Spotlight On: David Armstrong, President, St. Thomas University

Spotlight On: David Armstrong, President, St. Thomas University

2023-01-30T12:54:24-05:00January 30th, 2023|Education, Miami, Spotlight On|

2 min read January 2023 Miami’s St. Thomas University is in its fourth year of record expansion. Invest: spoke to David Armstrong, president of the university, about higher education as an investment, the importance of academic experience and providing students real-world working experiences. 

What were some of the highlights and achievements for the university since the last time we spoke?

We started this academic year with a fourth straight year of record undergraduate enrollment. Since I started in 2018, we have added over 400,000 square feet of new buildings. This includes a 300-bed residence hall. We recently opened our new building that houses a new dining facility and student union. That’s been exciting for the students. We are also constructing a second turf athletic field, with an Olympic-sized track, one of only two in the region.

What are some of the biggest opportunities for the higher education sector?

We in higher education have not done a good job of explaining our capability to provide a return on investment. With inflation and the economy as they are, people can only stretch dollars so far. We opened a 300-bed residence hall, but some students still need housing. Because of the cost of living, they are finding it’s inexpensive to live on campus with a meal plan, and they can afford to live in Miami. We’re looking at growing our residences in the next few years. I think people should understand the value of higher education. The second part of it is, we’re not getting much help from the media or politicians. People have been talking a lot about free college and paying off student debt, and that’s not good. It’s not good for our country. Individuals think it’s good, but it’s not. Nothing is free. Anything of value is not free. We see how we treat public K-12 education. I think there’s a lot of this attitude that someone else will pay the bill. That’s not a good American ideal. We are transparent with our students and tell them we are going to prepare them for the real world, and the real world is where you have to earn your way. 

How do you analyze the progress that has been made to make higher education more cost-effective?

The problem is that the media and politicians only look at the sticker price. Tuition discounts have risen along with the sticker price of the school. We need to look at the out-of-pocket expense. On average, students around the country that get a four-year degree from a private institution leave school with just under $20,000 worth of student loan debt. That’s cheaper than the cheapest car you can buy, but that’s not what you see in the media or what the politicians say. They always talk about this fictional person who owes $250,000 of student debt that works at Starbucks. No one’s ever shown me who that person is yet, but everyone writes about them. The reality is higher education is still the best investment anyone can make.

What are students looking for, or expecting, when they walk through your doors?

We are very clear about that. Gallup did a study, and they said only 2% of college and university graduates had a “magical” experience. They had six items that defined a “magical” experience, and they know that at smaller, faith-based, liberal arts institutions, the rate of students who achieve that is higher. It can be summarized in three points. One, they have mentoring faculty who challenge them academically. That is key, with small classes that you have access to the faculty and challenging academics like term papers, research, etc. Two, they have experiences outside of the classroom. They have co-curricular and extracurricular activities that are “character formation activities” for a college career. Third, students get real-world experience before they graduate. It makes them more employable. 

Are you making any changes in the curriculum to ensure that students are prepared when they leave?

We are constantly looking at curriculum, we are constantly making sure that our students are balanced and that they get a return on their investment. Our strategic plan at St. Thomas University is “STU Limitless – Limitless Devotion, Limitless Opportunities, Limitless Results.” Limitless Devotion: we are an archdiocesan Catholic university, we are values-based. We are about faith formation. Our students become ethical leaders for life, that’s in our mission statement. We are infusing our Ethical Leadership Studies program, which offers a degree at the bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral levels, we’re infusing that in all our programs, so that from a Catholic, faith-based perspective, our students will become ethical leaders that can make ethical judgements with integrity. That’s being infused in all our work. Second, Limitless Opportunities: opportunity, academically, co- and extracurricular. We’re going to create as many opportunities for our students to grow while they’re here, as we educate their minds, bodies, and spirits. The last goal, Limitless Results: We as an educational institution cannot live on deficits. We have to create surpluses at our core function. We have to give students a return on their investment, that they and the investment they and their families made, that those students can find a career and learn how to live a life. A job is not enough – we need great citizens, for our country and for the global community. We want to provide a transformational experience so that those students can change their lives and the lives of their families and generations to come. 

What are the main challenges St. Thomas University is facing, and how does it relate to what we’re seeing in the wider education sector?

For us it’s a different problem than other people have. I say that when I come into an institution, my job is to create good problems. No beds, no parking, no desks, no classroom space. That’s what we do, we grow. Right now, capacity is our issue. I need money to build buildings, residence halls, and parking garages. That’s our issue, because of our growth, I need more capacity. That’s a good problem to have. Whereas in a lot of places in the country they’re shutting down residence halls or parts of the campus, we’re just the opposite. The second problem that the world is facing is employee shortage. Whether it’s the Great Resignation, or “quiet quitting,” people don’t want to work. We need workers, we have a ton of students here and we want to provide them a great service. Finding people at a decent rate has been very difficult. For the employee, it’s a phenomenal opportunity. For the employer, we used to think it was just our issue, but it’s everyone’s issue. What’s happening is that people are paying higher salaries for less experienced people. That is unsustainable and it’s going to crash on us. It’s unsustainable. Some people aren’t going to like what I said, but that’s the truth of the matter. Smaller faith-based institutions were founded on the backs of nuns and priests, the religious who did it for free. We can’t have people do it for free anymore, but we can’t pay what large state universities pay. We have to be smart, and one of our advantages is that we have 1600 full-time undergraduate students. We can be innovative with them and give them opportunities to earn money through student employment and allow the experiential learning requirement to be on-campus. We have an advantage over others in the economic landscape, we can home-grow our talent, our future workforce. 

What is your outlook for the education sector overall over the next two to three years?

I think that we are buyers, not sellers. In a lot of areas of the country they are having more issues than we are. We’ve had so much population growth because of COVID, because of the wonderful political decisions of the Governor and his team. This morning I was at a Beacon Council event where 57 new companies came to Miami. You’re not seeing that in other places, people are leaving those states because they have not allowed businesses to stay open and they’ve destroyed families and lives by closing businesses. We attracted so many businesses and so many people. Now the question is housing costs and that goes back to one of the issues. Housing costs have skyrocketed because so many companies have decided to move to Florida. That’s a good problem to have.

For more information, visit: 

https://www.stu.edu/ 

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