The Ave Maria Herald - AMU President Towey: "It was an 'extraordinary' year!"

AMU President Towey: "It was an 'extraordinary' year!"

Details: Published on Sunday, 19 May 2013 21:18

The 2012-2013 academic year at Ave Maria University ended two major announcements: The closing of the Latin American campus and the pronouncement by Standard and Poor's that the university's financial outlook was "stable," enabling the school to save "millions" through consolidation of debt by floating investment-grade bonds.( See Ave Herald story AMU Divesting Nicaragua Campus; Announces Favorable Bond Rating from S&P)

They were perhaps the biggest news from Ave Maria University, but AMU President Jim Towey says they capped a string of significant accomplishments in a year he called "extraordinary."

Before leaving Ave Maria to lead 12 students on a mission trip to Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, Mr. Towey spoke at length with The Ave Herald about what he called "a landmark year," in which the school found its financial footing, solidified its senior management team and made academic improvements. Mr. Towey also spoke about some of the continuing challenges the school faces.

Following are Mr. Towey's comments, edited for length, on a number of topics that came up in the interview:

On the university's finances...

"This year really is, I think, a landmark year because we are transitioning from start-up to a going concern, a stand-alone. The S&P rating agency looked at our financials and our young history and our current financial condition and gave us an investment-grade rating of BBB- which [is] really a vote of confidence, it's a boost of morale here and most of all it's a validation of all the work that's been done here since the founding. ... Tom Monaghan's [funding] commitment ends in June of 2014. S&P knew that – that he's not obligated to provide any operating support whatsoever. So, for an outside body that's really the gold standard in the financial services markets to come forward and give us an investment grade rating is just a real tribute to all the work that's been done here past and present. ... We are going to take out all the existing bonds and replace them with new bonds and I would say that if you add up everything that's involved it's roughly a $60 million transaction. [S&P} gave a very frank assessment of our strengths and weaknesses but they also came out and said 'outlook stable.' And for our little boat that's been tossed at sea a fair amount and sometimes was at danger of shipwreck, to have them say that, that was very encouraging."

On other accomplishments during the year...

"We had an extraordinary year. I don't know how else to put it. There were so many accomplishments this year. Any two or three of these would be a great year -- The S&P rating, the refunding, the transfer of the Latin American campus, that's obviously landmark changes. But we had record enrollment. Our retention continues to improve, we've created an honors program and created new majors in education and accounting, the faculty revised its handbook and you know that's a very exhausting task – they went through it from a to z and that was accomplished during the academic year. We've expanded online education, our capacity for it, the service learning participation by our students continues to increase in Immokalee, I'm excited about that. In fundraising, a very, very good year. It's not over so I don't want to uncork any champagne but we're on track to raise over $10 million this year.... Relative to schools like Catholic University, Mount St. Mary's, University of Dallas, our annual fund is five or six times their size and we hit it. ... To hit our annual budget we had to raise $7.5 million this year and we're on track to do that. And that's not counting tom's contributions and tom's expected to give us $3 million this year. So the fundraising was extraordinary.

"We have a seamless transition of four new vice presidents so that's the sign of the strength of an institution. And the IT upgrade we did last year. Right now we're changing out computers in the library. Some of these things are really old. We've got a very aged inventory and we've now began a very systematic process of getting new servers here, we've brought campus-wide cable television capability if students want it, we've changed our entire phone system out. Those don't sound like much but for a little institution, these are big projects. And then the intangibles. Just in the last week we had the senior senator from Florida sitting in the cafeteria visiting with students, we had the sitting governor addressing our students -- no other institution in Florida, he chose us – there was Cardinal Wuerl's public praise of us at the February dinner. And then there were the lectures we had this year from Mary Ann Glendon and [Homer scholar] Stanley Lombardo, the Shakespeare in Performance, the December Lessons and Carols, the performance at the Phil when they did Carmina Burana, all the athletic events we had this year. ... And the Annunciation and the All Saints Day festivals. This university is coming of age, and it's nice, it makes me happy and it makes Tom very proud."

On what's next...

"There's a five-year timeline and we're working on it. ... We're going to continue to add majors, we're going to continue to improve the size of the student body and quality of the student body, we're adding new professors, we had four new ones this year, next year we add nine new positions if we hit all our growth goals. The last year we hired eight new faculty – four replacement hires and four new positions. We've been fairly open with the university community. We had a collaboration to develop the strategic plan now we continue to tweak it, refine it, press ahead with it. I should also add a capital campaign. I think you can expect us to talk about a capital campaign in the relatively near future. ... We've created a new study abroad opportunity this summer in Rome [and] we'll continue to look at other opportunities to study abroad. ... The strategic plan has us growing the study abroad program every year. We're going to continue to explore opportunities to get students to study abroad. ... [In athletics] we're moving in the direction of adding women's lacrosse. We're going to improve out tennis offering, we're going to have four new tennis courts built over the summer, God and Collier County willing. We'll have six courts so we can host matches. To be in southwest Florida we need a viable tennis program and we can have one. It will attract a bunch of students. The coaches' job is to shepherd these individuals and to make sure they get a diploma at the end of the day. The wins and losses come and go. Part of our athletic department's orientation is to make sure it's got its priorities straight."

On the mood of the faculty...

"I think it's been a bumpy ride for them at this university. I think the ride is smoothing out. This year they're seeing a small pay increase. I'm hoping in the foreseeable future to begin to restore the pension. I think they're fatigued by the very bumpy ride we've had but I think they're encouraged by success of late. I went and addressed them in April. It was a wonderful gathering. I love working with them. And I see the fact that with our searches, people are interested in working here. ... I'm committed to making this place a wonderful place to teach and to research and write. Look, I'm getting ready to go on a trip to Calcutta and it's going to be a break. That's how hard this job is, I'm going to Calcutta and it's a break. They feel the same way. This has been very demanding. The Lord had asked a lot of everyone. Many who have worked here and left, they gave heroically. And people have been asked to make sacrifices this year, work in an insecure environment. Even with our health plan. That takes a lot out of you. I'd be worried if the faculty weren't tired from these challenges. But I think they're just a great group of people and I think they're very encouraged and when they hear all this news that we're putting out, they'll be very happy. Very proud, that their sacrifices weren't in vain."

On the "guest house," across from the Golisano Field House, which was left partially completed by Sr. Gertrude Gillette when she left the Ave Maria University campus...

"We're completing construction of the guest house. It started off under an agreement that was executed with Sr. Gertrude and the university. And we are going to honor the terms of the agreement but the reality is there's been a breach of the agreement because the guest house wasn't completed. The university doesn't have the luxury of sitting there with a two-thirds completed project. Fortunately we were able to identify a very generous donor who has asked to remain anonymous who contributed funds to help us complete construction. And that was not our responsibility. But I guess you could say it's our duty to complete it. So when it's completed it will function as a retreat and guest house and we will try to utilize it to the best of our ability and also in a way consistent with the agreement, even though that agreement is in breach.

On Tom Monaghan's current involvement...

"Tom and I meet regularly. I talked to him today. ... People need to know Tom's very engaged, very excited about the direction of the university. He sees it advancing his vision and with any growth process there are growing pains and there have been plenty. The difficult part of this job is we had to lay off people and reorganize the university and that adversely affected some people and that's the hard part of the job. And some still live in the area and it must be difficult for them and I understand that. And I look forward to the day when I'm no longer in a job where I have to make personnel decisions. But I feel very grateful to Tom and to the chairman of the board, Michael Timmis. Nobody understands how hard that guy works. When Standard and Poor's was here for their campus visit, there was Michael Timmis, who had convinced a number of trustees to come. And that show of trustees was part of the weight on the scale that tipped in our direction for investment grade. Michael is constantly helping us in the community. He's helping us with donors, he's engaged with the academic life of the university with the Homerathon. A big part of my discernment was the privilege of working with him.

"That's why I'm saying if you look at the laundry list it was a staggering year. Obviously there were faults along the way. The part I haven't talked about which is why I sit here and why I work in sight of the oratory, is if this is to be from the heart of the church, we really have to follow Jesus Christ and the church he established. And that means we have to really look not just at our noble ends but the means by which we try to accomplish them. We cannot allow the yeast of hypocrisy to spoil Tom's dough. So we've got to make sure that we hold ourselves to the high standards of being named after the Blessed Mother. And that's a sobering challenge to everyone who works here and most especially me. That's job one."

On his personal future at AMU...

"I'm starting a new three-year contract July 1st. I'm excited that the Board of Trustees asked me to extend. Most of my professional life I've worked without a contract but the bond underwriters, major donors, accreditors, trustees, a lot of folks like to see university presidents with contracts. [My wife] Mary and I love it here and feel privileged to be part of this new era of the university. We love the people we work with this and rejoice in God's favor that we're here. This was an initiative of the trustees, and I was happy to re-up for three years.