Future of Higher Education Research Team Report

Board of Trustees Survey, Big Questions Responses

Mark Caprio

Tuesday, March 21st, 2017

¶ 1 Leave a comment on paragraph 1 0 1. If Providence College were to be best known for one thing only within the next 10-20 years, what should it be?

• ¶ 2 Leave a comment on paragraph 2 0
• The first choice for post K-12 education and development
• Having an eloquent mission statement that makes definitive points about preparing 18 – 22 year olds for the next 60 – 80 years of their lives, then fulfills that mission.
• Producing smart, well rounded and caring students.
• A diverse Catholic school that offers an outstanding liberal arts education which prepares students with the critical thinking tools that enables them to achieve at the highest level in the job market.
• 40% Alumni Giving
• We have a Rhodes Scholar
• Better matriculation rate of alumni students who see that parents went to an incredibly successful school and there is no need to be trading up to the next level of Catholic colleges. PC is more than adequate to give them the academic and intellectual brand and start on life/career.
• Delivering the most well rounded values based education in the Catholic and Dominican tradition.
• An increasingly excellent Catholic liberal arts education distinguished among its peers by its Dominican mission
• What it has been known for 100 years – outstanding liberal arts education with Dominican mission and values as backbone
• Providence College to be known as one of the premium Catholic liberal arts colleges in America. We are now at the point or very close to that point.
• Best Liberal Arts College in the US.
• The best liberal arts education combined w/ business and sciences in the Northeast.
• A traditional Catholic and Dominican college, pursuing truth through faith and reason, with a core focus on the great works of Christianity and Western Civilization.
• That we stayed true to our charter and the mission that our founding Dominicans’ envisioned.
• The place to get a top rated business education in a liberal arts rooted catholic school.
• Providence would be known for forming men and women to be contributors to society in a distinct manner–anchored in Catholic faith and ethics. Graduates of PC would be known as high character, morally grounded and possessing a level of self confidence that incorporates healthy ego, humility and uniquely strong interpersonal skills. I think the latter is something for which we are already known and we could do a better job of branding/identifying with it given the advances in topics like EQ/Emotional Intelligence as contributors to workplace success.
• PC should be known as the New England Catholic Liberal Arts college that encourages & develops young adults to become a better caring, giving & actively involved person – professionally & personally.

¶ 3 Leave a comment on paragraph 3 0 2. What should the College be doing in the next 10-20 years, that it isn’t doing today?

• ¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0
• Continuing education in a more substantial way
• As an institution we should be looking for ways to reduce the cost of a PC education while continuing to give kids a great four year experience as they enter adulthood. Maybe we require that students take basic courses on-line to reduce expense.
• From the thinking outside the box department, I think it would be interesting to develop a program where students take a full year (between soph – junior or between junior – senior) and enter the real world. The pushback on this concept would be enormous initially, but students would be better prepared to figure out exactly what they might want to do “when they grow up”.
• I feel question 2 and 3 can be answered together so here it is – hope it doesn’t go over $100 million (in no order):
  • ¶ 4 Leave a comment on paragraph 4 0
  • Add more specialized degrees – nursing, engineering etc… and if you see trends offer them like writing code.
  • Create better/safer residential options by buying up neighborhoods.
  • Continue to invest in the best faculty.
  • Have all sport activities on campus – i.e. basketball. School spirit is a differentiator to the student/athlete, student and the parents paying the bills.
  • Fund 100% of all financial aid requests.
  • Continued focus on competing and WINNING at the highest level in ALL sports. Love the stories about the soccer team, cross-country and field hockey.
  • Enhance and provide more Club sports – there is only a certain number that make each Varsity team and others still love the TEAM atmosphere, exercise and competitive nature of sports.
  • As new activities become popular offer that opportunity like music, acting, singing etc…
  • Once we buy up enough land for add’l housing and all sports on campus we build a First Class hotel and have all visiting teams and parents of PC students stay there and use that experience/visit as a marketing tool.
• Through the future growth of the College’s endowment, we should be able to provide more financial assistance to its accepted students. Too often we hear that students cannot attend PC because they didn’t get a large enough merit award or financial aid. Also, the Honors program being restricted to Liberal Arts denies students who want to focus on the sciences or business. It should be expanded to other majors.
• Better marketing! We are a bigger story than our athletics and we have to tell the story of student, alumni and faculty successes.
• We should be working through our networks to get Sylvia onto corporate boards.
• We should continue to grow the quality of the Trustees (their life achievements and financial capacity to better support the school from a leadership standpoint).
• Leveraging its attractive assets to generate non traditional revenue for the college. In 20 years, the College should have a substantial revenue/profit stream that it does not have today.
• Fully exploiting technology in how they run every aspect of the College.
• Re-framing diversity, perhaps by dropping that loaded word with way too much baggage, so as to have particular well-defined goals regarding a variety of topics such as: preferential option for the poor (especially first-generation college students) in having full financial need met; instituting virtue-based programs to deal with injustices found in different kinds of discrimination, especially against people of different races, ethnicities, and nationalities; clear moral guidance on matters of sex, friendship, and other relationship issues; a robust liberal arts program that challenges students to think about the diversity within western civilization and its influence throughout the world today; and a foreign language requirement (which is one of the surest ways to sympathize with people different from your own).
• I don’t think there are things that we ARENT doing today, I think there are things that we are doing today that we should raise the bar on during the next 10-20 years, for example new business school or any major – education to biology – and how we are infusing DWC into those core curriculums. WE also need to continue to keep the pedal down on Diversity efforts
• Develop more online education opportunities; institute more advanced degree programs; ponder stimulating neighborhood improvements to the north and east of our campus.
• Put more resources toward its 60,000 alums and the thousands that will graduate over the next 10-20 years.
• Joining the small band of courageous leaders in higher education who are questioning the logic and usefulness of the tenure system in the 21st century.
• I would like it to be a requirement that all students do at least one community service project during their tenure at PC.
• Make it a requirement that all students take a Financial Literacy class. The average school loan debt is $30,000. In addition, many graduating may also have credit card debt. We need to teach them the basic and how to pay off debt and live a debt-free life. Check out Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace course.
• I believe we should be moving to a position of meeting 100% of the financial need of each student while also increasing the amount of merit money awarded to students of superior qualifications.
• The College should be taking a much more aggressive stance on diversity…helping the makeup of the school look like the world in which it operates. We could more strategically target cohorts/groups of diverse students to come to the school together–which many other school do to take some of the intimidation factor away from young people coming to an environment that includes very few fellow classmates with whom they identify.
• PC should better engage the alumni into philanthropy to further develop the  college infrastructure and departments (focus on the business school).

¶ 5 Leave a comment on paragraph 5 0 3. If you had $100M+ new dollars to spend, how would you spend it?

• ¶ 6 Leave a comment on paragraph 6 0
• I would program 90% of the money for the endowment to support merit and financial aid. The other 10% I would use to ensure that our residential facilities continue to meet the high standards we have set in our academic buildings and athletic facilities
• Endowment, Endowment, Endowment…
• Recalling the 5% rule, it is only $5 million, coupled with the $200 million plus we have today, it will only give us perhaps $18 to $20 million in scholarship and capacity. This has to improve.
• I would invest a substantial portion into the endowment while setting aside a small amount of capital to explore and ideate on the potential for revenue generating opportunities for the college. I would reserve some additional capital from the endowment to pursue/invest in the future revenue generating opportunities.
• $50Million to meet 100% of student need
• $25Million to endow Dominican Foundation and cover the education of Dominican priests
• $10 Million for an off campus retreat center
• $5 Million each for 3 endowed chairs in Innovation in Business, Humanities and Science
• The college needs a larger endowment so as not to be a tuition-funded school. One feature of this increased endowment should be a special consideration to have 100% of financial needs of students met, especially those who are poor and are first-generation college students. This would also help favor races and ethnicities that are underrepresented at the college.
• Student programming for Catholic & Dominican Mission, ie Smith Fellows and other programs currently limited by available funding
• Put most if not all of it into the Endowment
• Attract, hire and retain the best faculty in the world and maintain the infrastructure to ensure our facilities are best in class.
• Build the endowment to keep the cost of attendance lower.
• Put it toward the endowment.
• I would suggest we speed up the completion of the collection of science buildings and we beef up the endowment.
• I’d put $90 million into the endowment and $10 million into an aggressive minority student recruitment and support program and be KNOWN for that program.
• Put the money into the Endowment to expand our scholarship programs & build new dormitories (replace McDermott, Aquinas ,etc)

¶ 7 Leave a comment on paragraph 7 0 4. What should be the most important measure or indicator of the College’s success? Why?

• ¶ 8 Leave a comment on paragraph 8 0
• Financial health-won’t be healthy if we’re not meeting our mission
• I would measure our success as an institution by how many of our alums make meaningful commitments (and it doesn’t always have to be financial) to PC after they have graduated.
• When an alum commits to PC they are putting their stamp of approval on the institution and the four years they spent here.
• I think the measure of success will be the position/stature the student has when he/she is around 30-32. They have paid their dues, identified a profession, strategized on how to navigate their interest and around that age you can see if they are on the right track.
• The amount of financial aid/merit money we award. This will mean that we will be able to reach students of different socioeconomic backgrounds and hopefully provide a diverse campus that remains true to its original mission of providing a high quality education for all those who are academically qualified.
• Recognition of our alumni successes, student successes, faculty achievements, etc.
• Faculty should be encouraged to write, get published, speak and join boards (corporate and national educational boards with value to them and the college).
• The quality and character of our graduates
• How much people are giving back to the College and giving back to the world at large. I know this would be hard to measure in totality but I believe both factors are very important
• Alumni who look back on their college years as years when they grew in understanding the truth, friendship, faith, and service. The college exists for the sake of the students, and the college’s success should be in the lives of our alumni.
• Alumni profiles and leadership in paying it forward to the college (financially and otherwise) and other engagement
• Operational / fiscal excellence
• Faculty satisfaction and engagement
• Meeting and satisfying the provisions and objectives outlined in PC’s Mission Statement as this document encompasses and points to our ultimate goals as a Catholic Dominican Liberal Arts educational institution
• Number of applicants, applicant profiles, applicant acceptances and longitudinal view of their success post graduation. These indicators are a marker to understand when students graduate that they are living a meaningful life with purpose and give back to PC.
• Producing faithful and productive members of society with leadership roles in their chosen professions.
• The College success is measured by the successes of our Alumni–
  • ¶ 8 Leave a comment on paragraph 8 0
  • Do graduating seniors have jobs in their chosen professions?
  • Are Alums productive members of their communities?
  • Are Alums giving back to PC?
  • Are Alums coming back to PC?
  • Are they living lives of meaning and purpose?
  • If the College can answer YES to all (or most) of the above that we have been successful in transforming the lives of young men and women during their 4 years at PC.
• The most important measure of the colleges success is do we graduate students that are employable or qualified to continue their studies in their chosen field.
• The why in the simplest sense is they are paying us to prepare them for their next step.
• Hard to measure in the short term other than by student and parent satisfaction/happiness. Longer term, an alum’s direct connection between his/her success and the Providence College experience is the true measure…and I suppose that shows up in increased connection to the school; financial and otherwise. Why is that our alums contribute so much less than schools we deem competitors? It can’t simply be resources allocated in development department…part of the answer has to lie in pride, connection and attribution of success to the PC educational experience.
• We should be accountable for the goals we set – Our mission statement:
  • ¶ 9 Leave a comment on paragraph 9 0
  • Committed to academic excellence
  • Graduation rate & Job acceptance are important barometers of this goal – that’s what parents & alumni look for

¶ 10 Leave a comment on paragraph 10 0