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hen David Surratt was a student at the University of Oklahoma, he spent his school days cultivating relationships and pouring into a community that was excited to have his leadership.

Now, after being away for 15 years, he will return to OU at a time when the university is in need of strong leaders and community builders following racist activity on campus that has deepened rifts in the OU community.

At 38, Surratt will be OU’s first new dean of students in nearly two decades.

He comes armed with years of university administration experience, most recently from the University of California, Berkeley. And, for the second time in his career, he’ll be starting a job at a college campus in the middle of a cultural reckoning.

“As somebody who spent 18 years putting my heart and soul into a job to have David come in who is committed to the co-curricular development of our students? I mean, I couldn’t ask for anything more,” said Clarke Stroud, current manager of OU Football Operations and former dean of students.

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urratt spent his childhood years in California with his parents: a mother who immigrated from South Korea and an African-American father in the Air Force. By first grade, Surratt’s father was working with American Airlines in Tulsa, where the family settled for good.

“Most of my life and my upbringing was in Tulsa, Oklahoma,” Surratt said. “And so when people ask where I’m from, I always tell them it’s a complicated story. But ultimately I’m from Oklahoma.”

While in high school, he knew that it would be important for him to attend college, making him the first of his family to do so. Surratt had baseball offers to different junior colleges, but he made the choice to give up playing baseball and swing for getting a Division I education, Surratt said.

Surratt started college at OU in 1998, majoring in English literature. He was a member of OU’s Black Student Association, joined the Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity and volunteered his time for health education groups and younger students, among other things.

“I think it was an overall positive time,” Surratt said. “In terms of my overall experience, I was curious about a lot of different things because when you’re coming into an environment that’s new to you, you’re anxious, you’re open to learning a lot of different things.”

“I saw growth. I saw his maturity. I saw concern. I saw a willingness to put in, put himself on the line for what he believed. I saw integrity,” Henderson said.

When Surratt earned his bachelor’s degree in 2002, he enrolled in the human relations graduate program created by Henderson back in 1969.

“He was definitely a figure that influenced me because he taught me something about our very existence being radical and pushing against expectations and norms and forcing people to come to a different place of learning,” Surratt said.

Henderson said that Surratt helped other students learn to become constructive activists instead of “just (an) armchair activist” — one who only speculates and talks about what they need to change instead of making it happen, he said.

“I remember one day (Surratt) said, ‘I’m beginning to tell people that if things are so bad around here, they’ve got to help us change some of them,’” Henderson said.

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fter graduating from OU, Surratt pursued his doctorate in higher education administration at George Washington University. Over the years, he has held many positions at various public and private universities.

In 2013, amid a lawsuit against the University of California, Berkeley, for Title IX violations, Surratt was hired as associate dean of students, a position he would hold for the next five years, working closely with student advocacy programs.

Surratt struggled to create relationships with the students because they were weary about anyone involved with the school’s administration while the college’s Title IX office was involved in state and federal audits, but they eventually began to trust him, he said.

“One of the biggest things that was hard for me was to understand where our survivor activists were coming from and to make sure that we reached out and we express empathy and support for students who were challenging the rest of the university directly,” Surratt said.

During that time, he also eventually held the position of associate vice chancellor for student affairs, Surratt said. He was tasked with housing and dining services and looked at housing and food insecurity issues.

Surratt said his biggest drive while at UC Berkeley was his connections with the students.

“That’s something that I do try to take pride in, because I feel like if I stopped being able to empathize with what students are experiencing, I feel like I’m not doing my job effectively. And so I’m always grateful for the students,” Surratt said.

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urratt’s experience in building relationships with students during times of intense turmoil will be useful as he starts his work at OU.

OU’s spring 2019 semester began with two blackface incidents on campus, one student in a widely circulated video and another unknown person walking near campus, prompting marches, protests and calls for the university’s new administration to crack down on systemic racism at the university.

“Someone of African-American and Korean-American sect coming into this role at this time of climate concerns and issues sends a spotlight on me,” Surratt said. “I hope I can step up to the challenge, but I know I can’t do it without the support of the students and of faculty and staff.”

The administrators and faculty who know and remember Surratt from his time at OU are excited for his return to campus.

“(Surratt) worked really, really hard, and I’m just extremely proud of him,” Stroud said. “It’s really awesome to see one of our students who put so much into our community here and to leave and watch them make investments in other communities. But then to see them get to come back home is really special for you.”

When Henderson heard that Surratt was being considered for the job, he sent Surratt an email saying that if he was offered the job, he’d hope Surratt would accept because the campus was in need of him now more than ever, Henderson said.

“Too many of us older men never passed the gauntlet onto the next generation,” Henderson said. “David coming here gives me symbolically passing that gauntlet onto that next generation. And knowing that in a very positive way, that it’s in good hands, he will be fair, he will do the best that he possibly can. It means that people like me can, can sit back and say, ‘well done.’”

For Surratt, it is a deeply personal decision aside from a professional one, he said. Because working for a place like OU and its mission for success in public education spoke to him, Surratt hopes he can continue to lead teams to work on retention for students and take charge of student services.

“There’s a special place of doing this for your alma mater and doing it at a place that actually gave me a lot of opportunities too,” Surratt said. “I was (a first generation college student) … There was a lot of things I just didn’t know. And so then there’s a lot of gratitude I have for Oklahoma, not only for the focus on education, but also the things that it gave me personally.”