Meeting the Challenge: - The Council of Independent Colleges

Serving Students Well: Independent Colleges Today
Marylhurst
University in
Oregon has
evolved while
remaining true
to its mission:
serving the
underserved.
There are many examples of how small and mid-sized
schools have successfully adapted to changed circumstances.
Regis University in Denver offers a dramatic example. It
began life as a Jesuit liberal arts college for men. In the early
1970s its enrollment was in decline. It was, in the words
of Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Allan
Service, “careening toward a cliff.” Then a new president
arrived. David Clarke, S.J., soon concluded that if Regis
continued to limit itself to educating young Catholic men
it would not survive. So Regis, like a number of other
CIC member institutions, began to transform itself into
a university that serves both traditional undergraduates
and adult learners. Today Regis is thriving. It enrolls about
14,000 men and women, only about 1,400 of whom are
traditional undergraduates.
Regis now has six satellite campuses, five in
Colorado and one in Las Vegas, Nevada. It has broadened
its curriculum and offers extensive programs in the health
professions. It has also been a leader in online education,
launching its first online programs in the early 1990s, long
before most other institutions embraced the Internet.
Yet even with these enormous changes, Regis has not
lost touch with its Jesuit roots. Part-time faculty members
are informed about the Catholic perspective on moral issues,
so they can articulate those views. In hiring full-time faculty,
says Service, “we look for people who have a good sense
of what our mission is, namely education for leadership in
service to others.”
Marylhurst University in Oregon is another
institution that has evolved while remaining true to its
mission: serving the underserved. Founded in 1893 by the
Sisters of the Holy Names, who felt that women in the Pacific
Northwest were underserved by higher education, Marylhurst
was the first liberal arts college for women in the region. But
in the 1970s, as
enrollment dwindled,
Marylhurst decided
that it needed to
re-invent itself.
It looked at its
mission and at other
institutions in the
region and concluded
that there was a
new underserved
population to reach
out and serve—
working adults
seeking a liberal arts
education.
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