Campus Colleagues: Christine Dunning

Christine Dunning, the College of Business assistant to the dean, is friendly, organized and focused. She helps COB student organizations plan their big events and conference travel. She organizes the dean’s schedule and manages the COB Dean’s Office. She promotes college-level seminars and visiting faculty to people across the university.

“I love it here. There’s so much fluidity to what I do. Every day is different and it keeps it fun,” she says. “I especially like working with the students. I keep the thank you cards that they write to me. I have years worth of cards.”

She has kept things running smoothly in COB for nearly a decade — much as if she’s running her own enterprise. That’s something Dunning comes by honestly. She’s from a large entrepreneurial family. 

For 50 years, her family owned Standard Paper Company in Detroit, located on 14th Street just a few steps from I-75. The building’s Corktown site — which is across the freeway from Michigan Central Station — is now filled with residential apartments. But a photo of the old red brick building, complete with a black-and-white-painted Standard Paper Company sign, still comes up in a Google search.

Dunning is the youngest of seven children. Her parents, Cass and Sophie, started Standard Paper in 1937 and the family ran the company for more than 50 years. All of the kids pitched in to help their parents, whose company supplied paper to printers in and around Detroit (to make items like those thank you cards Dunning keeps) for decades. With the rise of big box stores and her father’s passing in 1986, the family sold the company in the 1990s.

The family’s business was well regarded and some of the products made from its paper are still out there — an eBay listing currently lists a Standard Paper Company red matchbook from the 1950s. The item, which has a drawing of a saluting toy soldier, reads: “Service Is Our 1st Thought.”

That motto still applies to how Dunning works today. She’s an expert multitasker who stays calm and collected no matter how many tasks come her way. “My father taught me the importance of hard work and delivering on what you promise,” she says. “No matter what happens, you need to focus to keep things moving.”

Here are a few things Dunning has learned during her career journey, from those days at Standard Paper to today.

Stay competitive.

Even with her parents’ busy work schedules running the Standard Paper Company, Dunning said their family made time for games. Her parents would pull out cards and play Pinochle with the kids or break out the board games like Scrabble. “When you are the youngest of seven kids, you need to prove yourself — there’s 19 years between me and my oldest sister,” she says. “I became ultra competitive. I think that’s a good thing. It motivates me to push myself and helps me focus on what I’m doing at that moment.”

Dunning is a medal-winning slalom skier. She Alpine skis for recreation now, but in the 1980s and ’90s, Dunning tore down the hills at northern Michigan’s Boyne Mountain.“At my fastest, it took me 25 seconds to get down the race course. But it was on a smallish hill,” she adds modestly. She won races with the Detroit Ski Club. Today Dunning still goes to Boyne almost every year to ski. Even though she’s not competing, she still takes note of her skiing abilities. “I’m not what I used to be, but I make sure to get out there and do pretty well for myself. I enjoy that feeling of going down the hills,” she says with a smile.

She stays competitive in the professional arena too. Dunning, who has an undergraduate business degree from Central Michigan University, decided to go back for her master’s degree after starting at UM-Dearborn. She earned a Master of Public Administration in 2016. She says her graduate studies helped her develop her strategic decision-making and financial management skills. “When I learned how supportive people were for me to go back to school, I didn’t think twice. Having that support was a major perk of working here,” she says. “There are always new things to discover. It’s important to never stop pushing yourself — there’s always room for growth.” 

She says getting a new degree may not be right for everyone’s situation, but wants people to know that learning opportunities are everywhere. “I watched my dad growing up and got an important life lesson in what it means to have a strong work ethic and what it means to be true to your word,” she says. “Look at the people around you that you admire. You can take note of what they do well.” 

Find a mentor.

Mentors are important in any work setting — her parents showed her how to run a busy business operation from her earliest years through early adulthood. It’s one of the reasons she wanted a business degree. “I learned the importance of being very organized and I was good with numbers — I also thought a management information systems degree could help modernize the family business ordering and billing process, the educational skills are transferable to a number of career paths.” 

After the family business closed, Dunning focused on raising her two children. Dunning looked to return to full-time work in 2011 and UM-Dearborn offered an opportunity when an administrative role in the College of Business internship office opened. She later moved into the College of Business Dean’s Office in 2017. 

Having grown up in Dearborn, Dunning was familiar with the university — but she wasn’t sure how to get plugged into the community when she first came to campus in 2011. She took advantage of the Staff Senate mentorship program. That’s how Dunning met Judy Modelski, assistant to the vice chancellor for business affairs. Modelski, who retired in 2018 after 40-plus years, signed up to help new hires acclimate to the university through a Staff Senate mentorship program.

“It was my first full-time position in many years. Starting somewhere new can be a little intimidating no matter your circumstances. But people like Judy can help you find where you fit,” she says. “We’d meet for lunch, she showed me around campus, connected me to resources when I had questions, and she introduced me to so many people. I saw what a great community this place is.”

Dunning encourages everyone, especially the COB students organization leaders she works with, to seek out mentors at their internships and jobs. No matter where you are in your career, Dunning says mentors are important. “Satisfaction at work goes beyond what you do. It’s also getting to know the people you work with and finding how you fit into the work culture,” she says.

Recognize the gifts people give you.

There are awards, degrees and trinkets displayed around Dunning’s office. She has them there because they add a bit of decor to her office space — but the real value is what they represent. 

She’s proud of her college degrees. Those — especially her Bachelors in Business Administration degree — make her think of her parents, who didn’t have a college education themselves. “They lived very frugally, but made sure that the seven of us all went to college. So they valued education, even though they didn’t have the opportunity to go,” she says. “Their decisions changed our lives for the better.”

The cards Dunning keeps are mostly from her students, thanking Dunning for her career path advice and support with their orgs. And an award plaque on her wall recognizes Dunning as the college’s 2020-21 Outstanding Staff Member of the Year. 

She values the time she’s had with her COB work colleagues. She says working with them feels almost like a family-run enterprise — and that’s an environment she thrives in. “We have a great team. We think of ourselves as one big team working toward the same goal — we don’t work like we have separated departments. If I need help or someone else needs help, we say yes. To make things work well and efficiently, you need to be on the same page.”

It all goes back to those entrepreneurial lessons she learned while growing up — when service was No. 1, just like it says on that Standard Paper matchbox.

Story by Sarah Tuxbury