By Amy White
The Texas Catholic
IRVING — The trees were shorter, the surrounding city sparser, and the student population smaller when Gregory Roper began his undergraduate education at the University of Dallas more than four decades ago. As he now undertakes the responsibility of leading the university’s undergraduate school as the new dean of the Constantin College of Liberal Arts, much about his alma mater’s campus is different than it once was — but the mission at the heart of the school, he said, remains the same.
Stepping into his new role, Roper aims to preserve what is essential to the identity of the school by supporting the students, faculty, and departments that make the university a truly Catholic, truly intellectually formative institution.
“We form people who have a notion of what life is for,” the dean said. “It’s not just fides et ratio. It’s fides et ratio et vita,” or faith and reason and life.
‘A very quiet little corner’
As Roper embraces the responsibilities of the Constantin College deanship, he pulls from decades of accumulated knowledge of the school — collected both as a student and as a member of the faculty.
It was an advertisement, Roper remembered, that first led him to the university. His mother spotted the ad for UD in an issue of The Texas Catholic and encouraged him to apply for a scholarship at the school; Roper assented to his mother’s wish.
“I literally drove the application and the essay up Spur 408, up Loop 12, and dropped it off in person just in time,” Roper recalled with a laugh. “I knew a little bit about the place, but very little; and then when I was admitted and got the scholarship, my guidance counselor at Duncanville High School had never heard of the place.”
Roper joined UD with the largest class in the school’s history at the time: about 225 students, to his recollection. There was no science building yet, he said, no chapel and no Cardinal Farrell Hall.
“I mean, it was the top of this hill in this corner of Irving, and there was nothing around here,” he shared. “So, it was a very quiet little corner.”
As Roper became acquainted with his new community at the tucked-away school, he quickly found that he was in good company.
“People love to talk about ideas. People love to talk about questions of history and politics but in larger, thoughtful ways … There’s a whole school of people like me!” he recalled thinking. The dean added, “We always used to say that the Holy Spirit was the best admissions counselor of this place, because none of us knew we wanted to be here until we were here, and suddenly we realized this was the place.”
He began studying biology and biochemistry at the school before realizing that, while he loved the concepts he learned, he was “all thumbs” in the lab. He graduated from the university in 1984 with an English major.
Following graduation, Roper attended the University of Virginia for further study. He secured a teaching position at Ripon College, a small school in Wisconsin, before moving to Northwest Missouri State University; and in 2000, when a position opened at the University of Dallas, he returned to his alma mater as an English professor.
“It’s been home for 26 years now,” Roper said of UD, which he described as “a Catholic university that takes both ‘Catholic’ and ‘university’ deeply seriously.”
‘One of the giants’
As an English professor at the University of Dallas, Roper showed great enthusiasm for his work, according to Father Vincent Anyama.
“There are a handful of teachers in your intellectual formation that you can point to as having a very significant impact in (your) intellectual formation. He’s one of them,” the priest said. Now rector of Holy Trinity Seminary in Irving, Father Anyama was a student of Roper’s during his 2001-2004 collegiate formation at UD.
The priest recalled Roper as a teacher who brought “a tremendous amount of energy,” as well as a “very fine imagination,” into his classes. Vitally, the professor also cared deeply about the formation of each of his students, supporting them in their projects — including encouraging Father Anyama to publish his first literary work, “Hunting with Fadwell” — and helping them to develop both competence and confidence.
“He is one of the giants, I would say, of the University of Dallas,” the rector added.
“Dr. Roper’s reputation as a professor precedes him,” shared Sarah Baker, executive director of campus life at UD, who before working alongside Roper was a student of his. “Dr. Roper is an excellent professor, adept at guiding class discussions and helping students understand the richness of literature. However, I was lucky enough to find out that he is not only an excellent professor but an excellent leader, which he demonstrated continually through his deep and indefatigable care of the students and staff that he served.”
Beginning in 2004, Roper also led a program for high school students on the University of Dallas’ Rome campus called ‘Shakespeare in Italy,’ which he ran for 14 years.
Andrew Moran, a professor in UD’s English department, shared that he and two other University of Dallas professors, Stefan Novinski and Kathryn Davis, recently reminisced about Roper’s time leading the program and shared stories of the ways they had each learned from his example of service to his students.
“He was painstaking in his attention to details, not because he was an unpleasant perfectionist but because he wanted to do right by the students,” Moran recalled. “To push the students intellectually, he thought carefully about the plays we were reading and meticulously planned our trips in Rome and Venice to make those cities a second classroom … All the while there was his attentiveness to each student and to the faculty and graduate students for whom he was the ‘capo,’ the leader, so that we would thrive.”
In the fall of 2010, Roper began serving as the chair of the English department at UD, a position he filled until 2019. In 2021, he stepped into the position of dean of students, initially on an interim basis. He has served as dean of students for the past five years.
“That was really interesting work,” Roper said. “I’m a student of this place. I thought I knew student culture pretty well; but really getting a solid look at it, I think, has helped me a great deal. It’s changed my teaching. It’s just helped me understand how students live their lives and how they live their lives differently.”
Despite the changes that time has brought to campus, he added, “The curriculum is the same. Students are still the same; they’re still goofy and playful and fun and intellectual … All of those things are still very much the same.”
‘I love this place’
This summer, Roper made the move from dean of students to dean of the Constantin College.
“What inspired me to take it is the same as the dean of students position: just offering service to the university,” he said. “I love this place. I love what it does. I love what it’s about.”
The role, he said, charges him with leading the undergraduate college by articulating a vision of a fully Catholic and fully intellectual education. This responsibility, in many ways, is about continuing to foster and maintain the excellence that UD already exhibits in its curriculum, its departments, and in its mission, he said.
“We’re trying to produce people that go out and live incredibly beautiful, faith-filled, intelligent, thoughtful, powerful lives,” the dean explained. “This is a place to build the kind of people who can go out there and evangelize the rest of the world.”
As Roper takes the reins of leadership at Constantin College, several of his peers offered words of gratitude and expressed well-wishes for the new dean, including Anna Sales, director of student life operations at the university.
“His passion for academia, his love for UD and building meaningful relationships are strengths he will bring into his new role,” said Sales, who worked alongside Roper the past few years. Addressing the dean by name, she added, “Greg, our team will miss your wisdom and guidance, but we are excited to see the transformative things you will accomplish in your new role!”
Cutline for featured image: Gregory Roper, an alumnus and longtime faculty member of the University of Dallas, has been appointed as dean of the Constantin College of Liberal Arts. (University of Dallas photo)
