Visiting

The Visiting Committee focused on opportunities to elevate the college’s national visibility. The committee read and discussed a 1941 report by then-St. John’s president and co-founder of the New Program, Stringfellow Barr. Writing as the world slid toward war, Barr urged students and faculty to see liberal education as preparation for citizenship in a free society—an education demanding clarity of thought, humility before truth, and devotion to reasoned conversation over propaganda or conformity.

The committee also discussed strategies for reaching broader audiences and celebrated growing media coverage of the college, including several op-eds by President Sterling. Members reviewed the scope and resources of the Communications Office and explored how the board might best support ongoing visibility efforts, including sharing the college’s work more widely. The discussion prompted reflection on St. John’s as a vital force in the world today, particularly amid the crises facing higher education, civic discourse, and the rapid acceleration of technology. In the coming year, the Visiting Committee will explore threads of engagement: how they are woven through our programs, student life, alumni relations, and community partnerships.

Facilities

The Facilities Committee heard updates on major projects on both campuses, including the Pritzker Student Center in Santa Fe, Annapolis’s new solar array, and a new master plan for the Annapolis campus. The Pritzker Student Center—home to the dining hall, coffee shop, bookstore, Great Hall, senior and junior common rooms, campus security, and various lounges and offices—has been fully offline since late summer, presenting logistical challenges. Fortunately, the dining hall reopened on November 1, and the center will be fully open when students return for the spring semester.

In Annapolis, the campus has undertaken its first master planning process since 2009, led by the firm David M. Schwarz Architects (David Schwarz (A72)). The conversation was inspirational in its scope and ambition, envisioning the eventual addition of seminar rooms, laboratories, tutor offices, parking spaces, and a new home for the Graduate Institute, as well as ADA accessibility upgrades, a renovated Paca-Carroll Building, and coming soon—pending donor and grant support and final approval—a new arts and academic building, designed by Schwarz’s firm.

Enrollment

The Admissions Office enrolled academically strong incoming freshmen classes on both campuses, outstripped our peer colleges in enrolling higher percentages of admitted students, and continued to see strong representation from states across the country, with particular regional growth in states like Maryland, Texas, and New Mexico. The Graduate Institute continues to see near record-high enrollment on both of our campuses, including a full cohort currently enrolled in Santa Fe’s new Master of Arts in Middle Eastern Classics pilot year.

At the same time, the national environment for small liberal arts colleges remains difficult, with the vast majority of our peer colleges missing their headcount goals this fall—and St. John’s is no exception. St. John’s freshman enrollment was in line with our projections but not with our longstanding targets, enrolling 20 fewer fall freshmen collegewide than our target range. And while we are proud of our socioeconomic diversity, which can be measured by record-number Pell recipients, the current enrollment puts strain on the college’s annual operating budget.

Looking ahead, rising curiosity about the classics, civil discourse, and humanistic approaches to education may well benefit St. John’s. The Admissions Office is working closely with the Communications Office to seize on these new opportunities and are hard at work on creative and innovative ways to reach new undergraduate students, including working with the Deans’ Offices and tutors on new forms of outreach; through highly targeted digital outreach in places like Reddit, which allows targeting by subject areas of interest; by increasing our investments in classical and homeschool partnerships; and by highlighting our Career Pathways program and the college’s new partnerships with schools in Korea, China, and the Netherlands. In addition, Admissions is working to fill open positions on the team, including new leadership in the Santa Fe office and positions in operations and homeschool recruitment, and remains focused on growing our strongest recruitment pipeline: Summer Academy.

Advancement

The Advancement Committee received updates on the development of a new three-year annual giving campaign, which will seek to raise the annual fund goal from its current goal of $2.7 million to a stretch goal of $5 million annually. The campaign will accomplish this through the college’s first-ever dedicated recurring gift drive, renewed engagement with Graduate Institute alumni, and enhanced class and group giving challenges. To ensure the campaign’s message resonates with alumni, the presidents and the Communications Office have conducted surveys and focus groups to inform its development.

The committee also focused on the need to replenish the Advancement team, which has contracted by nearly two-thirds since the height of the Freeing Minds campaign. Under resource constraints, the team has nevertheless continued to exceed its goals—a testament to their dedication and a reminder of the potential of a better-resourced office. Fundraising results for the first quarter of FY26 further demonstrated continued success, with strong results exceeding Q1 results of the past several years. We have good forward momentum with the hiring of a new Director of Annual Giving, and the search for and introduction of a new Vice President of Advancement and Alumni Relations will be completed before December.

In addition, the committee learned that the $80 million Capital Improvement Fund, seeded by the Pritzker Challenge, is nearing completion ahead of schedule. The committee also celebrated a successful Homecoming season, in which attendance and satisfaction rates rose. In Annapolis, the Class of 1975 led a successful class giving challenge to raise nearly $200,000, inspiring the Classes of 1976 on both campuses, which will be celebrating their 50th reunions next fall.

Finance

Since the June board meeting, college leadership and board members have worked diligently to make our post-campaign operating budget fully transparent, control costs, and ensure adequate short-term funding for annual operations in an era when costs are rising—all while celebrating the reality that in the last eight years the college’s endowment has doubled, roughly $80 million has been directed to campus infrastructure projects through the nearly completed Pritzker Challenge, student services have been dramatically improved, and access initiatives such as the Pell Grant match and the free tuition program for families earning below $75,000 have taken root. Thanks to these successes, St. John’s now holds an A-/Stable bond rating, up from BBB+, and has improved mechanisms necessary to cover any cash shortfalls in the operating budget for the next few years.

Strategic Planning

In June, the Board established a Task Force to assess and address the college’s long-term financial sustainability, with particular attention to enrollment and net tuition revenue trends. In tandem, the presidents and deans have developed a two-year bridge plan designed to maintain stability and momentum as the college prepares for its next comprehensive campaign. The bridge plan encompasses a broad range of priorities—enrollment and retention, financial efficiency, philanthropy, and visibility—while the Task Force focuses specifically on strengthening net tuition revenue and ensuring the college remains both affordable and accessible to students from all backgrounds.

Over the past decade, St. John’s has made remarkable progress: student services have expanded, the endowment has doubled, and the college has invested significantly in its facilities and infrastructure. Yet decreased net tuition revenue continues to exert pressure on the budget, creating a structural gap that has been prudently offset each year through fundraising and extraordinary revenue. In 2018, the college made a bold decision to reduce tuition by roughly $17,000 per year to advance access and affordability. Although tuition has since risen modestly, the college now charges, in inflation-adjusted terms, approximately $25,000–$28,000 less in tuition than it would have without the tuition reset and alongside industry standard rate increases. While philanthropy has softened the impact, long-term fiscal health will require modest but steady tuition and fee increases that keep pace with costs and help bend the revenue curve upward, sustaining both our mission and our financial health for years to come.

Board Governance

The board welcomed new members Derek Alexander (A99), Mark Baganz (Parent), and Alumni Association President Brett Heavner (A89), who takes on this role as Past President Katarina Wong (A88) completed her term in September.

Campus Reports

In the Plenary Session, Deans Macfarland and Davis and Presidents Paalman and Sterling offered campus highlights and reflections.

In Annapolis, the campus is currently hosting as a visiting tutor and visiting researcher Dr. Yonghwa Lee (AGI01) and Dr. Kyoung-Min Han, cofounders of the Great Books Center at Incheon National University in South Korea. Their Great Books Center has, in turn, hosted five tutors from both campuses in the last six months. This past summer, the Graduate Institute hosted a lecture series, “Liberal Education in the Age of AI,” as well as a symposium on foundational texts in technology and society. The symposium was supported by the Cosmos Institute, an Austin-based organization. The Graduate Institute also co-hosted seminars with the Catherine Project, in which tutors made remarks on liberal education, followed by moving testimonies on the importance of reading for one’s life from Catherine Project participants, current students, and alumni. These and other developing relationships aim to raise the profile of the college and advance our educational principles.

In Santa Fe, the long-awaited Pritzker Student Center renovation is nearing completion, with the dining hall now reopened and a dedication and ribbon-cutting planned for the February board meeting, alongside the inauguration of President Sterling and the Alumni Association’s annual Award of Merit ceremony. There is a sense of academic vitality across the curriculum, from new preceptorials to the launch of the Master of Arts in Middle Eastern Classics, which opened with full seminars and strong publicity. The campus also celebrated the success of the Career Pathways program—students completed internships at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the City of Santa Fe, and the New Mexico Department of Cultural Affairs, as examples in the local community—and hosted networking events connecting students and alumni. Faculty and students continue to innovate through initiatives such as a senior-year reenvisioning proposal, a faculty study group on the visual arts, and a pilot program in painting at Ghost Ranch. There is a sense of alignment across the cabinet and creativity in recruitment efforts, including tutor-led outreach.

The presidents acknowledged that the campuses have worked through periods of leadership transitions, budget cuts, and reduced staffing while remaining focused, dedicated, and uncompromising in their support of our students and the mission of the college. Presidents Paalman and Sterling expressed deep gratitude to the whole community. President Paalman also emphasized the community’s gratitude for board, donor, and legislative support, and described the ongoing balance between the serious challenges facing higher education today and the abiding joy of inquiry and goodwill that define life at St. John’s.

Conclusion

Board Chair Warren Spector joined in thanking the community and thanking the board for their engagement. He articulated the sense of the meeting: “St. John’s education remains vital, and the college is stronger in many ways. We have challenges to address, as do all colleges, and we are working together to address ours. We’ve heard here of good efforts and initiatives coming from college leadership. We are confident that, with the support of alumni and friends, we can make careful, considered decisions to put the college on a strong foundation for the next generation.” St. John’s Forever!

Feedback

If you have thoughts that you would like to share, please contact us at presidents(at)sjc.edu.

Sincerely,
Presidents J. Walter Sterling and Susan Paalman