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On February 24, President Christine M. Wiseman gave her fifth annual State of the University address to the faculty, staff, and students of Saint Xavier University. Wiseman discussed a wide range of topics in her speech and gave attendees an opportunity for a question and answer session immediately following.
A major theme of Wiseman’s address was the university’s Vision 2017, a program that she describes as SXU’s mission legacy. Vision 2017 has six goals, including the preparation for students for the 21st century.
“Our destination has always been to serve and to address the needs of an underserved population,” Wiseman said in an interview with The Xavierite.
“…Vision 2017, which is our strategic plan, has guided us since 2011. It is really critical in defining who it is we educate. In it, we refer to our students as ethical, motivated, and socially engaged learners. Our destination is to educate the students that we serve. That’s our mission.”
In order to meet the needs of the underserved population here at Saint Xavier, Wiseman says it is important to diversify or increase the school’s nontraditional revenues, which will be done through a series of initiatives.
“…I talked also about the fact that if we are going to continue meeting the needs of underserved populations, our educational enterprise has to be financially sustainable and it has to be financially sustainable in a way that doesn’t fall inordinately on the backs of our faculty and staff,” Wiseman said.
Wiseman explains that public institutions are facing the same issues due to an anticipated budget cut of around $400 million. Although SXU isn’t affected by this budget cut, it has led the administration to take these issues into account since they will affect some state grants.
“…All of us engaged in higher education are thinking about these same issues. There are some really important steps that we are taking right now. We’re not waiting to see what happens in three or four or five years from now. We’re taking some steps now to make sure that what we do here is financially sustainable,” Wiseman explained.
At her State of the University address, Wiseman also spoke about the financial needs of SXU’s population. According to Wiseman, 51% of Saint Xavier’s population is Pell-eligible and can pay, on average, only $871 per year towards tuition. 57% of those Pell-eligible families cannot afford any tuition costs at all.
“This university spends 39% of its operation budget to provide institutional aid to its students. That’s money beyond MAP and beyond Pell to try to bridge the gap between the cost of tuition and what they can afford to pay. 39% of an operation budget…that’s a pretty sizeable percentage. But we do that because all of us here are dedicated to educating the students we serve,” Wiseman said.
Wiseman also noted that Saint Xavier’s diverse population of students will be serving America in the 21st century, just as SXU is serving them now.
“Our population looks very much like the demographic of this country…Looking at what America is going to look like in 2023 and looking at what Saint Xavier looks like already, th at’s pretty compelling,” Wiseman said.
“It’s a pretty compelling story. We’re doing it and we’re doing it successfully. The job of this administration is to make sure that we can continue to do this successfully into the future” Wiseman said.
In addition to the population of the university, Wiseman also discussed the contribution of state capital funds for independent colleges that will benefit the entire school.
As a way of recognizing private universities and their contributions to education, the state funded some capital initiatives that benefitted private institutions across the state.
Saint Xavier, one of the beneficiaries, received $8.7 million. According to Wiseman, a majority of that money went towards the library renovations that were done in 2011, 2012, and 2014.
The $3.7 million remaining will go towards a new science building, which will provide students and staff with updated laboratories and equipment.
“We know that some of that money needs to be spent by 2017…We don’t have a date yet for breaking ground because we will have to see how the pledges and the cash come in for that purpose,” Wiseman said.
“I’d say it’s probably going to cost us about $7.7 million to build that science building so [$3.7 million] is a little under half of what we will need. We actually have, from the state, from the capital distribution, from pledges and cash, a total of about $5 million. So we still have about $2-3 million to go, in order to break ground,” Wiseman explained.
The new science building would be connected to the Warde Academic Center at points that would allow students and faculty easy access from either offices or preexisting labs. In addition to a new building, the SXU community can also look forward to hosting international exchange students within the near future.
Wiseman says students from China, and most likely from India as well, will attend school at Saint Xavier. Although the program did not work out as planned in the fall, Wiseman said things probably worked out for the better.
Hits to the budget were accommodated for and relationships between SXU and exchange programs have been strengthened.
“We have a provost who is very experienced at those relationships, but because he was coming from another university he had to wait a period of time before he could ethically contact those same people he had used at the other university. So we used a new entity which turned out not to be effective at all,” Wiseman said.
Despite this set back, enough time has passed that Provost DeVito’s contacts can be utilized by the university.
“But now, for the fall, those relationships have been reinstated by the provost and we also have new relationships with existing universities for exchange programs both in terms of students and perhaps in terms of faculty. So we’ve used the year to enhance those relationships, to resurrect the relationships that the provost had originally, and to enhance them,” Wiseman explained.
Wiseman also spoke about SXU’s new campus in Gilbert, Arizona. The new campus is a win-win situation for Saint Xavier and the residents of Gilbert, who are seeking a faith-based education.
“They don’t have access right now to faith-based education […] like the kind that we have here at Saint Xavier and that we will offer down there,” Wiseman said.
By educating an underserved community, SXU will also be able to derive new, non-traditional revenues. Wiseman explains that over the next nine years, the population of students from Illinois is expected to decline while Gilbert’s population is expected to grow.
Wiseman expects $6 million in new revenue from the Gilbert campus by about 2019. “They were attracted to us because of our Mercy heritage. The Sisters of Mercy were the first group to open a hospital in Phoenix in 1895, and that hospital still exists,” Wiseman explained.
“[The population] is so hungry for faith-based education that it decided to float its own municipal bonds to build a building to our specifications, and then use its own resources to finance the construction of that building so that we would only have to pay the cost of the bond amortized over 30 years for however long we choose to remain in Gilbert, Arizona,” Wiseman said.
Other positive changes to Saint Xavier have come in the form of our financial status. According to Wiseman, SXU has been able to refinance the long-term debt and has paid down the debt from $52 million to $40 million.
Simultaneously, SXU has also been able to raise its cash assets. “Our refinancing terms will move from two years to five years, which is incredibly good, and our interest rates will be cut by nearly half,” Wiseman said. “That’s additional cash for the university.”
SXU’s latest initiative addresses its staff and explores ways of making life better for them here at the university. With a high level of staff participation and regular meetings, Saint Xavier is working towards making positive changes for everyone.
In addition to meeting with faculty members, Wiseman also meets with students, an effort that she says allows for a continuum of information.
“I think the university has a right to know about the leadership that administration is providing and to know where that leadership is moving. Leadership has to be transparent these days. Every single constituency is involved in the sustainability of our educational institutions, and now more than ever,” Wiseman said. “…This is an effort to bring the entire community into conversation about these positive changes.”
Katharine Arvia
Senior News Editor
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