This fall will mark the 90th birthday of The College of St. Scholastica.
Our College faced, and rose above, many challenges through the 20th century. The new century is presenting a changed
landscape that is full of opportunity.
In Minnesota, the environment for recruiting traditional undergraduate students is extremely competitive.
Colleges are competing for a stable or declining population of high school graduates who have traditionally gone to college,
a situation that favors institutions with bountiful financial resources to put into scholarships.
Even though our enrollment is growing at a satisfying rate, the net revenue we are realizing from traditional undergraduate tuition is increasing
only slightly because we must offer more financial aid to draw quality students.
Meanwhile, federal and state grants for student aid are not increasing and may actually decrease. This further shifts the cost
of college onto students, their families, and colleges themselves.
In short, the net revenue from traditional undergraduate programs and graduate programs is simply not enough to
keep up with the expenses of running an institution of educational excellence such as St. Scholastica. Many
small colleges around America face this difficult situation.
How is St. Scholastica responding? This is the exciting part: we are taking advantage of what it means to be a small
college. We are capitalizing on our flexibility and agility, and finding new intersections between our mission
and market needs.
We are what educational analyst George Dehne calls an "adaptive college," one that looks quite
different from most small colleges of the past. It's a college whose staff and faculty judge success not only
by their traditional undergraduate population, but also by their ability to provide a quality education to
a variety of publics.
Adaptive colleges are moving aggressively into what we call extended studies: accelerated programs for full-time workers, certificate
programs, partnership programs. Here at St. Scholastica, we are cultivating a climate where entrepreneurial thinking inspired
by our mission is encouraged and rewarded. I want people continually thinking about the next best idea
for how to carry out our mission in society. That is why we have taken our successful Accelerated Degree Evening
Program to St. Paul, Brainerd and St. Cloud. That is why we are the first in the state to offer an accelerated nursing program. That is why we plan to become the leaders in healthcare informatics.
This how The College of St. Scholastica will thrive.
We are reconceiving not our mission, but the ways we can express our mission. St. Scholastica can offer
intellectual and moral preparation for responsible living and meaningful work to more than 18-24 year olds.
Our core business is to carry out our mission of integrating the liberal arts, professional education and the study of values; our
cores business is to create the best environment for people to learn. For most of our
90 years, the primary expression of our mission has been with traditional "college age" students.
But this is not the only possible expression of our mission, and the world is changing. Indeed, because
of the economic forces I have outlined, and because learners across the lifespan wan the St. Scholastica experience, we
need to look for new manifestations of our mission.
Our reason for being is to provide intellectual and moral preparation for responsible living and meaningful work. We exist
to show people what it means to be a community of rational discourse, making decisions on the
basis of the best evidence and the strongest arguments. We exist to integrate the values of our Catholic Benedictine heritage
into the life of the mind. We are the region's spiritual academy.
This is important work. As the College prepares to move into its tenth decade, I am honored to look ahead with all of you who care so much
for our community of learning.
Larry Goodwin
President |
