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In the nineteenth episode of the second season of the “Saturdays at Seven” conversation series, Todd Ream talks with Donna Carroll, President of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities (ACCU). Carroll opens by discussing how the student bodies served by Catholic colleges and universities have grown more ethnically diverse and the ways those student bodies reflect the ethnic diversity of the Catholic Church. Drawing upon insights she accumulated while serving as president of Dominican University for twenty-seven years, Carroll details how she and her colleagues adjusted their engagement with their changing student body, the ways they sought to engage the parents of those students, and the ways they built bridges with the parishes those families called home. Ream then asks Carroll to share what her long-standing tenure as Dominican’s president allows her to offer presidents with whom she now consults on a daily basis as president of the ACCU. While financial and strategic plans prove important, a large part of what Carroll indicates she strove to offer at Dominican and now seeks to offer when working with various presidents is attunement to mission. The conversation then closes with Carroll offering details concerning her assessment of the relationship shared by Catholic colleges and universities and how that relationship can be strengthened in the coming years.
Todd Ream: Welcome to Saturdays at Seven, Christian Scholar’s Review’s conversation series with thought leaders about the academic vocation and the relationship that vocation shares with the Church. My name is Todd Ream. I have the privilege of serving as the publisher for Christian Scholar’s Review and as the host for Saturdays at Seven. I also have the privilege of serving on the faculty and the administration at Indiana Wesleyan University.
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Our guest is Donna Carroll, President of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities. Thank you for joining us.
Donna Carroll: Thank you, Todd, for inviting me.
Todd Ream: Before your appointment as president of the Association for Catholic Colleges and Universities and your interim appointment as president of North Central College, you served as president of Dominican University for almost three decades. Over the course of your tenure at Dominican, the composition of the student population in the United States changed in a variety of ways. In what ways, if any, did you witness those changes at Dominican?
Donna Carroll: Well, Dominican became a Hispanic serving institution in 2011, so that was the most significant demographic shift. The Dominicans have always educated the student in front of them, and as the Catholic Church became increasingly Latino in demographics, so was the college, and by 2021, when I retired as president, we were almost 65% Hispanic. So that was the most significant demographic, again, aligned with the Church.
Todd Ream: In what ways, if any, did you and your colleagues then need to rethink how you understood students and engaged with them and their stories in terms of how they encountered their education?
Donna Carroll: The shift in demographic really called for a shift in culture on campus. That we really had to rethink how to be culturally responsible in the classroom and in the co-curriculum so that we were responding to the particular background and interest and family dynamic of our students. You know, one of the significant shifts particularly in recruitment, but also in how we worked with students was, was working with the family in addition to the individual student, that the Latino family was collectively part of the academic experience of the individual student.
And then also working with the parish from which they came. Because one of the dynamics that we came to understand is so many of our students were anchored very deeply in their local parish. And so, in addition to providing a faith-life for them on campus, we needed to integrate that faith-life with what was already an important relationship that they brought with them from their local community.
Todd Ream: In what ways beyond increasing interaction with families and parish communities and parish leaders did you and your colleagues align resources or pedagogical opportunities in co-curricular and curricular spaces?
Donna Carroll: It was part of that, the changing dynamic and curriculums in general. The curriculum needed to change to be more reflective of the experience of the student in the classroom. And that was not only our Latino students, but the diversity of our students in general. And so that was an iterative process where as we started to welcome students from different backgrounds into the campus, we then, as a faculty, needed to reflect their experience in the curriculum.
Outside the curriculum, university ministry was particularly significant because it played a central role in assuring that students were welcomed and they had a sense of belonging. In fact, Dominican created an internship program with the local community that now has a national recognition for working with Latino students in their local communities and bringing that experience back into campus.
I guess the other piece I would say, which, you know, probably is assumed, but it needs to be said, language is significant. Most of our families, although were immigrant families and still are immigrant families, and although the students was a heritage speaker but spoke English, it was important for our support systems, particularly those that welcome students initially, enrollment, financial aid, student advising, to have some bilingual capacity. And so we worked very hard to assure that that was possible.
Todd Ream: Thank you. Backing out now then, and looking at the landscape as a whole across Church-related higher education, in what ways, if any, is the student population that these colleges and universities are serving now perhaps more reflective of the ecclesiology and composition of the Church than perhaps was the case in previous generations?
Donna Carroll: Catholic education, like our world, is seeing this, this splitting between the haves and the have nots. And so our commitment as Catholics to educating the poor, in particular, is more and more prominent in many of our Catholic institutions.
And I think at Dominican, that was very much the case. We were over 50% Pell eligible. So many of our students were immigrant students, who really reflected the Catholic Church’s commitment to access and opportunity for those on the margins.
Todd Ream: Thank you. Last question along these lines then is, in what ways, if any, is the student body Church-related colleges and universities are serving today perhaps realigning the relationship that the colleges and universities themselves share with the Church?
You mentioned the relationship that these students shared with their parish and how that then drew the institution, being Dominican in the case you were referencing, back toward those parishes and fostering those relationships. Are you seeing a realigning then of the relationship or additional lines perhaps of relationships being formed?
Donna Carroll: I think in, in the case of the Latino student, the Hispanic serving institution, we really are seeing a stronger sense of Church and a more active participation in parish life. And the challenge for the institution to really be cognizant of how culture plays into church life for so many of our students.
So I think it challenged Dominican, as I mentioned earlier, to rethink university ministry, to make ministry more culturally responsive. And then that modeled culturally responsive behavior out into student affairs and into other areas of the institution, to assure that, that students were experiencing a familiar sense of their church.
And I think that, I actually think that was a wonderful experience for all of our students to realize that that global Church had many things in common, but then distinctive characteristics depending upon your background and culture.
Todd Ream: Thank you. I want to transition now to asking a couple of biographical questions, if I may. You’re originally from the Northeast, earned an undergraduate degree from Wellesley and graduate degrees from the University of Cincinnati. At what point did you discern you were called to serve in higher education, and perhaps in particular, spend the majority of your career serving Catholic higher education?
Donna Carroll: A great deal of it had to do with the mentors I had. And as, as I look back on it as an undergraduate student I had a strong mentor in student affairs and, and actually I finished my college coursework a semester early and followed my director of student activities to BU to do a semester of, of graduate education while I was waiting to, to get my undergraduate degree. So that’s how it initially happened.
And I came into higher ed through the student affairs route, I’m a counseling psychologist by training and literally saw the lifestyle through the experience of my mentors. How I got into, back into, I should say, Catholic education was, was serendipitous. I had been in a small college. I’d started out in student affairs, but I’d expanded my portfolio. I’d become the dean of the college. I became a senior vice president. And then I was trying to decide what to do next and fit is important. And so I made the decision that I would shop again for student affairs positions, but in larger institutions.
And I ended up at Fordham, but I didn’t get the student affairs position. I got in fact that’s a long story, but I came to Fordham as the secretary of the university. And it felt so welcoming and familiar to be in Catholic higher education, more so than I had anticipated that, you know, that sense of belonging that I really didn’t fully understand was missing in other experiences.
But once I came to understand again, how mission created a framework for everything that you did and, and the stories you told and how you shaped strategy, it just became a significant piece of my career and what I look for in a satisfying position. And so once in, never out.
Todd Ream: As secretary of the university at Fordham, did you work then in the president’s office as the primary liaison to the board?
Donna Carroll: I did. I did. And truthfully, that board work early on has been instrumental now in my current position, because I’m realizing that one of the factors that so many presidents need to focus on or come to the position not having had much experience is board work.
And so I look back on that early experience and say that that was an important experience for me in my presidency, having had that exposure and it’s an important conversation for me with other presidents about how to navigate boards, how to work with chairs, how to provide the development necessary to assure a board is, has the capacity to be supportive of a president right now during, you know, challenging times.
Todd Ream: Thank you. As Dominican’s first lay president, what unique opportunities did you encounter?
Donna Carroll: I always say, and I say this sincerely, that it was a privilege to be the president of Dominican every day for 27 years. It wasn’t easy every day but I felt that I was doing good work in the service of a mission surrounded by a community of women that were actually really instrumental in my adult faith formation. That in itself was an opportunity.
I found as the first lay president that intentionality was important, that you know, I used to always joke with the sisters and say, we’re not going to be less Catholic or Dominican on my watch because I’m the first lay president. So the opportunity to take what was a thriving and deeply mission-centered institution and put language around it and put a deliberate strategic frame to it, was important.
And I think it’s one of the opportunities and challenges for every first lay president to, to really assure that, that you can articulate that mission clearly, that you’re able to work with faculty and staff to assure that it’s preserved and that it’s thriving.
Todd Ream: In what ways then did you familiarize yourself with the Dominican charisms and how they brought to life the university?
Donna Carroll: The president who preceded me, Sister Jean Murray, on my first day, picked me up in her car and drove me up to the motherhouse. So I spent the first three days of my presidency immersed in the community and the charism of the sisters. And that sense of welcome. You know, of hospitality, I’d say, you know, we would now say radical hospitality was significant.
I was different, you know, at that point there were over 1,200 Sinsinawa Dominicans. And as one sister said to me, you know, affectionately, now your skirts were a little shorter and your heels were a little higher than we were used to.
But there was a loving sense of community there and a deep sense of mission that you had to embrace. I mean, it embraced you and you embraced it. And it was grounded in some very important stories of the lives of some of these really outstanding sisters, the contributions they made, the courage they demonstrated. And so my initial formation was feet on the ground in the community.
I took the time to be in conversation with sisters, to run many of my ideas by particular sisters that I respected to assure that they were shaped in the context of mission.
There was one particular sister who at the time was up at the motherhouse, the villa, and I used to write annually. I’m a writer, so I would write, you know, messages to the community, to the alums and the like, and she would always read them. She would periodically correct my grammar, but she would also in lovely ways say, “Now Donna, let me, let me give you an alternative way of encapsulating this particular.” And so in a loving but instructive way, I truly benefited from having those sisters in my space.
And, truthfully, I worry, at times, that the lay presidents today have less of that advantage. I mean, I didn’t have many. But on campus, in the larger community they were my cheerleaders. You know, that sense of isolation that presidents sometimes talk about, I never felt, because they were, you know, they created this community around me that I might not have described it this way, but was an emotional safety net.
And I describe it that way now because I’m a trustee of the Dominican’s first public juridic person a Dominican Veritas Ministries. And I realize now that I’m the safety net for presidents across the country. What a difference that is, you know, in terms of penultimate responsibility for a mission.
Todd Ream: Thank you. And it comes with 30 years plus years of experience in that regard too.
Donna Carroll: It does. And a deep, deep affection for the charisms, the mission of the sisters.
Todd Ream: Thank you. You mentioned the importance of enhancing the mission during your time at Dominican and communicating that that was a priority. Can you offer some examples in terms of how you sought to weave those charisms into the campuses’ cultural fabric, and perhaps ways the curricular and the co-curricular not only operated but interacted and we’re integrated?
Donna Carroll: I do think that one of the, the motto of Dominican was caritas veritas, Truth and Love. And the understanding that the two were aligned and so that the student experience was academically excellent, but it was also provided in the context of a supportive, caring, very personalized experience. And so I do think that Dominican provided that.
I think that we hired people who believed in that. You know, believe in character, the character formation of students that is both an academic pursuit, but also an experiential element, there’s also an experiential element. And so the two needed to work together.
I do think there are, you know, the Catholic Dominican mix, you know, there are symbolic things. You know, I think if you walked into our campus, you would know it was Catholic and Dominican. You would see the mission on, on the wall. You would ideally, and it was a short mission statement, you could walk down the hallway and ask a student or a faculty member, and most could tell you what the mission was. And I think that was powerful.
One of the questions I often get asked is, how did you stay for 27 years? And part of that was what I mentioned earlier. I was blessed with a good fit, alignment between what was important to me and the mission of the institution and a community that had a disposition of care that aligned with what was important to me. I look back on it and, and the evidence of fit was in simple things that sort of became iconic. And I’ll give you two examples.
I tell this story and it horrifies many of my colleague presidents. At the end of my opening welcome for new students and parents every year, I gave them my home phone number. Now it was rarely, you know, people, people gasp, when I did that at North Central College, the faculty were all behind me and I heard the visible gasp.
But it was rarely misused. And parents and students, particularly parents that, you know, the first generation student, left that room with that phone number on their phone or in their pocket. And they had a sense of the institution’s commitment to care for their son or daughter.
Another example, and this is, you know, I’m a former student affairs person, you know, I like to know who’s dating who and what’s going on. So my office was right in the front foyer, and I left the doors open. And when people came in, you know, faculty would poke their head in, students would poke their head in and my perspective was, if I wasn’t in a meeting, the most important thing for me was my relationship with faculty, staff, and students.
And so, I fit the administrative work in around those relationships. So students’ ability to pop in and sit down and, you know, sometimes they even told me wonderful things going on. Or, you know, or concerns that they had that in hindsight, as people describe my presidency to me, those are two examples of things that stuck. And when they talk about them, they say, these are examples that aligned with the mission of the institution.
Todd Ream: That’s great. Thank you. I want to ask you now about those president colleagues with whom you work now and how you’ve come to understand conceptually, the responsibilities that they inherit when they assume such a role. How have you come to understand the characteristics that define the academic vocation as it’s expressed by university presidents? What are some of those characteristics or qualities that you think are most important for people to understand or with which to grapple when they consider accepting some employment and then exercising it?
Donna Carroll: You know, I’m going to go back to my relationship with students and, and the importance of being student-centered. So when I work with students around leadership, I have a recipe that I really think also answers your question. And I said my recipe for leadership Dominican style, let me see if I can remember it. One part skills, two parts disposition, add perseverance as necessary, sift out ego and sprinkle liberally with joy.
The successful president has found meaning in the role that is significantly beyond a balanced budget or a good strategic plan. That, you know, when the going gets tough, you have to know why you’re in the role. You know, for me, it was always about that transformative possibility of student learning and it’s not about you.
One of the fascinating dynamics about reaching the role of a president is you have worked your way up the ranks and then you get there and you realize it’s not about you. It’s about the people you serve and it’s about finding that alignment between what is meaningful to you and important for the institution and anchoring yourself in that understanding. You know, and as I said in my little recipe, and making sure that the hubris of the role doesn’t get in the way of the service to the communities.
Todd Ream: Yeah. Along those lines then, would you highlight a couple of virtues that you think are important for presidents to cultivate? And then as you were just echoing against what vices should presidents be vigilant?
Donna Carroll: Well, I always say that a president needs to have a special relationship with hope and forgiveness. I do have a former chair who would say to me often, Donna, you can’t take hope to the bank, a practical element of it.
But I really do feel that as a president, you have to be able to see the opportunity beyond the obstacle. You have to live in the role with an optimistic spirit. You know, and not without realism, but you have to be able to feel such confidence in the institution that in those dark moments, you still see opportunity.
And then you have to be able to differentiate between the inevitable things that come out at you because of the leadership role you’re in and what is personal. You know, I’m not saying forget, but I am saying that unless you can forgive the bad actors or the dark moments and move forward, you’re not able to lead the institution. So that that yin yang between hope and forgiveness are essential elements or virtues in thriving as a president.
Vices you know, I mentioned it earlier, I mean, I think these are very privileged roles. They give you enormous personal opportunity. They give you a voice. They give you influence. I was about to say power, but influence. You have to manage the selfish nature of this, you know, the biggest bad actor in a president’s life is ego because then you lose sight of the fact that it’s a very humbling role.
To do it effectively, you’re constantly learning new things. You’re constantly in situations where you need to partner with other colleagues in order to arrive at the best solution for the institution. And if you’re not able to acknowledge that you don’t know it all or that you made a mistake and need to regroup then the authenticity of the role gets diminished.
And ultimately, the successful president lives authentically in the role not because she or he is perfect, but because they care deeply about the mission and are willing to work collaboratively with the campus for the common good of that campus.
Todd Ream: Thank you. As more Church-related colleges and universities are being led by laypersons, how can we best prepare those individuals to discern whether such a role may be one to which they are called and then prepare them accordingly?
Donna Carroll: I think there are a number of very good programs out there right now. ACCU runs one of them around discerning the presidency. None of these were there when I stepped into the role. So I know the value of, I run a number of them. I know the value of them. You know, because for many, for many new presidents, what you’re looking at is their disposition to do this work well, not necessarily the formation they’ve had. But, you know, particularly in the Church-related, the charismatic elements of the role.
So you can get some of that working with an aspiring president in conversations about mission, about vocation and discern, and then it’s the responsibility of the board, of the associations like ACCU, CIC, to provide opportunities for continuing formation.
You know, many in our Catholic world many of our presidents have spiritual advisors, who can help them, you know, shape their discernment in the context of mission. I was really blessed in having strong vice presidents for mission and ministry who really were my partners for shaping the narrative, for looking at challenging moments and decisions and making sure we were not only making a responsible decision, but it was a responsible decision in the context of mission.
Todd Ream: Thank you. In what ways can we prepare campuses, then, for leadership succession? Because inevitably, we hope, for long, and healthy tenures for our senior leaders, but there will be transition. And how do we best prepare campuses to experience that transition, to receive new leaders, and to grow in their missions?
Donna Carroll: I think one of the, one of the values of this transition in lay leadership is that it has shared the responsibility for mission. You know, once upon a time when, when your president was of the congregation that is sponsoring the institution, there was this feeling that we’re okay because she’s a Dominican, or he’s a Jesuit, and so mission is okay. I think that now we have seen more of an understanding of that down into the, into the community.
And, and one, and one of the one element of that is welcome and belonging. I think the challenge is that the narrative of an institution is a long term. And as we’re, as we’re seeing more and more short term presidents, institutions do get exhausted by the change.
You know, and, and so how, how we, how we manage that, I mean, I mean, I think one of the things we do as ACCU is, is really help to encourage longer service. But I also think it’s the extent to which an institution has a clarity of mission helps a new president coming in to be part of that mission.
But it, but it’s not, you know, the, the average tenure for president these days is 5.4 years, which would mean I served five presidencies in my years at Dominican. You know, so it’s different. It’s hard to grasp deeply a mission overnight that you, you can, you can understand the history, you can read the stories, you can express the mission, but you have to live into it to fully, experientially understand it. And that does take time and it takes good partners, you know, which is, you know, which is something we talked about before.
Todd Ream: Thank you. As our time begins to become short, I want to just ask a few questions about the relationship that Church-related colleges and universities share with the Church and the respective orders that in many cases sponsor these institutions and brought them into existence. In what ways do you believe the missional health of the institution, Church-related college and university, is related to the health of the relationship that it shares with those orders and or the larger Church?
Donna Carroll: Well, you said the important word, relationship, that we need to be in relationship with each other to provide the best and the most enriching context for Catholic education. As Catholic universities, we are a ministry of the Church.
You know, we’re not the parish, you know, we are in our Catholic intellectual tradition, we are the doctrine in conversation with the world. And in our scholarship, we are continually seeking the new truth about how our Catholic tradition lives and serves in current circumstances. So, you know, we’re partners.
I was reading a document the other day and I think, I think, I hope I’m remembering this appropriately. I think it was the Pope’s original quote, and I think it was Cardinal Cupich that was using it, talking about the Catholic university as the thinking heart of the Church. And I love that image because it, again, aligns with our disposition, our care for students and our commitment to academic excellence. And so the two aligned are what makes us distinct.
Todd Ream: When visiting a member institution then, what markers do you look for as expressions of the health that the Church-related university shares with the Church, and, perhaps in certain cases, also its sponsoring order?
Donna Carroll: I do think that ours is an intellectual tradition, and so I would start by looking at how the curriculum, even with the financial stresses of our day assures that the, that exposure to a liberal education that is integrative and fulsome and, and builds not only intellectual prowess, but the character that we espouse in our students so that, you know, they graduate with a sense of care for the world and a moral agency that we like to think is distinctive. So I, you know, I look for that. I look for that.
I look for a healthy sense of community. You know, I look for a mission-centered, student-focused approach to the educational setting. You know, and I look for a sense of sacrament and, and faith, that is both symbolic, but also in the activities and the and the programs that an institution offers that invite students into their faith tradition, that offer opportunities for interfaith dialogue.
You know, in our current time and place, you know, I think that, you know, faith-based institutions really should be on the forefront of collaborative activities— activities that suggest dialogue across differences, you know, so that we can model dialogue and civility a way that the world needs, you know, and maybe that our graduates can be leaders in that context.
Todd Ream: Thank you. For our last question today, I want to ask about as you have become accustomed to and assumed in more full sense your appointment now as the head of the Association for Catholic Colleges and Universities, what commitments have emerged as sort of your greatest priorities?
Donna Carroll: Well, I have spent over this, this onboarding period for myself, I’ve talked to over a hundred of our presidents for an hour a piece to ask precisely that question. And one of the things that has become clear to me is large institutions, small institutions, well-resourced, struggling, we are all concerned with the vitality of Catholic higher education and the importance of assuring that it’s accessible to students who want a Catholic education.
And having that dialogue, encouraging collaboration between institutions, so to assure that education is accessible, even in these, you know, challenging constraints, seems to be the number one priority.
Todd Ream: Thank you. Our guest has been Donna Carroll, President of the Association for Catholic Colleges and Universities. Thank you for taking time to share your insights and wisdom with us.
Donna Carroll: Thank you for inviting me, Todd. I enjoyed our conversation.
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Todd Ream: Thank you for joining us for Saturdays at Seven, Christian Scholar’s Review’s conversation series with thought leaders about the academic vocation and the relationship that vocation shares with the Church. We invite you to join us again next week for Saturdays at Seven.
