Dille, Roland (1924–2014)

Dr. Roland Dille was the longest-serving president of what is now Minnesota State University Moorhead, from 1968 to 1994. While shepherding the campus through tumultuous years of Vietnam War protests, racial tensions, and other controversial issues, he earned the respect of his campus community and helped the university grow to its peak enrollment in 1990.

Roland Paul Dille was born on September 16, 1924, in Dassel, Minnesota, to Oliver and Eleanor (Johnson) Dille. He grew up on a farm. After graduating from high school in 1942, he attended the University of Minnesota before being drafted in 1943 to serve in the 66th Infantry Division of the US Army in World War II.

Dille returned to the University of Minnesota after the war and earned a degree in English in 1949. In 1948 he married Beth Hopeman, and the couple had four children. After teaching English at the Dassel high school for a year, Dille returned to the University of Minnesota to work on a PhD in English while teaching English at the University of Minnesota, St. Olaf College, and California Lutheran College. Dille earned his PhD in 1962 and began to teach English at Moorhead State College (now Minnesota State University Moorhead) the following year.

After teaching English for three years, Dille was promoted to associate academic dean, then academic dean, then college president. Faculty recommended him to the State University Board, and he became the first former faculty member to become president, in November 1968.

Dille took over the presidency during a contentious time and had large shoes to fill. His predecessor, John Neumaier, a Jew who had escaped Nazi Germany, had been a charismatic and popular president, though not without controversy. Before he left, Neumaier had created Project E-Quality—a program that recruited disadvantaged students of color, offering them scholarships and support. Defending the project, on top of growing protests on campus against the Vietnam War, was quite the challenge for a new president.

Dille had started the work to launch Project E-Quality while still academic dean, but it wasn’t until the fall of 1968 that fifty black, Hispanic, and Native American students started the program. Dille and his family received death threats, his car was covered in paint, and some community members voiced displeasure about bringing minority students to Moorhead. Tensions peaked when a misunderstanding over a dorm-room pizza delivery led to a scuffle between white and Black students in which a Black student shot a blank from a starter pistol. These initial tensions soon dissipated, however, and Project E-Quality students graduated at a higher rate than other students. The program ended in 1974.

Dille soon had another controversy on his hands involving the student newspaper, the MISTIC. The first issue, published in the fall of 1968, included an article with printed quotations from Democratic National Convention witnesses who used swear words. The MISTIC was in hot water for the rest of the academic year, but things came to a head when another article was published in May 1969 that contained more swear words. Dille suspended the newspaper, arguing that he could now allow state funding to support it. Moorhead State did not have a student newspaper again until the Advocate started in 1971.

When students held on-campus protests, Dille was more protective of free speech rights. He refused the FBI’s request to search the dorm rooms of two students suspected of being communists; protected an anti-war professor who some called on to be fired; and refused to allow police and national guard presence on campus after the Kent State shooting. After police killed two Black students at Jackson State College in 1970, Black students at Moorhead State planned to boycott classes. In response, Dille suspended classes—essentially ending the spring semester—to prevent violence and allow teach-ins and protests.

Despite Dille’s early hurdles, his twenty-six-year presidency was considered a success. Five new buildings were erected, and enrollment rose from a little over 5,000 in 1968 to a high of 9,100 students in 1990. He was known for allowing students to visit his office at any time; for dressing up as Santa Claus in the Student Union every December; and for starting a popular on-campus Fourth of July celebration. During his tenure, Moorhead State College became Moorhead State University, and he founded the Alumni Foundation, the Regional Science Center, and the New Center for Multidisciplinary Studies. When he retired in 1994, the campus’s Center for the Arts was renamed the Roland Dille Center for the Arts.

Dille died on May 26, 2014, in Moorhead, at eighty-nine years old. He was buried in Prairie Home Cemetery.