Born in Flint, Michigan in 1974, Dayne Walling studied at James Madison College, Michigan State University before going to Oxford to read Modern History. He continued his studies in the UK, taking an MA in Contemporary Urban Affairs from Goldsmith’s College, London, before returning to the US to work in the mayor’s office in Washington, DC. During that time, Walling became co-founder and president of the Flint Club, a non-profit community organisation. He went on to serve as mayor of Flint, Michigan from 2009 to 2015. From 2013 to 2015, Walling was chair of the Manufacturing Alliance of Communities. He has taught courses and given talks at institutions including Central Michigan University, University of Michigan and Vanderbilt University and now works as Vice President of Government Relations and External Relations for Insight Health Systems based in Flint. This narrative is excerpted from an interview with the Rhodes Trust on 4 September 2025.
Dayne Walling
Michigan & St Peter's 1996
‘A real gift that was given to me’
I grew up in a very working-/middle-class kind of neighbourhood with a wonderful, close-knit sense of community. We played American football in the street. I walked to school every day and I walked home for lunch. I had absolutely wonderful, loving, supportive parents. They were both teachers, so for my younger sister and me it was a lot of books, a lot of reading, and we would also go off during the summers around the country and visit museums and historical sites and national parks.
I loved school. I’m someone who loves to read, loves to learn. I got to go to school with a wide diversity of people from different parts of the city and I came to feel that that was a real gift that was given to me. I was just enriched by having that kind of diversity always surrounding me.
On applying for the Rhodes Scholarship
I went on to the James Madison School at Michigan State because they specifically had a degree in international relations and I thought that was going to be my path. I wanted to understand how the world worked. When I got to university, I realised my passion was actually more for local and community work – though still with a global lens about these forces and structures that are shaping our local communities – so I moved to the social relations track.
I was already carrying with me the experience of Flint and how industrialisation had been followed by a period of technological change and the loss of thousands of jobs in the motor industry.
Then I had the opportunity to part of the first classes of the AmeriCorps Programme, which was one of President Clinton’s (University and Arkansas 1968) major initiatives. I was able to work with Lansing residents on neighbourhood environmental issues and that was really what got me understanding more about how local communities worked. I started to understand, too, that this didn’t have to be only volunteer work, that there were people who make their career in community development.
It was one of the international relations faculty who encouraged me to apply for the Rhodes Scholarship. I wanted to get to work, but he persuaded me that the Rhodes could be the biggest adventure of my life. So, I went through with it and I poured my heart and soul into my application. I became very interested in studying in Oxford and challenging myself intellectually, and I got to be one of those very fortunate few selected.
‘We just had an amazing time’
I originally applied for the Master’s in Sociology at Oxford, but I didn’t have the necessary background in quantitative methods. So, I landed on history, because at Michigan State I had taken a couple of classes in history, including a class with Dr Harry Reed in African American history. Intellectually, Oxford was extraordinary, just having the opportunity to sit with a tutor one-on-one for an hour a week.
One of the other amazing things was being part of the first student chapter of Habitat for Humanity. We worked with the community to build housing in Banbury, which got me outside the Oxford ‘bubble.’ I was very fortunate that the Rhodes Trust agreed to fund an additional year of study at Goldsmith’s College in London, doing a degree on Contemporary Urban Affairs. It was tremendously valuable, and I was exposed to the cutting edge of sociological studies. I also wanted to be there because the first Habitat for Humanity housing in London was being built just a few miles away from Goldsmith’s.
I definitely bonded with the other US and Canadian Rhodes Scholars during my time in Oxford and I started treasuring those relationships right away. At the same time, my now spouse, Carrie Booth Walling, was studying in the UK at the same time as me, in Wales, and we were able to travel and explore the UK together. We just had an amazing time.
‘One of the greatest honours of my life’
When I went back to the US, I wanted to work in politics, but I didn’t want to take the usual route of working in DC on Capitol Hill. I was looking to do something that was more locally oriented and I was very fortunate to be offered a position as an analyst within the DC office of what was then called Grants Management & Development. While I was there, I worked with some other friends from Flint to start an internet-based social club that became the Flint Club. We thought we were really cool, having our board meetings on free conference calls and ‘meeting’ online, because at that time, no one had heard of any of this stuff!
I worked in DC for almost four years and then Carrie and I moved to Minneapolis. I was doing urban advocacy work within the Twin Cities and I just started feeling this pull that I needed to go back and do this kind of work at home in my own community. At that time, Flint had a backward-facing and corrupt administration and people kept saying, “Well, who’s going to run for mayor and help get Flint on a better path?’ Everyone was taking a pass, and idea grew in my mind that I needed to make a move to being in front. Carrie always knew that we would end up living in Flint one day, but it was a big move. Our first son was very young and we had just bought a house and Carrie was in the middle of her doctoral studies, but with her advisor’s support, we were able to make the move in 2006.
When it came to campaigning, we worked really, really hard to hold conversations with people about what they saw from their own perspectives. I spent the whole of 2007 running for mayor, and that time, I lost. I didn’t really have a plan B, and I knew in my bones I had to run again. In 2009, I went on to win in a landslide after the then mayor had to resign and a special election was called. One of the greatest honours of my life was being able to see Flint community support behind a really broad, citywide collaboration to be a more diverse, more equitable, more sustainable kind of place. This was during the recession, and we were able to secure over a million dollars for long-term planning, which meant we could create a framework for achieving a diverse economy. Crucially, we put education and economic development together, focusing on opportunities for people to become more skilled and more educated.
There are certainly things that I’m not proud of, and one of those is the issues that came to light around the question of water treatment and quality when we made the switch to using the Flint River as a water source. A lot of corruption and information was concealed, from myself and from others, and it’s something that I’m very ashamed of. I think every day about what I could have done differently. I took people’s word for things, and now I realise why triple-checking, and the system of checks and balances that we’re currently seeing eroded in the US, is so important. I should have been able to understand that with that cascade of problems, the solutions that were being offered weren’t adequate.
After I left office, I went on to start my doctoral studies and I also worked in consulting. I now have a full-time position with the Insight Health Network that’s based in Flint. My work with Insight has really deepened how I’ve been able to stay involved. We’re actually back in Minneapolis now, and Carrie is the director of the Human Rights Programme at the University of Minnesota. Alongside my work for Insight, I’m writing a memoir about my time in Flint. I have to say, it’s taken a lot of internal motivation and coaching to work through all the issues from that time.
‘I have loved watching the Scholarship embrace Scholars from more and more countries’
One of the great things about the Rhodes Scholarship, I think, is that each Rhodes Scholar finds their own value and purpose within the amazing set of opportunities that comes from the Scholarship. I have loved watching the Scholarship embrace Scholars from more and more countries around the world. The partnerships with southern Africa and with The Mandela Rhodes Foundation have been very, very gratifying, and an important step in having a healthier global community.