Planning our future: Five key areas to address in CSB+SJU’s strategic direction

In a recent email titled “Planning for our future,” the CSB+SJU President’s Office announced the launch of the strategic planning process, aimed at answering essential questions about the past, present and future of our institutions. Not only are we aspiring toward “one CSB+SJU community,” but President Bruess laid out the three-phase strategic planning process: Readiness and Discovery from Fall 2022–Spring 2023, Synthesis in Summer 2023, and Implementation in Fall 2023—all led by new COO Kara Kolomitz and Provost Richard Ice.

Right now, these campuses are reeling in the aftermath of the Academic Prioritization Process, face continued decreasing enrollment and have experienced a total of six university presidents take office since the most recent joint strategic plan in 2015. The need for a unified vision is crucial for the future of the colleges, and the need to get it right this time around is of paramount importance. That being said, there is cause for celebration this school year. We are on trend to have increased admissions for incoming first-year students, recently hired the first joint chief diversity officer and a renewed commitment to investing in the future of the colleges under the first joint president. Which leads us to the most important part of this entire column.

As an Editorial Board, we implore you to attend one of the Strategic Planning student sessions next week. Your voice is valuable, and your point of view is worth sharing. This process is going to be shaped by the students that do attend, and it’s incredibly important that the administration hears from students with a diversity of opinions and experiences. This is not the time to adopt a “someone else will probably go; I don’t need to” mindset. If, at any point over the last four years, you’ve made an observation about the schools—positive or negative—you should go and offer it up. As a current student, your ideas have the potential to impact the way in which these schools offer classes, recruit prospective students and more. Don’t underestimate the significance of this opportunity.

To help you start to think about topics to potentially bring up, this Editorial Board has identified five key considerations that we see as primary priorities for students as we move forward in the strategic planning process.

**Gender Roles**

CSB and SJU self-identify as Benedictine, liberal arts, residential colleges for men and women. The latter portion of this description ought to be a central consideration of strategic planning process for the institutions to maintain relevant. According to a 2022 Pew Research poll, half of adults ages 18 to 29 say someone can be a man or a woman even if that differs from the sex they were assigned at birth. This figure compares with about a third of those 50 and older. With young students expressing contemporary, more nuanced understandings of the spectrum of gender identity— out of line the generation housing our parents or administrators—the administration has a choice: evolve in line with public opinion or attempt to differentiate with an unpopular stance.

**Religion**

Next, our Benedictine faith, history and tradition. Currently, 47% of Bennies and Johnnies identify as Catholic. This number compares to the 90% of students identifying as Catholic in 1980. We must prioritize a way to make Catholic higher education appealable and relevant to all people, regardless of religious affiliation or a lack thereof. Benedictine values can apply not just in a religious sense, but also in a just-minded, moral sense. Religious higher education often tends to have the connotation that it’s old-fashioned, strict and attracts a uniform set of students. In admissions efforts, it is imperative that we emphasize that our Catholic origin and tradition are not detractors, but an opportunity to deliver high-quality messaging to boost enrollment numbers. Understanding how to appeal to our Catholic students and welcome students with different faith traditions, such as local Muslim populations, will allow students the opportunity to learn from a varied body of religious backgrounds and raise the bottom line.

**Academic Offerings**

Thirdly, academic offerings ought to be a central consideration for Kolomitz and Ice in the strategic planning process. Throughout the past two years, on the backdrop of Academic Program Prioritization, the development and implementation of new programs provides lots of excitement for current and incoming students. Climate studies, global health, exercise and health science, neuroscience, data analytics and other new academic programs have broadly expanded students’ ability to delve deeper into niche, marketable skills in today’s world. Expanding offerings into the realms of engineering or a center for the environment would not only attract new students, but also make our graduates more appealable to graduate schools and employers. U.S. News & World Report ranks University of St. Thomas No. 35 in the U.S. and No. 1 in Minnesota for engineering schools without a doctoral program. If CSB+SJU offered engineering, could we tap into this same pool of interest? We think so.

**Rural Campus Insecurities**

Every year, we consistently see the student populations of urban universities like the University of Minnesota rising, whereas, in the past few years, our institutions have decreased. To overcome some of these difficulties and move towards a more welcoming campus, we must bridge the gaps of campus insecurities. For instance, out-of-state and international students receive incredible treatment on fly-in weekends: transportation pre-coordinated to and from airports, elaborate galas hosted by cultural clubs and comparatively warm weather. This quality treatment should not be unique to fly-in weekends. Capital investment in transportation during breaks, better access to St. Cloud grocery stores and micro-grants for students will continue advancing our community towards President Bruess’s “one CSB+SJU.” Equity-centered messaging will allow us to move beyond repetition of Zippia’s “#1 and #2 colleges for getting a job” statistic and make our campus a model for other rural campuses looking to listen intently and welcome students—regardless of their experiences before stepping foot onto campus.

**Capital Investment**

To pull a quote from the email, how do we ensure the “flourishing [of] not only students, but also staff, faculty and our monastic Sisters and Brothers?” The short answer is money. President Bruess understands this fact. During his five-year presidency at St. Norbert’s College, the college’s endowment grew 84 percent from $105 million to $194 million. If CSB and SJU grow at the same rate as Saint Norbert’s in the next five years, then our current joint total endowment of $389 million will grow to $715.76 million. Even better, similar growth rates for ten years would put the endowment near the billion-dollar mark—emphasizing the commitment by alumni/ae and donors to providing an outstanding academic and educational experience here at CSB and SJU.