I believe we now have greater zeal than ever in our quest for excellence. What our trustees, alumni and friends are telling us is this: Do not settle for being merely good... push on toward excellence! How do we achieve excellence? By focusing on opening doors to our community.
Focus on our students. The components of our mission statement say it best. St. Thomas students think critically because they are liberally educated. They act wisely because they have been enriched by an environment that respects the role of faith in modern life. They work skillfully to advance the common good because they have received a first-rate professional education. We must build up our endowment – especially for scholarship funds – so that students of all socio-economic groups, all walks of life, all races and, indeed, all nations, can have access to the St. Thomas experience.
Focus on our faculty and on strengthening our tradition of being an outstanding teaching university. Excellence in teaching includes an emphasis on active, inquiry-based learning, on service and community learning, and on faculty research that fosters student learning. To enhance our excellence in teaching we need to continue to attract the best faculty. Faculty whose scholarship and personal attention to our students change lives!
Focus on our staff, which provides the wide spectrum of services that make possible the enviable student experience at St. Thomas. The dedication of those employees to our students must be matched by the dedication of the university to them.
Focus on parents of our students, who, more and more, are stepping up to serve the St. Thomas community through their involvement with students, prospective students and their families, and alumni. Their financial support as well, through both tuition and gifts to the university, is exceptional.
Focus on renewing our campuses for the benefit of students and the St. Thomas community, the surrounding neighborhood, the Twin Cities, the region and, in fact, the world.
Focus on the fundamentals of the St. Thomas experience and delivering an education of unquestionable excellence, rooted in the Catholic faith, to students from a wide variety of backgrounds. Our goal is to live out what our advertising tagline promises: Challenge Yourself Change Our World.
This is the message I hear from our supporters, our alumni and friends, our campus community members. It is what I believe as well. If we accept these challenges and harness, through the Opening Doors campaign, the wonderful momentum our benefactors have given us, I have faith that, soon, we will be recognized nationally as a truly excellent Catholic university. It is really up to us, working together.
I have embraced this challenge; join me, and be an opener of doors!
Rev. Dennis Dease
President