Where Are They Now?

The boy voted most likely to succeed by the Class of ’63 most certainly did.

After high school, Dean Tjosvold was off to Princeton University on an academic scholarship. Today Dr. Tjosvold is chair professor of management at Lingnan University in Hong Kong and an international authority on conflict management. He has authored or co-authored 22 books. He lectures widely.

“My research is on interdependence within and between organizations, specifically cooperation and competition, conflict management, power and leadership,” Dean said. “What is the nature of an effective team, how and when people discuss their differences open-mindedly and constructively?”

After graduating from Princeton in 1967 with a bachelor’s in history, he first returned home and was a teaching assistant at the University of Minnesota in 1968 and taught history at Henry Sibley High School from 1968-70. He was a teacher at the U in 1970-71 and earned his master’s degree in history and at the same time his Ph.D. in social psychology of organizations in 1972.

He then spent seven years as an assistant professor at Penn State before becoming in 1979 an associate professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, B.C., Canada. It was at Simon Fraser that he hired a research assistant named Jenny, a Canadian of Chinese descent. They were married in 1981.

During his time at Simon Fraser, Dean took time off and spent the better part of a year each as a fellow or visiting professor in Singapore, The Netherlands and, in the bustling metropolis where he lives now, at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

“I had a year’s leave from Simon Fraser, so we thought it would be a good cultural experience to go to Hong Kong for a year,” Dean explained. “That was in 1994—been here ever since. In ’91 we had gone to The Netherlands, so we thought we would sample Asia.” He was a visiting professor at City University of Hong Kong for a year and then went to Lingan in 1996.

“These stops were a lot of fun, great experiences for the kids too,” he said. Those kids are now Jason, 24, Wesley, 22, Lena, 20, and Colleen, 18. Jason graduated from Carleton College in Northfield, while the daughters currently attend there. Wesley graduated from Williams in Massachusetts. Yes, both boys were magna cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa.

“I agree with my sons that they are smarter than I,” Dean admitted. “But as I told them, the bad news is that they have to be. The girls are also brighter than their dad, but they do not say so.”

Although Dean has found a home in Hong Kong, a former crown colony of the United Kingdom that was transferred to Chinese control in 1997, he hasn’t mastered the language.
“I teach in English,” he said. “My Chinese is too bad. Our children are very good in Mandarin, the national language, and they know how to get around Hong Kong and know all the bad words in Cantonese, the local dialect of Hong Kong.”

Living half a world away, he’s still maintained close ties with Minnesota. He and assorted kids spend eight weeks every summer here with his mother Margaret and sister Mary Tjosvold, Roosevelt ’61, in Coon Rapids. The women run Mary T Inc., which Dean describes as “our family business.” It provides care and housing for adults with special needs who can’t be completely on their own.

Dean has also maintained a love for the sport he played at Roosevelt as captain of the basketball team: “I played basketball every Sunday with a group of old guys for many years in Hong Kong, but I had to stop last year because of arthritis in my hip,” he said. “I am now having acupuncture, acupressure and Chinese massage as well as physiotherapy. These are not just cultural experiences. So I have plans to return to basketball and play some. Now I lift weights, bike and swim.”

One of his favorite Roosevelt memories involves, not the basketball coach, but hockey. Dean recalled, “Coach Bobby Johnson quit our basketball game in the middle after bragging all year in history class that any hockey player can beat any basketball player, even in basketball.”

Since he’ll be in town this summer anyway, will Dean be at the 45-year reunion? “Definitely,” he promised.