Last week, SXU President Christine Wiseman gave her third annual “State of the University” address on the topics of the current financial state of the University and the Administration’s plans for the future.
In this address, however, there were a couple points that were mentioned and have since sparked curiosity among the student body.
Chief among these curiosities is the University’s potential plans to open a satellite campus in Gilbert, Arizona.
While these plans are not definite nor do they directly affected the current upperclassmen, the student body does have a few questions that should be answered regarding the potential plans.
Among these questions, and perhaps the most important one, is “How will the construction and maintenance of a satellite campus in Gilbert affect the University’s financial state and tuition fees?” (This is solely depend on whether or not the university decides to create a satellit campus.)
Saint Xavier has had satellite campuses in the past; particularly, the University opened one in Paris and one in Milan back in 1987 when SXU was still Saint Xavier College (SXC).
In 1995, the University closed the doors on its satellite campus in Paris, followed by the Milan campus in 1996 due to financial deficit and lowered admissions.
With the University currently trying to find and adopt newer, alternative means of revenues to get around the University’s current problems with lower then expected revenues from tuition due to lower retention rates of students, does SXU really have the financial resources to construct and manage a campus roughly 1,600 miles away as well as the two campuses it already manages?
After all, the University has been having trouble in the area of retaining students and the tuition revenues they provide.
On top of that, plans to construct a new science center and potentially a student center along with renovation the Driehaus Center are rather large expenditures by themselves, let alone the extra resources that could potentially be used in the creation and then maintenance of another, smaller SXU campus.
Assuming that the Administration can find a way to make the plans financially viable leads into the next question of “How will a satellite campus in Arizona benefit SXU as a whole?”
If neither the satellite campus in Paris nor the one in Milan provided enough of a benefit to Saint Xavier to warrant maintaining either of them, then how will a satellite campus in Gilbert, Arizona fare?
Obviously, the SXU of today is not the same SXU that closed the satellite campuses over seas, but these questions do need asking. And the Administration will need to be able to answer them, should it decide to more foreward on this potential opportunity to expand.
Gilbert could be a massive opportunity that might be regretted for decades if not seized upon. Or it could turn into a disastrous sinkhole where the University’s time and resources are funneled into oblivion.
Hopefully, the Administration is carefully examining the entire situation in order to have the best possible idea of which of the two the potential satellite campus will prove to be.
Related to the question of how a satellite campus will affect the university as a whole, is the obvious question of “How will it affect the student body of both the Chicago and Orland Park campuses, whether it be directly or indirectly?”
Will the potential Gilbert campus be closer to a community college with a majority of its students living in the communities surrounding Gilbert, or will it become its own entity of sorts with its own unique community?
Will students enrolling to SXU get to choose between the Chicago and the potential Gilbert campus?
How exactly does a community develop at a satellite campus in regards to its relation to the greater SXU community?
These are all questions that the Administration will need to answer if a satellite campus in Arizona is to become a successful part of the future development of SXU.
The Xavierite Staff