Tag: SmallColleges

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Small College America – St. Olaf College

Where Music, Science, Faith, and Vocation Meet

October 18, 2026, by Dean Hoke – Northfield, Minnesota, is an unusual American college town. With approximately 21,000 residents, it is home to two nationally respected private liberal arts colleges: St. Olaf College and Carleton College. Together, they enroll more than 5,000 students. Yet their proximity is only part of the story: communities with distinctly different religious and cultural traditions founded the two institutions eight years apart.

Carleton was established in 1866 by Congregationalists with New England roots. In 1874, Norwegian Lutherans sought to establish their own school. Northfield’s citizens welcomed the proposal. At public meetings that October, residents pledged $5,400 to help bring the school to town, including $2,000 from merchant Harald Thorson. The new institution opened in January 1875 with 37 students in a former public-school building. A Carleton student attended the opening—a small sign of the intertwined histories to come.

Over time, St. Olaf and Carleton developed into nationally respected liberal arts colleges, each with its own traditions and institutional identity. Their athletic rivalry became part of Northfield’s culture, but so did an increasingly practical willingness to cooperate. That relationship remains a distinctive feature of this small Minnesota community.

For St. Olaf, those modest beginnings were the foundation of something its Norwegian Lutheran founders could scarcely have imagined. What began as a school of 37 students has grown into a nationally respected liberal arts college enrolling more than 3,000 undergraduates. Its Lutheran heritage and celebrated musical traditions remain central to its identity, but they tell only part of the story. St. Olaf has also built an impressive record in the sciences, international education, and student achievement, showing how an institution rooted in tradition can evolve without losing its sense of purpose.

From Norwegian Immigrants to a National Liberal Arts College

St. Olaf grew from its origins as a Norwegian Lutheran school into a nationally recognized liberal arts college. Its founders sought to prepare young people for leadership and service while sustaining a cultural and religious community. The college moved to Manitou Heights, known locally as the Hill, in 1878. Its setting above Northfield became part of the institution’s identity, even as its educational reach expanded far beyond Minnesota.

Northfield’s two-college identity gives St. Olaf a distinctive setting: a residential liberal arts campus on Manitou Heights, within a small city shaped by two independent institutions. Their contemporary partnership, explored later in this profile, reflects that history.

Enrollment: A Stable College with a Broad Recruiting Market

For small private colleges, academic reputation matters, but enrollment is often the most immediate measure of institutional sustainability. St. Olaf’s enrollment record stands out for its consistency.

St. Olaf enrolled 3,114 students in fall 2025, up from about 3,046 in 2015. Enrollment has stayed near 3,000 over the past decade, with some variation during and after the pandemic.

First-year applications increased from 5,524 in 2022 to 7,521 in 2026, an increase of approximately 36 percent. Over the same period, the admission rate declined from approximately 56 percent to 41 percent. St. Olaf enrolled 840 new first-year students in fall 2026.

Approximately 45 percent of the newest entering class came from Minnesota, while the remaining 55 percent came from other states or countries. The class represented 44 states. International students account for approximately 10 percent of total enrollment, although the number of new international students has declined in recent entering classes.

The broader enrollment picture is one of relative consistency rather than contraction. That matters for a residential educational model in which campus life, housing, and extracurricular participation are closely connected.

Student Success: Retention and Completion

St. Olaf’s student-success measures are among its strongest institutional indicators. First-year retention has generally ranged from 90 to 94 percent. Among students who entered in fall 2024, 93.6 percent returned in fall 2025. (See retention chart.)

Its six-year graduation rates have generally been in the low- to mid-80-percent range, substantially above the broad national average for private nonprofit four-year institutions.

There are differences among student populations. For the 2019 entering cohort, the six-year graduation rate was approximately 80.7 percent for Pell Grant recipients, compared with 85.3 percent for students receiving neither Pell Grants nor federal subsidized loans. That difference deserves attention even though both figures compare favorably with broad national benchmarks.

Among Class of 2025 graduates, St. Olaf reported that 95 percent with known outcomes were employed, continuing their education, or participating in full-time service within seven months of graduation. The college reported outcomes information for approximately 90 percent of the class.

Taken together, retention, graduation, and early career outcomes suggest that most St. Olaf students make steady progress toward their degrees and next steps.

Lutheran Heritage, Contemporary Mission

Founded by Norwegian Lutheran immigrants, St. Olaf has maintained a strong connection to its religious heritage while welcoming students from a broad range of faiths and backgrounds. Today, about 15 percent of entering students identify as Lutheran, reflecting the changing religious composition of American higher education. More importantly, the college continues to incorporate its founding philosophy into its educational mission.

St. Olaf’s mission statement declares: “St. Olaf College challenges students to excel in the liberal arts, examine faith and values, and explore meaningful vocation in an inclusive, globally engaged community nourished by Lutheran tradition.”

The college gives that commitment substance through its academic curriculum. Students pursuing the Bachelor of Arts degree must complete general education requirements in Religion, Faith, and Values; Christian Theology in Dialogue; and Ethical Reasoning in Context. These courses encourage students to examine religious traditions, consider different perspectives, and engage with moral and philosophical questions. The emphasis is not on religious conformity but on developing the intellectual tools to understand faith, values, and human responsibility.

Central to this philosophy is the Lutheran concept of vocation. At St. Olaf, vocation means more than preparing for employment or choosing a profession. It asks students to consider how their knowledge, talents, and responsibilities can contribute to their communities and the broader world. This understanding extends naturally into the college’s emphasis on service, civic engagement, and international education.

The commitment is also evident in St. Olaf’s 2024–2030 strategic plan, Solution Seekers, which identifies elevating vocation, expanding innovation, and sustaining the community as its principal goals. The plan reinforces the idea that academic excellence and preparation for meaningful lives are closely connected.

The college’s Lutheran heritage remains visible in its attention to faith, ethics, and vocation, even as its curriculum and student body reflect a wider range of perspectives.

Academics: More Than a College Known for Music

Music is central to St. Olaf’s public identity, but its record of preparing students who eventually earn research doctorates reveals an equally important academic strength.

According to the National Science Foundation’s Survey of Earned Doctorates, 314 St. Olaf alumni earned research doctorates between 2020 and 2024. By total number, the college ranked sixth among comparable baccalaureate arts and sciences institutions, placing it alongside Oberlin, Carleton, Swarthmore, Williams, and other nationally recognized liberal arts colleges.

For 2015–2024, St. Olaf ranked second among comparable liberal arts colleges in the number of alumni earning doctorates in biological and biomedical sciences, third in chemistry, and third in mathematics and statistics. These rankings measure former undergraduates who later earned doctorates, not degrees awarded by St. Olaf; they are not adjusted for undergraduate enrollment.

Mathematics, biology, and chemistry are prominent fields, alongside economics and psychology. The instructional model is also relatively personal: in 2025–26, St. Olaf reported an 11.3-to-1 student-faculty ratio and 237 full-time instructional faculty. These figures help explain the capacity for faculty-guided research, although they are not, by themselves, measures of teaching quality.

Students have access to Regents Hall of Natural and Mathematical Sciences, a major academic facility that opened in 2008. The approximately $64 million building provides laboratories, classrooms, and interdisciplinary learning spaces and received LEED Platinum certification.

Through the Collaborative Undergraduate Research and Inquiry program, students work with faculty on projects in the natural sciences, social sciences, and humanities. During summer 2025, 82 students collaborated with 30 faculty and staff members.

This environment provides important context for President Susan Rundell Singer’s 2023 appointment. A biologist, Singer previously directed the National Science Foundation’s Division of Undergraduate Education and spent approximately three decades on the faculty at nearby Carleton College before becoming provost at Rollins College. She inherited a strong scientific tradition rather than one needing to be created from scratch.

That scientific record complicates the familiar picture of St. Olaf as primarily a music college. Its students can combine serious study in the sciences with performance, research, and other campus activities.

Music: A Tradition with Unusual Reach

In 1912, F. Melius Christiansen, founder of St. Olaf’s music department, organized a Christmas musical program for the college community. What began as a local event became a defining feature of the institution.

More than a century later, the St. Olaf Christmas Festival brings together over 500 student musicians from five choirs and the college orchestra. The annual celebration combines sacred music, orchestral performance, and the traditions of Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany. The festival reaches audiences beyond campus through performances, recordings, and broadcasts.

Yet the Christmas Festival represents only part of the college’s musical life. St. Olaf maintains choirs, orchestras, bands, jazz ensembles, and other performance opportunities. More than 1,000 students participate in its musical ensembles, a remarkable level of involvement for a college of approximately 3,100 undergraduates.

The St. Olaf Choir, established by Christiansen, is internationally recognized for its choral tradition. Its longtime conductor, Anton Armstrong, a 1978 graduate, has directed the ensemble since 1990.

Music extends well beyond the music major, which accounted for approximately 5 percent of declared majors in 2023–24. More than 1,000 students participate in ensembles, including those pursuing medicine, mathematics, business, and education.

Athletics and the Broadly Engaged Student

St. Olaf competes in NCAA Division III as a member of the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. Its teams are known as the Oles.

Nearly 600 St. Olaf undergraduates participate in the college’s 26 varsity sports. Club and intramural programs extend athletic opportunities to an even broader segment of the student body.

The scale of participation in athletics and music illustrates the range of experiences available alongside academic study.

International Education: Learning Beyond Northfield

Approximately 70 percent of St. Olaf’s Class of 2025 participated in study abroad or study away during their undergraduate years—an unusually extensive commitment to learning beyond campus. The Institute of International Education’s 2025 Open Doors ranked St. Olaf second nationally among baccalaureate colleges by the number of students studying abroad in 2023–24. The two measures differ: the class participation figure includes domestic study away, while Open Doors counts international study.

International experiences are supported through the Smith Center for Global Engagement. The college has received major philanthropic support from Louis and Mary Kay Smith, whose international experiences helped shape their interest in global education. A $20 million gift announced in 2026 followed earlier support for study abroad and international music touring.

Beginning in 2027, St. Olaf plans to offer qualifying semester-long study abroad programs at the same institutional cost as studying on campus, reducing a potential financial barrier to participation.

Philanthropy has also supported a clearly defined academic priority in international education. St. Olaf’s unusually high participation and national Open Doors distinction make it one of the college’s most consequential strengths.

Financial Strength and the Cost of the Model

At the end of fiscal year 2025, St. Olaf’s endowment stood at approximately $863.9 million, up from $711.7 million two years earlier. Total net assets exceeded $1 billion.

The college’s financial strength reflects generations of philanthropic support, investment returns, and institutional planning. The For the Hill and Beyond campaign, completed in 2020, raised approximately $252 million in commitments against a $200 million goal, including substantial support for endowed scholarships.

The financial story, however, is more complicated than the size of the endowment suggests. Audited statements report approximately $154.7 million in operating revenue and support and $155.1 million in operating expenses for FY2025, a modest deficit of about $360,000. FY2024 produced a small operating surplus. These narrow annual margins illustrate the ongoing cost of sustaining a residential liberal arts college, even one with considerable accumulated resources.

Endowment distributions totaled about $33.1 million in FY2025, or 21.4 percent of reported operating revenue and support. Such distributions are a planned component of the operating model rather than evidence of distress. They do, however, underscore the importance of investment returns, disciplined spending policies, and donor restrictions on endowed funds.

For 2026–27, St. Olaf’s published comprehensive fee—tuition, housing, meals, and student activity charges—is approximately $81,200. Most students pay less after financial aid. According to the U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard, the average net price for first-time, full-time undergraduates receiving federal Title IV aid was approximately $23,874 in 2023–24; an individual family’s cost varies.

The difference between the published price and the revenue St. Olaf actually collects is substantial. In FY2025, approximately $138.5 million in scholarships and grants reduced $226.6 million in combined tuition, room, and board charges to about $88.0 million in net revenue. Scholarship assistance thus offset about 61 percent of those combined charges, compared with about 59 percent the previous year. This is not a NACUBO-equivalent tuition discount rate, because the charges include housing and meals. Net revenue from tuition, room, and board increased modestly from $85.7 million in FY2024, even as scholarship commitments grew. The figures show both the extent of student assistance and the resources required to maintain St. Olaf’s educational model.

Collaboration Across the Cannon

St. Olaf and Carleton are two respected, well-resourced liberal arts colleges sharing one small Minnesota community. They have different histories, traditions, and institutional identities, and they compete for students, faculty, philanthropic support, and football victories. Yet their relationship also shows that competition need not prevent meaningful cooperation.

Their libraries began collaborating in 2003 through a cross-library borrowing system. A $1.4 million Andrew W. Mellon Foundation grant awarded in 2013 expanded their work in library services, academic programs, and information technology. The partnership has included shared library systems and staffing arrangements, collaborative courses, and jointly supported information-security and environmental health and safety functions.

The collaboration remains active. St. Olaf’s 2024–2030 strategic plan identifies Carleton and the City of Northfield as partners in shared sustainability goals. The colleges also share the Campus-Go shuttle service, which helps students reach appointments, volunteer opportunities, and jobs in Northfield and nearby Dundas. Northfield’s own long-range plan identifies stronger relationships with both colleges as a community priority.

There are limits: admissions and fundraising remain independent, and the colleges have not published comprehensive estimates of financial savings. But this is not a rescue arrangement. Two strong institutions have chosen to share selected capabilities while retaining the independence and traditions they value. For other small colleges, Northfield offers an encouraging example of cooperation that can serve students and the surrounding community without requiring a merger.

Leadership and Institutional Continuity

St. Olaf’s recent leadership history contrasts with institutions experiencing frequent presidential turnover. David R. Anderson, a 1974 St. Olaf graduate, served as president from 2006 until 2023. His 17-year tenure included major fundraising initiatives, campus investments, and continued efforts to build the college’s national reputation.

In June 2023, Susan Rundell Singer succeeded him as St. Olaf’s first woman president. Singer brought experience from Carleton College, the National Science Foundation, and Rollins College. The transition was planned well in advance, not prompted by an institutional emergency.

Singer’s administration introduced Solution Seekers, the strategic plan for 2024–2030, with priorities including vocation, innovation, and community sustainability.

Alumni: A Strong Network with Deep Minnesota Roots

St. Olaf reports an alumni network of more than 35,000 people. LinkedIn identifies approximately 28,700 profiles associated with the institution. Nearly half of those profiles are located in Minnesota, including approximately 13,400 in the Greater Minneapolis–St. Paul metropolitan area.

The college’s concentration of Minnesota alumni also provides a professional network for graduates seeking opportunities in the region.

The metropolitan area provides opportunities across healthcare, business, education, technology, finance, and nonprofit organizations. Employers represented among St. Olaf’s LinkedIn alumni include Mayo Clinic, the University of Minnesota, Target, and U.S. Bank.

Notable graduates illustrate the breadth of the college’s educational tradition. Ole E. Rølvaag (1905) became an influential Norwegian-American novelist and St. Olaf professor, and his novel Giants in the Earth explored immigrant life on the frontier. James Reeb (1950), a Unitarian Universalist minister and civil rights activist, was fatally attacked in Selma, Alabama, in 1965 while supporting voting rights.

Dean Buntrock (1955), founder and longtime leader of Waste Management, became one of St. Olaf’s most consequential benefactors; his family’s philanthropic commitments exceeded $66 million. He died in April 2026. Siri Hustvedt (1977) became an internationally recognized novelist and essayist exploring identity, psychology, memory, and science. Anton Armstrong (1978) returned to lead the St. Olaf Choir in 1990 and helped preserve its international reputation. Cheryl Willman (1977) became a prominent physician-scientist and cancer researcher.

These alumni represent literature, civil rights, business, music, and medical research—very different fields connected by a common undergraduate institution.

Beyond the Brochure: Jay Gatsby and the Hill

St. Olaf has an unexpected place in one of the best-known American novels. In F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby, the fictional Jay Gatsby attends St. Olaf for only two weeks before leaving, dissatisfied with his circumstances. The reference gives the college an unusual footnote in American literary history.

Northfield has an equally memorable story beyond the campus. On September 7, 1876, the James–Younger Gang attempted to rob the First National Bank. Townspeople resisted, and the robbery failed, though bank cashier Joseph Lee Heywood and resident Nicolaus Gustafson were killed. The episode remains part of the city’s identity through its annual Defeat of Jesse James Days celebration. On campus, generations of students have had their own rallying cry: the exuberant “Um! Yah! Yah!” cheer.

What St. Olaf Tells Us About Small Colleges

St. Olaf’s reputation for music and its Lutheran heritage tell only part of the story. Its record of preparing graduates for scientific research, its international education programs, and the breadth of student participation demonstrate how a small college can sustain more than one institutional strength.

The resources behind that breadth matter. Strong retention and graduation outcomes accompany substantial commitments to scholarships, academic facilities, and student opportunities. Endowment support makes those commitments possible, but it does not eliminate the need for careful financial choices.

For other small colleges, the lesson is not to replicate St. Olaf’s endowment or programs. It is to recognize which inherited strengths can serve contemporary educational purposes—and to understand the financial commitments required to sustain them.

In Northfield, two institutions have also demonstrated that preserving a distinctive identity need not rule out cooperation. St. Olaf’s experience suggests that a college’s traditions are most valuable when they open opportunities for students rather than limit what the institution can become.

About This Series

This profile is part of Small College America, an ongoing series of independently researched articles examining the history, distinctive characteristics, academic strengths, financial condition, and future prospects of private nonprofit colleges across the United States. The series is intended to inform college leaders, trustees, alumni, and others interested in the challenges and opportunities facing small colleges.

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Hope Is Not a Strategy: What’s Actually Working for Small Colleges

Editor’s Note By Dean Hoke: This winter, Small College America completed its most ambitious season yet—13 conversations with presidents, consultants, and association leaders who are navigating the most turbulent period in higher education history. What emerged wasn’t theory or wishful thinking. It was a working playbook of what’s actually succeeding on the ground. This article synthesizes the five insights that matter most.

When Hope Meets Reality

Jeff Selingo doesn’t mince words.

“Hope is not a strategy,” he said bluntly in Season 3 of Small College America.

Jeff Selingo, a Best Selling Author and higher education advisor, named what every small college leader knows but hates to admit: the old playbook is dead. The demographic cliff isn’t coming—it’s here. Traditional enrollment models are broken. And no amount of wishful thinking about “riding out the storm” will change that.

But here’s what surprised me across 13 conversations this season: nobody was sugarcoating reality, yet the conversations weren’t depressing.

They were energizing.

From Frank Shushok describing how Roanoke College built a K-12 lab school that creates a pipeline from kindergarten forward, to Teresa Parrott explaining why Grinnell took over a failing daycare center instead of issuing a mission statement about community engagement, from Gary Daynes doubling down on Salem College’s women’s mission when conventional wisdom said to go co-ed, to Kristen Soares navigating 2,500 California bills every legislative session—Season 3 captured something rare.

Leaders who have moved past denial and into action.

What emerged wasn’t abstract strategy consulting. It was concrete, operational intelligence from people doing the work. Here are the five insights that separate institutions that will thrive from those that won’t.

1. Stop Marketing, Start Building Pipelines

The traditional enrollment model—recruit high school seniors, get them to visit campus, send them glossy viewbooks, hope they choose you over 47 other colleges—is dead. Small colleges know this. But most are still acting like better marketing will solve it.

It won’t.

As Selingo pointed out, “At some point you have to come up with another segment of students if you’re tuition dependent because there just aren’t enough of those students to go around.”

Translation: You cannot market your way out of a demographic crisis.

The institutions seeing results aren’t the ones with slicker viewbooks or better social media strategies. They’re the ones building actual infrastructure for new student populations.

What does that look like in practice?

At Roanoke College, President Frank Shushok has approached enrollment not as a marketing problem, but as a pipeline design problem.

Roanoke’s lab school creates a K–12 pathway while simultaneously solving a community need. Students who attend the lab school encounter the college early, come to trust it, and see it as part of their educational journey long before senior year. That’s not recruitment—that’s ecosystem building.

The same logic shows up in Roanoke’s employer partnerships. The T-Mite Scholars program flips the traditional internship model: students complete two internships, receive a guaranteed job interview upon graduation, and receive tuition support from the employer. That’s not workforce development with a side of enrollment. That’s workforce development with enrollment as the byproduct.

This pipeline mindset also appears at scale in California, as described by Kristen Soares, President of the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities. California’s Associate Degree for Transfer (ADT) program creates guaranteed, transparent pathways from community colleges into four-year institutions—no credit games, no hidden requirements, no “we’ll evaluate your transcript and get back to you.” Just clear bridges that actually work for the students who need them most.

Notice what these examples have in common: they aren’t marketing campaigns. They are operational partnerships designed to reduce friction and create consistent flows of students.

As Shushok observed, “I think what you’re starting to see is some incredibly creative, adaptive, and agile institutions—because it requires a level of courage and resilience and tenacity.”

The bottom line is straightforward: if your enrollment strategy is still primarily marketing-driven, you’re playing the wrong game. Build infrastructure. Create pipelines. Solve real community problems.
The students will follow.

2. Is Your Mission Statement Hurting You

Teresa Parrott, Principal TVP Communications dropped what might be the most important insight of the entire season: small colleges need to shift “from mission to impact.”

What she means matters right now.

Most small college websites lead with mission statements like “We develop well-rounded citizens who think critically and serve their communities.”

It’s lovely. It’s inspiring to people who already work at the college. And it’s entirely unpersuasive to everyone else.

Legislators don’t care about your mission. Prospective students’ parents don’t care about your mission. Community members wondering why they should support you don’t care about your mission.

They care about what you actually do.

Compare generic mission language to Grinnell College’s approach. When their town’s daycare center was failing, Grinnell didn’t release a statement about their commitment to the community. They took over the daycare center. When the community golf course struggled, they stepped in to sustain it.

As Parrott put it, “They are so embedded in their community that they really are almost a second arm of the government.”

That’s not rhetoric. That’s concrete, documentable community impact.

Or take Gary Daynes, President of Salem College insight about resource sharing at Salem: “It makes zero cents to build a football field. Seems like you could share with the local high school.”

Simple. Obvious. Rarely done.

But when colleges actually do it—by sharing theaters, athletic facilities, cultural resources, and programming—they become infrastructure their communities can’t imagine losing. They become politically and economically essential.

The shift is this: Stop leading with what you believe. Start leading with what you do.

Not “We believe in service.” Try “We trained 45% of the nurses in this region.”

Not “We value community.” Try “We operate the only daycare center in town.”

Not “We develop leaders.” Try “Our graduates run 23 local businesses and employ 400 people.”

The institutions sufficiently community-embedded to make these claims are politically protected. The ones still leading with inspirational language become vulnerable the moment budgets get tight.

The takeaway: Your communications team shouldn’t be writing mission statements. They should be documenting measurable community impact and leading with it everywhere.

3. Lean Into What Makes You Different

Selingo said it most directly: “There is more differentiation in higher education than we care to admit, but the presidents haven’t leaned into that enough.”

Translation: You’re already different. You’re just afraid to say it loudly.

Daynes decided to reaffirm its commitment to educating girls and women. That’s not chasing the market—it’s the opposite. But Daynes explained they looked at their data and realized the women’s college identity was a strength, not a liability they needed to downplay.

Faith-based institutions are deepening their religious identities rather than treating them as mere historical affiliations that make the college vaguely Methodist or nominally Catholic.

Health-focused campuses are building employer pipelines instead of trying to be liberal arts generalists who happen to have a nursing program.

The pattern is clear: institutions trying to be less distinctive are struggling. Institutions doubling down on what makes them unique are finding traction.

But here’s the critical part Daynes emphasized: distinctiveness has to be operational, not just marketing.

If you’re a “community-engaged college,” you need actual programs embedded in the community—shared facilities, pipeline programs, workforce partnerships—not just a tagline on your website.

If you’re “career-focused,” you need employer partnerships with real job placement data and students who can point to specific outcomes.

If you’re faith-based, that identity needs to shape curriculum, student life, residential programs, and institutional decisions in ways students and families can see and experience.

When distinctiveness is only branding, students and families see through it immediately. When it’s operational, it becomes your competitive advantage.

The takeaway: Generic positioning is a slow death. Find what makes you genuinely different, operationalize it across your institution, and communicate it relentlessly.

4. Real Partnerships vs. Press Releases

Shushok nailed the mindset shift small colleges need to make: “Partnerships are everything in this moment. And once you get past that you’re competing with any of these entities, you start to realize, no, these are partners.”

K-12 schools. Community colleges. Employers. Local governments. Hospitals. These aren’t competitors or nice-to-haves anymore. They’re essential infrastructure for institutional survival.

But Daynes offered the crucial warning: “It’s easy to sign MOUs. It’s harder to sustain them.”

Read that again.

Translation: Your partnership announcements don’t mean anything.

What matters is actual student flow. What matters is shared staffing. What matters is programs that operate year after year, not photo ops at signing ceremonies where everyone shakes hands and nobody follows through.

Ask yourself right now: Do you know how many students transferred in from your community college “partners” last year? Do you have dedicated staff managing those relationships, or is it an extra duty for someone already overwhelmed?

If you don’t know those numbers or don’t have dedicated staff, you don’t have partnerships. You have press releases.

The partnerships that work have dedicated staffing to manage relationships and smooth student transitions, clear metrics measuring student flow rather than signed agreements, operational integration where partner institutions actually share resources, and financial skin in the game from all parties.

Roanoke’s “Directed Tech” program with Virginia Tech counts the senior year as both undergraduate completion and the first year of a master’s degree. That’s not a partnership; that’s structural integration that changes the economics and value proposition for students.

California’s ecosystem, where UC, CSU, community colleges, and independent institutions work together on workforce development, isn’t an inspirational collaboration story. It’s an economic necessity backed by 2,500+ pieces of legislation every two years, as Soares noted.

When the state is writing hundreds of bills requiring coordination, you can’t fake it with a handshake and a press release.

The bottom line: Count your partnerships that produce actual student flow and resource sharing. If that number is zero or close to it, stop announcing new partnerships and start making the ones you have actually work.

5. Liberal Arts is Workforce Development (Stop Being Defensive About It)

The false choice between liberal arts and workforce preparation came up in nearly every conversation. And every single guest rejected it.

Shushok’s framing was the clearest: “Technical skills get you the first job. Human capacity skills enable 15 career reinventions.”

Think about that.

In a world where AI can write code, analyze data, generate reports, and automate technical tasks, what becomes more valuable—technical skills that become obsolete in five years, or the ability to adapt, think critically, communicate clearly, work across differences, and solve novel problems?

As Shushok put it, “We might find that the liberal arts, the humanities, the small colleges, if we allow ourselves to be shaped by this moment, are exactly what the doctor ordered for the 21st century.”

The problem: small colleges are still communicating defensively about the liberal arts instead of offensively.

Stop saying “The liberal arts are ALSO important for careers.”

Start saying, “The liberal arts are the ONLY preparation for a 40-year career in an unpredictable economy.”

Stop apologizing for not being pre-professional.

Start explaining why pre-professional education is increasingly obsolete in an age of AI and constant technological disruption.

And most importantly: build the bridges so students can actually see the connection.

That means boards that understand finance, politics, and operations—not just fundraising. CFO leadership that addresses structural challenges honestly. Political engagement that mobilizes entire institutions, not just government relations staff. And communications teams that function as impact documenters, not mission statement writers.

Kristen Soares noted that 92% of California’s clinical workforce is trained at private colleges. That’s not despite the liberal arts foundation—it’s because of it.

Nurses need critical thinking to make life-and-death decisions in ambiguous situations.

Mental health counselors need empathy and adaptability to serve diverse communities.

Teachers need communication skills and the ability to think on their feet.

The liberal arts aren’t tangential to workforce needs. They’re central. But you have to stop defending them and start operationalizing the connection in ways students, families, and employers can see.

The takeaway: The liberal arts are perfectly suited for workforce needs. Stop defending. Start operationalizing. Build the bridges.

So what do you actually DO with all this?

Season 3 didn’t just surface problems—it revealed a working playbook. Here’s what leaders who are successfully navigating this moment have in common:

  • They’re building infrastructure for new student populations instead.
  • They’re documenting measurable community impact and leading with it.
  • They’re deepening what makes them genuinely distinctive.
  • They’re measuring student flow and resource sharing.
  • They’re operationalizing the connection to careers.

Shushok’s insight about “recalibration versus balance” might be the most critical leadership lesson of the season. As he put it, “Balance is not a destination, but constant recalibration.”

Small college leadership today isn’t about finding the right strategy and executing it for five years. It’s about continuous adjustment based on what’s actually working.

That means:

• Boards that understand finance, politics, and operations—not just fundraising

• CFO leadership that addresses structural challenges honestly

• Political engagement that mobilizes entire institutions, not just government relations staff

• Communications teams that function as impact documenters, not mission statement writers

As Daynes reflected, “I love small colleges. There are folks of intense gifts amongst the faculty and staff who have chosen to be the places that they are.”

That’s the source of optimism throughout Season 3.

Not naive hope that things will get better on their own.

But grounded confidence in devoted people willing to do hard, creative work.

Jeff Selingo’s blunt assessment—”Hope is not a strategy”—wasn’t meant to demoralize. It was meant to liberate.

Small colleges that thrive in the next decade will  be the ones that:

• Build operational infrastructure for new student populations

• Document and communicate measurable community impact

• Operationalize distinctiveness throughout the institution

• Create partnerships that produce actual student flow

• Connect liberal arts to career outcomes without defensiveness

• Recalibrate constantly based on what’s working

The leaders in Season 3 aren’t waiting for permission or hoping for a miracle. They’re building lab schools. They’re taking over daycare centers. They’re sharing facilities with high schools. They’re creating guaranteed pathways to graduate programs. They’re documenting their impact and leading with it.

They’re doing the work.

And they’re proving that hope—real, grounded hope based on action rather than wishful thinking—comes from building things that work.

Looking Forward: Three Conversations to Start This Week

If you’re a president, provost, trustee, or senior leader, here are three conversations you can start right now if you haven’t already done so :

1. With your enrollment team: Ask them to map every actual pipeline you have for new students—not marketing campaigns, but structural pathways that produce consistent student flow. If the list is short or non-existent, that’s your answer. Start building infrastructure, not marketing plans.

2. With your communications team: Ask them to document your measurable community impact in the last 12 months. Not what you believe or aspire to do—what you actually did. How many jobs did you create? How many nurses did you train? What facilities do you share? What problems did you solve? If the answer is vague or mission-statement-heavy, you have work to do.

3. With your board: Present them with a simple question: “If we could only communicate three things about our institution to prospective students, legislators, and community members, what would they be?” If the answers are about mission and values rather than concrete impact and distinctive programs, you need to shift the conversation.

These aren’t theoretical exercises. They’re diagnostic tools that reveal whether your institution is still operating from the old playbook or building the new one.

Selingo was right: hope is not a strategy. But action, infrastructure, partnerships, impact, and constant recalibration is a playbook that works.

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Season 3 of Small College America featured conversations with 13 leaders in the field of higher education. Thanks to everyone who participated, and especially my co-host Kent Barnds and my Producer and lovely wife Nancy Hoke.

  • Raj Bellani, Chief of Staff, Denison College
  • Gary Daynes, President, Salem College
  • Josh Hibbard, Vice President of Enrollment Management, Whitworth University
  • Dean McCurdy, President, Colby Sawyer College
  • Jon Nichols, Faculty member and author
  • Teresa Parrott, Principal TVP Communications
  • Karen Petersen, President, Hendrix College
  • Michael Scarlett, Professor of Education, Augustana College
  • Jeff Selingo, Best Selling Author and higher education advisor
  • Frank Shushok, President, Roanoke College
  • Kristen Soares, President, Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities
  • Gregor Thuswaldner, Provost, La Roche University
  • Jeremiah Williams, Professor of Physics, Wittenberg University

The conversations continue.

Small College America returns in February with a new season featuring candid discussions with presidents, faculty, and leaders navigating the most consequential moment in higher education.

Hosted by Dean Hoke and Kent Barnds, the series explores the evolving role of small colleges, their impact on communities, and the strategies leaders are using to adapt and endure.

Listen or watch past episodes on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and many others, or preview what’s coming next, and follow the series at www.smallcollegeamerica.net.