Like a number of liberal arts colleges and universities today, Bellarmine faces many challenges. Over the past decade the stagnation in the number of U.S. high school graduates has led to decreasing enrollment at colleges and universities across the nation.

Bellarmine has a well-deserved reputation for academic excellence. From its founding, Bellarmine has provided its students with an education rooted in the rich tradition of the Catholic liberal arts and sciences, a broad-based curriculum that eschews narrow specialization and instead prepares graduates to be lifelong learners and ethical decision-makers who can apply their knowledge in a range of contexts and adapt to changing circumstances. In the years since, Bellarmine has strengthened and diversified its educational offerings by adding new undergraduate majors and programs, as well as professional schools and graduate degrees in fields such as business, education, communication, and the health professions.

Although we remain convinced of the value of our liberal arts core and our high-quality professional schools, we also realize that students’ needs and expectations have changed. Thus, in addition to renewing our commitment to the liberal arts and building upon the values of Thomas Merton, we must both reimagine and better communicate to our 21st-century students what a Bellarmine education is and why it matters. 

In order to improve retention at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, we will develop individualized pathways for success for each student, and will work to strengthen graduate student culture and community while exploring the possibility of new graduate programs. We will provide more support for students as they transition to their careers and lives after Bellarmine, equipping them with the tools they need to put what they have learned in the classroom into action. We will also look to enhance campus life more generally, creating inclusive learning environments, and expanding our mission to educate the whole person to include a more explicit emphasis on health and wellness. 

Additionally, we will incorporate into our courses and curricula whenever possible what the Association of American Colleges and Universities has identified as high-impact practices. That includes, but is not limited to, a robust first-year and other common intellectual experiences; increased opportunities for collaborative and global learning; writing-intensive courses, internships, undergraduate research, and capstone projects that invite students to integrate and apply their learning to real-world issues and problems. 

Much of Bellarmine’s historical success can be attributed to its focus on excellence in the classroom. Our small class sizes and faculty-to-student ratio promote individualized attention and mentorship, which in turn provide our students with greater opportunities for personal and intellectual growth. We know that education is not simply about acquiring information, but rather learning how to learn, a process that our faculty facilitate by fostering classroom environments guided by reasoned inquiry and discussion.

As much as we value the classroom experience at Bellarmine, we know that we must diversify our educational delivery in order to adapt to changing circumstances and provide more students access to a high-quality Bellarmine education. With this goal in mind, we propose to create a center for innovative pedagogy and purposeful risk-taking, and to seek out ways to encourage faculty and staff to disrupt traditional boundaries and collaborate across disciplines and departments. 

We will experiment with new and emerging technologies—including online and hybrid courses—not as ends in themselves, but as means to expand access and augment our traditional strengths. Crucially, we will also focus much greater attention on continuing education, engaging the community and tailoring our offerings to meet professional needs and address relevant issues. We will thus, for example, explore offering new certificates and other meaningful credentials that meet community and professional needs but might not fit within the current structure of our existing undergraduate and graduate degrees. 

Bellarmine has seen dramatic growth over the past fifteen years. The school has added significant enrollment, campus facilities, academic programs, and faculty. However, the higher education landscape is changing fast and the past three years have seen flat enrollment numbers. 

The challenges facing colleges and universities today are many: an aversion to student debt following the recent recession, competition from online programs, declining government investment, population shifts, and an overall declining market. These roadblocks have forced colleges to scramble to meet enrollment goals. Meanwhile, the liberal arts are under attack in the public forum, despite vast evidence that liberal arts students earn more than their peers over time. 

The demographics facing Bellarmine’s future enrollment numbers are clear. Our region expects a 10 percent drop in the number of high school graduates by 2025, meaning we will have to compete for a shrinking overall prospect pool. Those prospects are job-outcome focused, are prone to tuition sticker shock, and are wary of student debt. 

At Bellarmine, we see this as an opportunity. We must be highly strategic in growing our enrollment. In the course of doing so, we will expand our geographic reach and diversify our student populations. To meet this strategic goal we will develop a comprehensive enrollment plan, opening new markets and engaging more diverse student populations. We will also take full advantage of the ability of our outstanding athletics programs to raise our profile regionally and nationally, including an evaluation of our division and conference. And we will empower our influential alumni community to act as our ambassadors via their worldwide networks. 

Bellarmine is committed to core values of diversity, equity, and inclusion. According to the American Association of Colleges and Universities, genuine inclusion involves intentionally bringing together diverse groups that are actively connected and engaged around issues of equitable access and social justice. Inclusion requires developing an active and just community that is knowledgeable, respectful, and engaged with the richness of differing cultures, perspectives, and epistemologies.

Bellarmine is committed to welcoming diverse students, staff, and faculty to an inclusive community. However, given inflection points in our culture, we must continue to strengthen support for the diversity of students, faculty, and staff we attract. To develop meaningful inclusion and engagement, we must expand our principles of hospitality to cultivate a true sense of belonging, beyond just being present, so that everyone sees that Bellarmine is a place for them.

As we remain committed to advancing equity and a diverse and inclusive academic environment, we also recognize the need to shape a distinct community reflecting our urban environment. Reaffirming Thomas Merton’s values of inclusion and compassion, we must foster critical dialogues, informed collaborative engagement, and transformative teaching. The newly formed President’s Advisory Board on Equity and Inclusion, partnering with the Provost’s Office and the Office of Identity and Inclusion, and in alliance with the Bellarmine community, will engage in transformative initiatives that reflect our core values of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Understanding that theory informs practice and that diversity is central to academic excellence, we will work to recruit and retain a diverse student body and develop and expand curricular initiatives to prepare students for our increasingly diverse and global culture. Working to improve the climate for work and study at Bellarmine, we will also examine and propose bold new policies and practices related to recruitment, retention, career pathways, orientation, and training for diverse students, faculty, and staff members.

Over the years, Bellarmine has enjoyed many valuable partnerships with local businesses, corporations, and nonprofits. Our Board is also well represented with members from corporations, local businesses, and community organizations. In order to expand learning opportunities and strengthen career pathways for students, we must continue to expand the number of community-based partnerships and coalitions.

Fitting our Catholic social justice mission, our responsibility to our community involves building an intentional, visible, symbiotic relationship with the city. By connecting the campus, the community, and the curriculum through engaged scholarship and action, we will enhance social and civic engagement, including faculty and student-led initiatives, with an eye toward enhancing career development and increasing alumni involvement. Through a range of feasibility studies and innovative practices, we will work to promote effective collaborations, community engagement, and strategic partnerships between the university, alumni, and Louisville-area businesses.

At Bellarmine, we take great pride in the economic stewardship of our university’s resources. Since our founding, we have weathered many hardships and emerged each time stronger than ever. In the absence of the billion-dollar endowments and state funding that many colleges enjoy, Bellarmine will likely remain dependent on tuition revenue and support from alumni and friends for the foreseeable future.

Managing the operations of a complex organization like a modern university is a thorny endeavor. Further complicating this challenge is the fast-changing nature of higher education today. There are wolves at the door: fierce competition for a shrinking prospect pool; the rapid adoption of online programs; tuition sticker shock; student and parent resistance to debt; marketplace shifts in program viability; governmental, regulatory, and accreditation challenges; and technology’s encroachment into the future of jobs.

At Bellarmine, we relish the opportunity to think and act creatively in the face of these challenges. We understand that to flourish today and well into the future, we must meet the market wherever it goes. That means we will understand the marketplace in the moment and anticipate its changes over time. We will make Bellarmine accessible to students of all backgrounds, which is both financially astute and true to our founding mission. 

Further, every academic and administrative program must pull its weight. We will anticipate market trends and take advantage of data analytics to form a keen understanding of the viability of majors and programs, beefing up successful programs and eliminating or altering ones that aren’t attracting students. We will also take a hard look at our pricing model, striking a precise balance between affordability and revenue. And we will think outside the box about alternative revenue streams and new delivery models, including corporate partnerships, fundraising, tuition subsidies, and our communications about the unique Bellarmine value proposition and its real-world outcomes.