Picture a beautiful, intricate watch. On its face, the hands move smoothly, keeping precise time with what seems like little effort. Flip it over, take off the back and the illusion disappears. Suddenly, there are gears, coils and countless moving parts working together to make it run.
That, David Hahn said, is how he views a university.
“If you really step back and think about it, everything is a system,” Hahn said. “Your human body is a system, the Earth is a system, the university is a system.”
It’s an analogy he had used several times that week, he told The Arbiter in a late July interview, one month into his presidency. Earlier that week, Hahn, his wife and their dog, Ophelia, had officially made the move to Boise from Tucson, where he spent nearly seven years as the dean of the University of Arizona’s College of Engineering.
Engineers, he said, are trained to break down problems into their fundamental pieces, understand how those pieces interact and bring them together to find a solution.
“As an engineer, I embrace those parts and I embrace the people that make those parts work,” Hahn said. “When you do that, suddenly you’ve got that culture of greatness.”
At the University of Arizona, Hahn tripled research expenditures, played a key role in securing more than $45 million in state legislative funding for the College of Engineering and expanded its academic offerings. His tenure working across the university to create new connections between engineering and other disciplines, including a joint degree with the business college and an applied humanities track for engineering students.
In a message announcing Hahn’s departure from the university to faculty, staff and students in the College of Engineering they praised him for fostering a “strong culture of teamwork, mutual respect and collegiality.”
That same culture was evident in how he responded when one Arizona parent came to him with a problem.
Terry Matsunaga’s son had graduated from the College of Engineering but was struggling to launch his career. It wasn’t a question of talent, Matsunaga told The Daily Wildcat, the student newspaper at University of Arizona. His son was autistic, and he was having difficulty navigating the social demands of the job search.
Matsunaga, a professor of neurosurgery and biomedical engineering, suspected other engineering students who are autistic might face similar barriers.
His solution? Working alongside Hahn and Wendy Parent-Johnson, the director of the university’s Sonoran Center for Excellence in Disabilities, to establish a program for neurodivergent students to prepare for the workforce.
In 2020, the three worked to establish what would become IDEAS in Mind, a program that prepares students who are autistic or neurodivergent for the workplace through vocational support services and mentoring. The program has since helped dozens of students find engineering internships, The Daily Wildcat reported.
In a statement to The Arbiter, Matsunaga described Hahn as “instrumental” in the establishment of the program. “IDEAS in Mind came to fruition with Dean Hahn’s gracious assistance and our shared vision for finding career positions [for] students on the spectrum,” he wrote.
Hahn has spent more than half of his 28 years in academia as a leader. Still, he said, he sometimes thinks of himself as a faculty member and professor first.
“What’s always guided me is being rooted in the fact that we’re an educational institution,” he said. “We take young students and give them the tools in and out of the classroom to achieve [their] greatest potential, and that’s what it’s all about.”
“A university is this wonderful, synergistic world.”
Hahn’s presidency began with little fanfare.
He arrived on campus after a presidential search that stretched more than a year and stalled for months as it unfolded under a new state law that allows Idaho’s public universities to conduct much of the selection process behind closed doors.
By the time Hahn was named the sole finalist for the position in June, there was little time — and few students around — to get to know the person who would soon lead the university.
He inherits Idaho’s largest four-year university, including its budget shortfalls, ambitious research goals and turbulent relationships with state lawmakers after years of political tension.
So how does a president connect with a campus community that had little chance to get to know him before he arrived? His answer is to start now.
“You know, the process is the process, right?” Hahn said when asked how he plans to connect with Boise State community members who wanted more involvement in the presidential search. “State law dictated the process.”
He pointed to interviews and meetings he had with students, faculty, alumni and other university stakeholders before being named the sole finalist, as well as the two-week public review period that followed.
During the required review period, the university held a one-hour public forum in the Jordan Ballroom with a virtual attendance option where students, faculty and staff could ask questions of Hahn. The State Board of Education also invited members of the public to submit feedback on Hahn’s potential appointment.
“There was a lot of engagement,” he said. “…I went home from that public commentary period feeling like, ‘wow, I really made the right choice.’”
When The Arbiter requested the public’s feedback on Hahn’s appointment, the State Board refused to provide them, citing a public records exemption covering “information relating to a public employee or applicant.”
For Hahn, the search is behind him, and the work of building a reputation at Boise State is just beginning.
“Now as president, I have the opportunity to take [my work as dean] to the next level,” he said. “To take all the interconnected pieces and help bring us together — you, me, the faculty, students, staff — to look for those opportunities of synergy and collaboration. Leadership is the ability to bring pieces together and do things that ultimately benefit [students].”
As university president, Hahn views his role as an opportunity to “transform lives,” and said that process starts with visibility and listening.
“What shapes me as a president is collaborating across campus,” he said.
Hahn plans to meet with student leaders, whom he described as partners in identifying problems and developing solutions.
“Come to me with some initiatives we can tackle together,” he said. “What I can do for student leaders that have ideas in projects is help implement those. I can help fund those — we have to agree on what they are, but things that advance the experience here, I’m going to be all about.”
He views relationships with student leaders as a “two-way street” and plans to ask them to bring ideas and projects to him so he can help move them forward. For now, that approach is more about creating a process for those conversations than laying out specific initiatives of his own.
Campus safety offers one example of what that will look like. Hahn described himself as a “big believer in campus safety” and said it will be a “centerpoint” of his presidency. But when asked what specific initiatives he plans to pursue, he instead pointed to listening to problems students might bring to him.
“What’s interesting about a thing like campus safety is when you have a great experience, you don’t think a lot about it, and that’s what I want. I’m sure that our students are going to come to me with ideas like ‘Hey, we’ve noticed this, and can you help us here?’ and the answer is going to be ‘Yeah, let’s collaborate on that.”
That same philosophy will shape how Hahn approaches initiatives already underway at the university, like the pursuit of R1 research status and the merger of the College of Education and School of Public Service that began this July.
In regards to R1, Hahn arrives at a university that has already done much of the work. Boise State is pursuing classification as a top-tier research institution, with the next designation cycle expected in spring of 2028.
“The credit goes to many people that have come long before I showed up — I think we’re pretty much there,” Hahn said. He added he views the designation as more than a ranking. “It brings pride. It means that our faculty are conducting original research … doing relevant work that brings dollars to this university that will fund graduate students.”
As president, Hahn views research and education as part of the same system.
“I don’t like to separate the education and research mission because they’re heavily intertwined and they feed off of each other,” he said.
When the university announced plans to merge the College of Education and School of Public Service and dissolve the School of Innovation and Design last spring, student leaders involved in the programs told The Arbiter they felt “caught off guard” by the transition. The move came in the aftermath of the Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee’s (JFAC) decision not to restore a 3% budget cut for the next fiscal year.
“In higher ed today, there’s always a balance of funneling our dollars and your tuition dollars to the front line of education,” Hahn said. “That’s in the classroom and in the laboratory, there’s always the cost of doing something that has an administrative cost as well, such as deans and associate deans. It’s always desirable to find the right economy scale. One does not want to have too many small colleges.”
He emphasized that while it is impossible to have colleges with equal enrollments, “you don’t want 100 [students] here and 1,000 there, or 5,000 here and 400 there. I’m very happy with our academic structure.”
At the same time, Hahn acknowledged that some students may view the merger as a negative, but he expects the new structure to create new opportunities.
“I’m sure there’s people that felt like this was a loss of identity, but a university is this wonderful, synergistic world. Over time what’s going to happen is there’s going to be new collaborations and opportunities for students that people never even thought about. I think we’re in a good place, I think we found that optimal spot.”
“What is my role as a connector, as an advocate? It’s to find common ground.”
Hahn arrives at Boise State after years of tension between the university and Idaho’s political leaders. Under his predecessor, Marlene Tromp, the university faced repeated clashes with lawmakers over issues including diversity, equity and inclusion, campus policies and state funding. Those disagreements put Boise State at the center of Idaho’s broader political battles over higher education.
The tension was still visible as Tromp prepared to leave Idaho for the University of Vermont presidency in spring of 2025.
That March, JFAC voted to cut Boise State’s budget by $2 million. The reduction amounted to less than 1% of the university’s budget, but lawmakers framed the cut as a message to the university.
“They need to start listening to this body,” Rep. Josh Tanner, the House’s assistant majority leader said at the meeting, questioning whether cutting the university’s budget by $2 million was “enough.” “Hopefully this sends a slight message to them to straighten their act up.”
Sen. Codi Galloway unsuccessfully tried to persuade JFAC not to make the cut, saying that because Tromp was leaving Idaho for Vermont, “There has been a course change. There has been a correction.”
Hahn said he hasn’t studied “the granularity of what went wrong” during Tromp’s tenure. But his own approach, he said, comes back to one core principle — seeking common ground.
He added that advocacy is one of a university’s president’s most important responsibilities.
“I’m the number one advocate, champion and cheerleader for Boise State University to all people at all times,” Hahn said. He doesn’t define advocacy as winning every argument, but rather building relationships.
“What is my role as a connector, as an advocate? It’s to find common ground. It’s not to argue with people.”
Legislative relationships shouldn’t be limited to annual trips to the Capitol, he said. Instead, he envisions a “365-day relationship” built on periodic meetings, coffees and breakfasts — all in hopes of getting to know lawmakers “first as people.”
For Hahn, that work starts with something he believes virtually every Idaho lawmaker can agree on — wanting a better future for the state.
“Every single person in the state house wants to see a bright future for Idaho, and I think they all understand a bright future for Idaho is rooted in education,” he said.
Gov. Brad Little echoed that sentiment in a statement to The Arbiter welcoming Hahn to Boise State.
He described the university as an important part of preparing Idaho’s “next generation of leaders, innovators and workforce talent” and pointed to Hahn’s background in engineering, research and workforce development as a fit for Idaho’s “continued growth and opportunity.”
“We welcome Dr. Hahn and look forward to working together to build on Boise State’s strong momentum,” Little wrote.
Hahn said he doesn’t want to approach lawmakers asking for more money — in his words, “no one wants to be treated like an ATM.”
“Lets find things that we can agree are good for Idaho, good for the economy, good for the stewardship of our citizens,” he said. “If we find that common ground, I’m optimistic we can advance this university, build strong relationships and go from there.”
His strategy emphasizes compromise over confrontation. But it also leaves one question looming over Hahn’s presidency — what happens when the areas of disagreement are the ones that matter most?
He doesn’t seem particularly worried.
“Anyone that’s savvy and listening will see areas that maybe you’re not going to agree on, so just move away from it,” he said. “Find the things you do agree on, and you don’t have to worry about the other ones. I think that’s a good philosophy in life.”
“I hope this is the last stop.”
With his first semester as Boise State’s eighth president just underway, Hahn is most looking forward to something familiar — campus coming back to life.
It’s something he has experienced many times throughout his career in academia, but this fall will be his first as a university president.
‘You know, it’s always so great to see the students come back in August full of energy,” he said. “The new students are excited and wide-eyed, and so are our seniors in their last year. The students provide the energy of a campus.”
And Boise, he said, is already starting to feel like home.
Hahn has spent the beginning of his presidency describing himself less as a changemaker and more as a listener — someone who wants to build through collaboration and finding common ground. Whether that holds true when those priorities collide will be one of the defining questions of his tenure.
For now, though, he is settling in.
“I hope this is the last stop,” he said, smiling. “I mean, a university president at a great school that’s going places in a place I want to live. That should be it.”
