President Donahue's State of the College Address 2018

Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you so much for being here for the State of the College Address: Where are we at Saint Mary’s College and where are we going. I look forward to sharing my comments and thoughts with you. And thank you so much for fitting this into the busy schedules of midterms and a couple days’ break.

I’d like to begin with a prayer. So, let us remember—

That we are in the holy presence of God.

Your Lord, God of life, Creator, Savior, and constant companion. Let us remember that we are always in Your presence and that You are both our source and our end. Help us to follow the way of Saint John Baptist de La Salle to be witnesses of hope and channels of love, to be effective educators and advocates for our students.

Help us to recognize the possibilities that You have offered us as a people and as a college community, so we can commit to practice the hope that happens when we gather gratefully in your name. And we hold up to You this fragile, precious world in which we live. Grant us all grace in this year and in years ahead to sow the seeds of justice and to gather peace in our day. Amen.

Saint John Baptist de La Salle,

—pray for us.

Live Jesus in our hearts—Forever!

As I thought about my remarks today for the State of the College, I reflected on this coming year being the 300th anniversary of the passing of John Baptist de La Salle and the worldwide celebration of his legacy. His principles of faith, zeal, and community are as important at the Saint Mary’s of today as they have been across our 155 years of existence. We see them in the words and actions of our students, our faculty, our staff, in service to each other, to the larger community, and to the world.

I would like to add one more principle to faith, zeal, and community that strikes me as very brave-hearted whenever I read the Founder’s works and his writings. And that principle is the virtue or the principle of pragmatism and adaptability. You can't read John Baptist de La Salle without realizing that one of the things that he was really adept at was adapting to changing circumstances. And the Christian Brothers have had to evolve their methods and practices in education across the generations.

This evolution has been a hallmark of Saint Mary’s College. We began in San Francisco, moved to Oakland, and in 1928 moved here to the hills of Moraga. Our curriculum has evolved over time as well. And one can only imagine the values and the discussions around the introduction of the Great Books program curriculum in 1940 or Saint Mary’s decision to admit women in 1970.

Today, Saint Mary’s College finds itself at another period of opportunity and challenge. As the perceived value of higher education changes in the world, many of our students coming to the College in this 21st century are approaching higher education with more of a career-oriented focus than they have previously. Additionally, there is a strong belief in the minds of families, accreditors, legislators at both the state and federal level that colleges and universities need to control the increasing cost of a college education to make college education affordable.

Our path will be to navigate the changes that are present for us right now and be guided by the three pillars that define our mission—our liberal arts tradition, our Catholic identity, and our Lasallian heritage. And I have spoken about that as a value in previous State of the College Addresses. But I come to you this afternoon because I want to provide you with an understanding of where this community is with an account of the current State of the College.

I want to speak first about the health of Saint Mary’s College and the progress we are making in the context of our strategic plan regarding critical measures—academic quality, finances, enrollment, student success, and fundraising. Secondly, I will speak about our opportunities for growth, our challenges, and our next steps.

Where will we be going in the next year or years? Where are we? We have a really good story to tell. And I want to use the priorities—the six priorities of the strategic plan—to talk about this story. I’m very, very proud and very, very excited about where we are, from where we’ve come, and again, realizing that we have more to do going forward.

The first priority is academic excellence. There are several measures of academic excellence. But one way of looking at academic excellence is to see what other people outside Saint Mary’s College say about us.

So, let’s look at our rankings. The Wall Street Journal ranks Saint Mary’s College in the Top 20 percent of colleges and universities. We are named among the Top 20 most transformative Colleges by Money magazine. U.S. News and World Report places us in the Top 10 for Western universities and colleges. Forbes ranks Saint Mary’s College in the Top 10 percent of colleges for earning potential measured by what students have when they leave here, what they do when they graduate, and their earning potential in the future. And the Princeton Review places us in its Top 10 for Western regional colleges.

These are impressive rankings. And I'm very proud, and you all can be proud of them. And yet we realize that rankings are but one measure of our quality and the good things that are happening here.

Another measure of academic excellence has to do with our faculty research and scholarship. Our faculty continue to distinguish themselves through their scholarship. In the Kalmanovitz School of Education, last fall, Professor Suzy Thomas was recognized as California’s School Counselor Educator of the Year for 2017. More recently, Professor Raina León was named the poet in residence at the Museum of the African Diaspora at San Francisco.

In the School of Economics and Business Administration, Business Analytics Professor Navid Sabbaghi was selected for a Google faculty-in-residence program. And as an important aside, the College's relationship with Google has developed to the point that we are listed as a recruiting college for the tech giant. Also at the School of Economics and Business Administration, Professor Kevin McGarry became the editor in chief of The Journal of Legal Studies in Business and the new director of the program Elfenworks.

In the School of Liberal Arts, World Languages and Cultures Professor Helga Lenart-Cheng was awarded a Fulbright Scholarship that allowed her to spend six months at the University of Bordeaux in France, researching the European refugee crisis. The History Department, with leadership from Professor Aeleah Soine, won a $50,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities to launch a new Partners in Public History program. And in the School of Science, in the spring, our Biology Department hosted the 43rd annual West Coast Biological Sciences Undergraduate Research Conference, where there were 40 institutions from all parts of the United States and from Canada, and there were over 160 student presentations. As well, in the School of Science, the Summer Research Program, which has been initiated, continues to increase. The size of each cohort has gotten bigger and broken records for the past three years.

We have much to celebrate in the area of faculty research and scholarship. And I do not mean to slight anyone at all. But I simply named these individuals as examples of the extraordinary work that our faculty is involved in.

We continue to support our faculty and their research through the robust efforts of our Office of Research. Last year, the individual faculty received more rewards than ever before, totaling $127,000. Also significant in these awards was that many of them involve student research as well as faculty research. In terms of external funding grants, we have been very fortunate to be successful in developing external sources to help our particular students.

Just recently, the Kalmanovitz Charitable Foundation pledged $960,000 over the next seven years for the Kalmanovitz Scholars Program Annual Scholarship, which supports low-income, first-generation undergraduates. This will support eight students at $15,000 a year, every year during their time here. That is a significant commitment from the Kalmanovitz Foundation. And through the Fletcher Jones Foundation, Saint Mary’s College received $300,000 to support the completion of the $1.1 million School of Science Equipment Initiative. This also undergirds our Undergraduate Science Research Program.

So, wonderful things have been going on as well as some new innovative programs: The new MBA program in Shanghai, China, began this past summer; a master’s program in Business Analytics began last year. A master’s of arts degree in Intercultural Communication will begin in 2019. And an Executive Doctorate in Business Administration program will begin in 2019 as well.

In terms of our academic excellence, we have much to be proud of. And as I said, so many things are going on that I gave you just a selective sense of what some of those are.

Let’s talk about priority two in the strategic plan, which is student success. How are we helping our students to succeed in all dimensions of their life—academically, socially, spiritually—all the different dimensions of who they are? So many of the initiatives that we have undertaken and are undertaking are very much focused on how we prepare our students for going forward. In the School of Liberal Arts—and Dean Sheila Hassell Hughes is here—the Liberal Arts Bridge program (LAB) is a comprehensive program that will assist students in exploring and preparing for what comes after college in terms of developing their focus and their connections for their careers. You see a lot written these days about the relationship of liberal arts education to the world of professions and occupations, and many are raising the question, What is the relevance of a liberal arts education? The soul of the Liberal Arts Bridge program is that it’s really a significant initiative that will address some of these issues.

In the School of Economics and Business Administration, the Technology, Engineering, and Business program, or the TEB program, is a certificate program for Saint Mary’s College undergraduates that aims to prepare them to become effective business partners and valued leaders in the rapidly changing world of the tech sector. And it creates a pipeline. And talking to the people in TEB, they’re very excited about what this is going to do going forward for the school and for our students.

There’s been a collaborative effort between the School of Liberal Arts and School of Education, which developed from the Teachers for Tomorrow program, in which our students, particularly in the Justice and Community Leadership program, will have several pathways to earning a teaching credential for undergraduates—a significant undertaking. And in the School of Science, Professor Brian Hill’s students are participating in an MIT–NASA mission called TESS, Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, which basically focuses on planets beyond our solar system. So, it’s very exciting. I went up to the observatory last week, and Brian Hill gave me a tour  and explained what’s going on in the observatory. In terms of student success, we're very, very proud. Each initiative in each of these programs is very significant.

Also crucial are the retention issue and working with our students to prepare them and enable them to do the very important work of getting through the curriculum. The advising program here has become extremely focused very intentionally, focused on a way of looking at what we’re doing and making sure that our students are situated for success going forward— everything from advisor models to internships and the like. And lastly, in terms of our student success, we need to make Saint Mary's College a 24-7 campus.

There was a lot of concern that we’re not really a 24-7 campus, and that on weekends things got pretty diminished here in terms of people on campus. And so what we have done—and I’m sure you’ve seen this—is to make sure that we have a significant 24-7 campus here at the College. So, Dryden, Café Louis, and the Cassin Student Union received major enhancements. If you haven’t seen them, please go take a look because they’re really significant, and we do think that this will make a difference for our students that we become a 24-7 campus throughout the whole week.

Also, at the renovated Cassin Student Union, there will be a new pub, which will be open soon. And I think that’s going to be a great opportunity for our students. I’m sure it will bring its share of challenges for us all as well. But we are really trying to make sure that our students have the ability to have a fully enhanced life here at the College. So, on the issue of student success, we have a lot of big things to talk about.

Priority three in the strategic plan is mission and formation. Everything begins with mission here at Saint Mary’s College. And we are doing significant things, and we’ll continue to do significant things to make sure our mission is at the core of everything we do, whether it be academically, in terms of curriculum, socially, student life, athletically, you name it.

There are many different options, many different ways that formation opportunities are presented for our faculty and our staff. And I just want to mention a few of them. This past summer, Professors Myrna Santiago and Michael Barram led a very powerful immersion experience to the U.S.­–Mexico border to better understand the experience of immigration, which had a really salutary effect on everyone we’ve spoken to.

We invited Myrna and Michael to present to the Board of Trustees last week, and it was extremely well-received. In June, we also had the Mini Buttimer Institute, which is a retreat opportunity for staff and faculty to really be engaged and to develop their own sense of spiritual development, and what it means to be here at Saint Mary’s College in terms of the Lasallian tradition. As I mentioned also, this will be the 300th year of Saint John Baptist de La Salle, and we will have many opportunities to celebrate that in the appropriate way.

Also, about three weeks ago, the Lasallian Research Symposium was held at Saint Mary’s University in Minnesota. And many of our faculty and staff presented their research there and how it is related to our Lasallian mission. I want to also give significant notice, a shout-out, to the Cummins Institute for Catholic Thought, Culture, and Action. I don’t see Brother Charles here, but I wanted particularly to point out Brother Charles Hilken’s leadership in terms of developing a sense of our understanding of our Catholic identity. One of the things that he has done, and the Institute has done, is to sponsor community discussions for faculty and staff on what it means to talk about the Catholic intellectual tradition, and how it plays out in various ways. Also, there have been conversations about the sex abuse scandal in the church and the cover-up in the Catholic church about the scandal. This has a huge impact on our life, and the significance of what that means for Catholic higher education is something very important to me, along with having discussions on so many different levels, from assisting victims to making sure people are held accountable. I want to thank Brother Charles for that, and I also very much appreciate his leadership.

Priority four is defining our place or focusing on facilities. Two years ago, we completed a campus Master Plan update aligned with our strategic priorities. And this was approved by the Town of Moraga. We are in the process now of just realizing some of the issues emerging from that. And that is a good thing.

The campus Master Plan basically spells out in a very generic way what some of the opportunities are for us and what kind of capacity we might need. Again, nothing has become so concrete that it’s committed. But it provides a framework for thinking about what it means to be engaged in developing the life of the campus.

You also have probably realized that there’s been a lot of construction work going on this summer on the first phase of the Student Athletic Performance Center, McKeon Pavilion. In addition to improvements for the fan experience—and I really would recommend that you go in there and take a look at it; it’s just really phenomenal in terms of what they’ve done to upgrade it. It also has received much-needed seismic retrofitting, a new roof, fire sprinklers—the kinds of things that are really critical to the life of the campus and certainly to the life of any athletics department and McKeon Pavilion.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been in McKeon when it’s a rainy day, and you say, wait. What’s going to happen here? So, I think we have taken care of some of our most urgent needs in terms of making sure it’s not going to rain on the parade. We also continue to modernize our existing facilities and the residence halls, especially the bathrooms, which might not get a lot of attention, but this makes a huge difference to the life of the College.

Priority five in our strategic plan is called getting the message out, or marketing and branding at Saint Mary’s College. Marketing and branding are absolutely critical in so many different ways, but especially to make sure that the profile of Saint Mary’s College is out there with various constituencies, be they possible students for enrollment, possible donors, or for general interest. These are absolutely critical exercises for us to go through. And I’m very, very pleased that over the last year or two we have undertaken a brand assessment of Saint Mary’s College that examined the external perceptions of what people see when they see Saint Mary’s College.

I’m looking over here at Angelica Moore and the enrollment folks to be able to understand how critical it is to know what people see, what people understand when they think of Saint Mary’s College. It’s absolutely critical. We’ve also launched a brand awareness campaign about two or three years ago, and that has contributed to two years of successful enrollments for the College. It makes a difference. And year three will be ending this spring.

It really makes a difference how we market and understand others’ perceptions of Saint Mary’s. It’s really interesting when you read some of the results of these surveys: People say why they are attracted to Saint Mary's College, why they are not attracted to Saint Mary’s College. So, we are constantly reassessing how we are perceived and how we will then continue to explore avenues to position ourselves in the right way and, again, in a way that is consistent with our mission. That is absolutely critical.

Priority six regards affordability and financial sustainability. All these priorities are really central and critical. But this is absolutely central to our future. We have seen significant effects and very positive results from our fundraising over the past several years. Vice President Lisa Moore and others—I really appreciate everything you’ve been doing on this.

In April, we launched a two-year public phase of a comprehensive campaign. And we have set a campaign goal of $125 million. And to this date, we’ve raised about $107 million and counting. So, good things are happening there.

We’re confident in our ability to achieve our campaign goal. So, I’m very optimistic. And the campaign priorities are the following. There are four of them: to support student scholarships to help address the affordability issue; to invest in academic excellence, with particular focus on the Library and the Learning Commons; to strengthen the Lasallian and Catholic mission as the third campaign priority; and to fund College operations and to address our endowment.

Our endowment has grown. Today, it’s about $181 million. But many of the schools we compete with have endowments that are significantly larger than that. We need to do everything we can to make sure that our endowment is reaching its potential.

In all, in terms of this priority, we are in strong, solid, fiscal shape. I don’t want to overstate it, but the last couple of years have been very successful. We need to make sure that we continue to have a good story, and it takes a lot of work having to do this with the revenue side, the expense side, all the budgeting that goes into that. And Vice President Susan Collins, I appreciate everything you’ve been doing to make that happen. This is not going to be easy for any college or university of the size of Saint Mary’s to do this in this day and age.

So, where are we going? Where are our opportunities? And what are our next steps? Our goal is to ensure that Saint Mary’s College will be here as a robust, vibrant, intellectual institution into the 22nd century.

We want to create an environment for our faculty where they can teach, do research, and engage in the problems of our community and the surrounding world. We want to continue to attract and retain distinguished faculty and dedicated staff. And we were talking about advising earlier: Advising happens in so many different ways, and the staff plays such a critical role in making our advising work very positive.

We want our students to have fulfilling personal and professional lives, to be ethical and compassionate leaders. And these are the qualities we expect. We want them to have personally meaningful lives, to have professionally meaningful lives, and to be ethical, compassionate in all that they do. And we are, I think, doing a very strong job in getting there.

So, what are we doing, and where will be going? What are our next steps? I want to talk about the Business and Academic Research Task Force—the BAR Task Force. This is an outgrowth of priority six, focused on affordability and financial sustainability. And the charge to the task force is the following: to make recommendations to the administration, to the Academic Senate, and the Board of Trustees regarding factors that impact Saint Mary’s College’s fiscal and financial stability. What will make a difference for our ongoing financial sustainability?

We have been doing very well year to year. But we need to be thinking about the long term, not just the short term or even the medium term. What are the long-term decisions that need to be made in order to address our fiscal sustainability? The BAR Task Force has been meeting since April, and we are focused in many different ways. You can find out more about the BAR Task Force, about the composition, about the issues we’ve been talking about if you go on the website, which is on the president’s web page.

There are five areas of focus that this task force has divided up. We called them buckets, then called them areas of focus. These are the kinds of areas that we need to make decisions about. Number one, How do we understand the future of our traditional undergraduate enrollment? What will it look like? What size will it be, etc? So, looking at traditional undergraduate enrollment.

Secondly, how do we understand the future of our graduate and professional enrollment? Our graduate professional schools have been just blossoming in the last decades, and they continue to do so. The question is, How do we think about enrollment for our graduate and professional schools? And what kind of decisions do we need to make about them?

The third area of focus has to do with compensation and other major expenses—to really take a look at what kind of compensation we provide to our faculty, to our staff, to the administration, and be very focused on what that looks like and how we will go forward. Also, How do we increase existing non-tuition revenues? So much of our budget, in an institution like Saint Mary’s, is built on tuition revenues. Fourthly, what are the other areas that are non-tuition revenues that are still part of the College that we can recalculate and recalibrate in ways that will make us more sustainable over time?

And the last area of focus—actually one of the most interesting areas that we are looking into—What do new sources of revenue look like for the College? How do we think about that not just in terms of fundraising, in terms of partnerships, in terms of programs, in terms of engagement with the wider community that is interested in Saint Mary’s College? And how do we really understand and generate a sense of what the revenues are that we’re going to have to develop?

Also in the future, we will be developing a new strategic plan. We’re in the fourth year of our strategic plan. And beginning next year, we will begin the development of the next strategic plan. And that’s going to be really critical for us going forward. What priorities will we set? And how will we think about the priorities for the next iterations of Saint Mary’s College?

The issue of shared governance is also a critical issue for the life of Saint Mary’s College. I think we have made some strides in developing an understanding of shared governance in the past couple of years. Administration, faculty, board of trustees, Brothers—How do we understand how we together will go forward? And what are the appropriate roles and responsibilities for the various constituencies?

So, what’s the role of the administration? What’s the role of the faculty? What’s the role of the board? What’s the role of staff? Those are critical questions. And I think that one of the opportunities we have—but also one the challenges we have—is to think through with more clarity and coherence what our shared governance looks like.

Nice things have happened. I’m very pleased that the Board of Trustees has invited faculty to sit and participate on some of its board committees. So, the Academic Affairs and Enrollment Committee, the Advancement Committee, the Mission and Identity Committee, and the Student Life Committee now all have a representative faculty member. The BAR Task Force also has faculty engaged, and it’s very important. I was talking with one of our faculty members the other day. And this person said, we need to develop a sense of "we" here at Saint Mary’s College. It’s not what the different constituencies do. Alumni have a role. Administration has a role. Faculty has a role, staff, Brothers, everyone has a role. How do we think through what those roles look like and how we together can build Saint Mary’s for the future? Because it will be all of us together doing the building.

Communication and information sharing has been part of that process.  And there’s been a little bit of unevenness at points about how we’re communicating with each other and how we can do this in a more constructive way. I think one of the things that we are really committed to and have been really doing already is making sure, for example, from the administration’s perspective, that our cabinet members are spending time with the appropriate constituencies throughout the process, whether it be the Staff Council, whether it be the Faculty Senate.

Whatever constituencies we need to be engaged with—we will do that. And the communication that goes on back and forth is critical. And how we structure that and how we do that is really important. The BAR Task Force, for example, has had very interesting conversations about communication. If we want to communicate, some things are developed, some aren’t. And how do we think about communication not just for the BAR Task Force but for any part of the College? How do we think about what we communicate relative to where we are, where we hope to go, and where we don’t want to go? Communication and information sharing is absolutely critical.

And also, we will be celebrating our comprehensive campaign and getting ready for the next campaign. We have put a date that we will finish this campaign at least by December of 2019, if not before. I’m looking at Lisa Moore because we believe it might be before that. But at the same time, we’ll be celebrating that. And that’s going to be very critical.

So, the state of the College—What’s the real proof points for what we’re doing or not doing? The things that we are currently doing and plan to do, as I said, proof points, are walking around us as we speak. What is happening to our students, for our students, with our students? That is the test. That’s the metric, if you will. That’s where we think and focus to determine whether or not we’re doing the right stuff. Are our students flourishing? Are we retaining them? Are they being advised well? Are they being taught well? Are they being cared for well? Are they being educated to take appropriate areas of responsibility for their lives?

There are so many different aspects of where our students are. And our graduate students, how are they doing? What are they doing? Where are they going? Again, students become the proof points for what it is that we are successful with or are not doing. And I just think that we see it in so many different ways. They represent the College with their academic achievements, their hours of service, their civic engagement, their Division I and club sport participation, athletics, and consistently winning international medals with their talented voices. Our students are awesome! You can’t come to Saint Mary’s without realizing that we are here for our students.

That’s what drew me here six years ago to take over the presidency at Saint Mary’s College. It’s about our students and how we can help them to flourish and to grow in the best ways possible. Our alumni and our donors are very supportive and show that support by giving back and coming back to the College.

Recently, we instituted a Brother Jerome West Leadership Council, which is a select cohort of former trustees who, with close ties with Saint Mary’s, are interested in the financial and philanthropic development of the College. They are very explicit about that and want to do everything they can to make sure that we move forward. They are a great group of people. And they also lead by example. This group has given $1.7 million this past year, just with 10 individuals. It’s really interesting to see the alumni come back. And they become a proof point for the success that we're having here.

This next week, one of our distinguished alums, Mahershala Ali, will be back on campus. He was our 2016 Commencement speaker and also an Oscar winner, and will return to the College to help raise resources for the Moonlight Scholarship to help the High Potential program here, which he was a product of. He speaks very passionately about what that program meant to him. And so, again, coming back and contributing to the life of the College is absolutely critical.

Our commitment to inclusive excellence in diversity remains solid going forward. And the work of the CCIE, College Committee on Inclusive Excellence, has been absolutely essential.

In summary, we have a great story to tell—a really great story to tell. I am very proud. And I’m very confident. And I look out, and I see each of you, in your own particular way, however it is that you’ve come to the life of Saint Mary’s College—you bring that dedication, that commitment. And you are what makes Saint Mary’s College what it is.

You are a great story to tell. And that means so much to me, certainly. And you help to transform the lives of our students and faculty as we go forward. We’ll go forward for another 150 years, so a new generation can return to celebrate the tercentenary of Saint Mary’s College in California.

Thank you for your presence here, for your attention. For further discussion of this address, I’m open to meeting with with groups such as the  Academic Senate or Staff Council. The Academic Senate has sent the administration some questions that we are responding to. And we will be addressing those in the agreed upon time. It’s a very, very good story, and you are the story. And I'm just so very thankful for each of you. God bless. Thanks for being here.