“This Vision Requires All Of Us:” Kilpatrick Presents State of University

Image courtesy of Patrick D. Lewis.

By Patrick D. Lewis

Catholic University President Peter Kilpatrick gave a state of the university address Wednesday afternoon, announcing the creation of a strategic plan, new initiatives, and discussing the “painful” actions taken to address last year’s budget crisis.

Hundreds of faculty and staff members attended the address. After highlighting a few accomplishments from the past year, such as the accreditation of the Busch School of Business and the recently released 28th place national ranking for the Conway School of Nursing, Kilpatrick addressed the budget cuts made last year. 

“The work we accomplished together to reset our budget, reducing our operating expenses by 10%, was an ambitious and a very painful undertaking, and we all deserve a lot of credit for making it happen,” he said. Members of the Board of Trustees also assisted in offsetting the budget deficit, donating $33 million in bridge funds to make up the difference.

He continued, “We cut expenses. We reorganized schools and offices. We lost a lot of very good people. And it took an emotional and psychological toll on all of us. We didn’t always agree on how to make the cuts, but we were all looking at the same numbers, and we all understood what needed to happen and we did it together. So I want to say thank you to our entire community.”

Kilpatrick went on to summarize the school’s current financial situation. CUA’s current freshman class is made up of 812 students and over 70 transfer students, said Kilpatrick, who added that the budget remains balanced. This year also saw Catholic enroll over 500 new graduate students and raise $83 million in financial gifts and commitments, which Kilpatrick said is the largest fundraising year on record. Tuition revenue saw a net increase of 14%, the largest in 15 years, he said.

The president then went over new programs. “My central guidance has been that the programs must be mission-centric, capable of producing academic excellence in a way that uses our identity and our strengths, and be capable of generating significant gross revenue, at least 500K to a million per year, and producing sufficient net revenue to be worth the investment of resources and energy,” said Kilpatrick.

New initiatives include an accelerated nursing degree program, which has over 110 deposits as of now, and the Word on Fire master’s program, which has over 70 deposits.

There have also been challenges, though. “As many of you know, the rate at which the federal government is denied visas for international students has adversely affected our international student recruitment, particularly for our graduate programs,” he said. “Additionally, we missed our goal on summer enrollment revenue. We took immediate steps to control costs, including placing a university wide pause, not halt, but pause on rehires for a period of time with a few exceptions for our most revenue generating programs.”

Later, when asked by a staff member about the summer enrollments, Kilpatrick said staff responsible for planning were “a little asleep at the wheel” and pledged to prepare for next summer better.

Kilpatrick said that his highest priorities now are bringing the finances to a place where the university can offer pay raises to employees and restart contributing to retirement accounts, something the school stopped during the budget crisis.

Despite those challenges, Kilpatrick said, “We also now must turn towards opening a new chapter in our history of the university.”

He outlined three key priorities for the future: investing in research and innovation; increasing awareness of the university; and growing enrollment, revenue, and philanthropy. 

Plans for making those priorities happen include launching a development academy for university staff, working to better compete with both regional universities and other schools around the country, establishing partnerships with other institutions to bring their operations to campus and gain revenue, widening the scope of online course offerings, designating a “University Day” to encourage school pride, and focusing on leaning into artificial intelligence.

Kilpatrick said the university’s mission is an important part, too. “We seek to leverage our expertise in the Catholic Intellectual tradition and identity together with our professional excellence, to create distinctive, rigorous academic experiences that students can’t find anywhere else,” he said.

A university strategic plan is being developed  by Kilpatrick’s office. Staff and student feedback will be part of that process, he said. Another future initiative will be a capital campaign, which will publicly launch a few years from now and which will aim to raise “well over” the $520 million raised during the Light the Way campaign.

Kilpatrick said CUA should be “proudly American and boldly Catholic,” he said. “We stand at the threshold of a new chapter in our history.”