Q & A with Dr. David Tamisiea

Dr. David Tamisiea uses his legal and theological background and his love of learning to serve the University of Mary in his role as dean of the School of Arts and Sciences.

Q: What was your career prior to coming to Mary?

A: I was an attorney in Dallas, Texas, for ten years. I did mostly business litigation, and I had just become partner in my firm when I got this crazy idea that I wanted to go back to graduate school to study theology. I was always interested in theology and philosophy, and I had gotten involved with teaching it informally. I’d just gotten married when I left my law career to go to graduate school and become a professor of theology.

After beginning my academic career, I left teaching for a little while to move back to Texas and start the Saint Philip Institute for Catechesis and Evangelization as the executive director and founder. I missed being at a university, so I called a friend who was working at the University of Mary and got a job as a professor of theology in 2018. In the summer of 2019, I became interim dean of the School of Arts and Sciences, which eventually became a permanent role.

Q: How has your past experience helped you in your role as dean?

A: My legal background has helped a lot. As a lawyer, you’re required to communicate orally and in writing, and being a good communicator is important when you’re overseeing a lot of people. Our school is one of the largest at the university, so it’s important that I’m able to communicate well to my faculty. Being a lawyer also helped me learn to multitask and stay organized, and that’s something I need to do as dean as well.

Q: What is the most rewarding part of your job?

A: Number one is the relationships that I form with the people whom I work with, when we’re all working for a common cause. As dean, I get to lead those efforts and get us all rowing in the same direction so that we can accomplish the mission of the University of Mary and the mission of our school in particular, which is to awaken in our students a Catholic imaginative vision so that they begin to see the world with new eyes that are attuned to all that is true, good, and beautiful in the world.

Q: What are your hobbies outside of work?

A: First and foremost, I love spending time with my family. My wife and I have been married for around 19 years, and we have six kids — three boys and three girls. I love spending time with my wife and kids. I’m also an avid reader and love to learn new things. I played football at Notre Dame, and I still consider myself an athlete as well. I like to exercise and go to the gym, and I have a goal of running 100 races, and I’m getting close! I do 5k and 10k races, and I just did my first triathlon, which I trained really hard for.

Q: Your school has a wide variety of majors and specialties. What is overseeing that like?

A: It’s very enriching to work with people who specialize in everything from mathematics to poetry. It fits in well with my love of learning, and it’s fun for me to be around colleagues who specialize in areas that I’m not a specialist in because I can learn from them and glimpse into their worlds and help them do their disciplines better.

Q: What’s your message to Arts & Sciences alumni who read this?

A: Come back! We’d love to see you. Share with us your stories about what you’re doing with your lives, in your vocations, your families, and your work, because that’s ultimately what we’re aiming for. We want to help you discover your vocation, live it to the full, and go out and change the world.

Q: What is your vision for the future of the School of Arts and Sciences?

A: First, we want to grow our programs and enrollment so we can reach more students and change more lives. We will also continue to be creative in developing new programs and new ways of doing things, always striving for excellence in all that we do and making sure that everything we do is rooted in prayer.

We aim to cultivate in our students a philosophical habit of mind that has the capacity to grasp the whole and begin to have a wise understanding of things through the teaching of the liberal arts.

Dr. Tamisiea, center, with the faculty of the School of Arts and Sciences before the 2021 Wheat Ceremony.