’s first Ph.D. in Indigenous Health, and a reduction in student debt load in a bid to keep graduate physicians in the state through the Healthcare Workforce Initiative.
The last achievement is a particular point of pride for Wynne.
North Dakota’s health care workforce is precariously balanced between two figures: the SMHS graduates that make up a quarter of the state’s physicians, and the tendency for more than half of those graduates to leave the state once they’ve completed their degrees, often for higher-paying jobs that can help pay off their student loan debt.
Under the Healthcare Workforce Initiative, UND has worked to keep tuition low and reduce students’ debt load burden while incentivizing them to stay in state. Its RuralMed program offers debt forgiveness for graduates who choose to practice in North Dakota outside of the state’s four largest cities.
“From the workforce point of view, rather than having students want to go to an urban area to reduce your debt load, we’ll take care of your debt so you can practice in a Rugby or Stanley or Williston,” Wynne said.
Reports from the AAMC show North Dakota’s combined retention rate for med school undergraduates and graduates ticked up between 2011 and 2021, with the state moving from 32nd to 29th in state rankings.
Those numbers are still below the national average, but Wynne said the state is moving in the right direction.
“We haven’t solved the problem, but we’ve reduced the problem,” Wynne said. “Things would have been much worse had we not done these things.”
The university has not yet hired a search firm to seek Wynne’s replacement; that process will begin in the spring, Armacost said, with plans to select a new dean before the end of the academic year.
Armacost said he was confident the opening will garner considerable interest.
“When a dream position like this opens up, given the status that Josh has brought to the position, I know we’ll have some very qualified candidates to succeed Josh fully,” said Armacost.
Check the Herald’s website to see more stories about Joshua Wynne, including:
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Joshua Wynne named UND interim president.
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Wynne takes UND’s interim president job sans additional pay.
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Wynne: ‘Initially, I was going to say no’ to UND interim president’s job.
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Wynne named Herald’s 2019 Person of the Year.
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Interim UND president uses experience as a doctor, administrator to lead during pandemic.
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UND’s Joshua Wynne wraps up time as interim president, leading the university through a health crisis
.
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Wynne named North Dakota’s chief health strategist.
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