George Dennison, (originally printed in the Spring 2010 Montanan)

In January, we lost a dedicated, visionary leader when George Dennison passed away. Since then, we’ve put the call out to friends and colleagues of George to send us pieces about working with him and what it meant. This piece comes from John Allen, who worked as Montana state director for the Corporation for National and Community Service office. John’s retired now, but he served on the Governor’s Commission on Community Service with George. John helped establish MTCC’s VISTA program and wrote this piece on the occasion of George’s retirement. It ran originally in the Spring 2010 issue of the Montanan, UM’s alumni magazine.
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“I know President Dennison as a builder who has made Montana a better place. One can easily see all the growth at UM—the new stadium, the powerhouse football team, increased student enrollment, the rise of the University’s academic reputation, and other milestones. From my personal experience and knowledge, Dennison’s legacy also is about building foundations that we can build on to create more and better volunteer programs, a more civically engaged population, and, consequently, a stronger democracy.

During my thirty-five years working in community service, civic engagement, and volunteerism, and ten years as the Montana director for the Corporation for National and Community Service (known as the domestic Peace Corps), I worked with Dennison to encourage civic engagement and volunteerism. He is a builder—a visionary with a can-do attitude. I can’t count the number of times in meetings where he would say, “Let’s get it done.” He is able to connect seemingly unrelated issues while fostering relationships between far afield entities, like college volunteers working with senior volunteers to collect for food banks or young volunteers teaching senior volunteers about computers. Dennison realizes a successful democracy depends on an educated and civically engaged population. 

John Allen

Often he would lead dialogues among leaders in community service about the importance of volunteerism. Building civic engagement to him was not only an academic interest; it was about something bigger and getting it done. Dennison provided the vision and leadership at the University, in Montana, and nationally to increase civic engagement. He served on the national Campus Compact board and was instrumental in building, in Montana, one of the most successful branches in the nation. Campus Compact promotes civic engagement at the university level. Year after year, UM ranks among the top universities nationally for civically engaged students, outranking many prestigious schools. For fifteen years Dennison was the chair, visionary, and leaderof the Montana Commission on Community Service, which promoted civic engagement. With his leadership, the commission developed and implemented more programs and created an environment that encouraged collaborations not often seen in larger states. Civic engagement experts considered the Montana Campus Compact and Montana Commission on Community Service as models for the nation, a direct result of Dennison’s longtime commitment and leadership. He gave tireless effort and always made himself available.” 

John Allen