In an interview with The Observer, her first in years, Saint Mary’s College President Katie Conboy discussed the College’s Revere and Revise strategic plan. The plan, which outlines a vision for the College through 2030, was developed following Conboy’s installation as the institution’s 14th president five years ago.
The plan details a series of commitments to “Achieve a Culture of Human Dignity and Solidarity,” “Establish Saint Mary’s as a Leader in the Social and Economic Empowerment of Women,” “Elevate [the College’s] Research Focus” and “Stabilize and Enhance Financial Performance.”
Conboy discussed this plan, noting how she revisited the College’s previous “Boldly Forward” strategic plan (a vision for 2012 to 2017).
“We went back and looked and said, ‘Is there anything we would change in terms of our kind of commitments as a College or are we going to revisit our mission statement?’ We decided not to do any of that … We did start over again to say, ‘What are the best ideas for the future of Saint Mary’s now?’” Conboy said.
The plan has been gradually revised and refined as Conboy’s term has progressed.
The Office for Student Equity, the LGBTQ+ Center and the Center for Faith, Action and Ministry were all created in response to the strategic plan’s first commitment of achieving a culture of human dignity and solidarity.
“One of the things that all of that commitment was about was removing barriers for students to be sure that every student who came to Saint Mary’s had an equal shot at accomplishing everything that they wanted to accomplish,” Conboy said.
Discussing the second commitment of the plan, which focuses on preparing students for different professional and career roles, Conboy reflected on the programs made to help pre-college students feel prepared and confident before heading to college. She explained how Saint Mary’s can contribute to young girls seeing themselves going to college in the future.
“One of the things that we have been really focused on in the area of empowering women and girls across the life cycle has been the pre-college programs that we’ve developed for girls to learn more about college … In Indiana, only 53% of students who graduate from high school go on to college [and] we would like to be part of the solution to that because we know that many more students could do well in college,” Conboy said. “We’ve doubled the number of students who are in pre-college programs on our campus in the summer in just one year and we got a million dollar grant from the Lilly Endowment to do that.”
She also elaborated upon the College’s execution of the third commitment of its strategic plan, elevating research, through the opening of the Office for Academic Research, Grants and Sponsored Programs. She discussed the increasing support for academic research on campus, including hiring new professors committed to research and successful efforts to fundraise for research. Conboy shared that this fundraising has also “resulted in pay increases across the College.”
The fourth commitment of the plan focuses on stabilizing and strengthening the College’s finances. Conboy mentioned that Saint Mary’s has an A minus rating from Standard and Poor’s, a credit rating company, which Conboy described as “an excellent rating for a school of our size and type.”
Increasing enrollment is also a goal for Conboy. She also discussed how she was proud of the enrollment numbers for the incoming class of 2029.
“In my first five years, Saint Mary’s enrollment have been going down a little bit. We’ve been enrolling classes in the 300s for a number of years. We have three years now of enrolling classes over 400, and we’re feeling great about next year, though. We’re going to put on our seat belts because we have 503 deposits. So that is the biggest class that Saint Mary’s has had since around 1990,” Conboy said.
She also discussed the College’s new “Avenue Experience,” a series of courses for freshmen.
“We’re just now implementing the Avenue Experience … It’s becoming a reality for next year’s entering class and that’s a result of a lot of listening as well. We had to learn more about what today’s prospective students want out of their college experience and we've created a new model for our undergraduate programming that is focused on a combination of academic outcomes as well as career outcomes.”
Conboy said one challenge during her term has been trying to increase revenue, noting that the College is working to utilize what’s available.
“We’re very efficient in our use of our resources and we don’t have a lot of margin because we are trying to plow back into our student experience … Our revenue comes from primarily student tuition, fees, room and board and fundraising,” Conboy said. “I think one of the challenges has been that we're trying to grow our revenues and we’re trying to do that pretty aggressively at a time when we don’t always have control over how those will grow.”
