- (female announcer) Production funding for Behind the Headlines is made possible in part by the WKNO Production Fund, the WKNO Endowment Fund, and by viewers like you, thank you.

- The future of Christian Brothers University, tonight, on Behind the Headlines.

[intense orchestral music] I'm Eric Barnes with The Daily Memphian, thanks for joining us.

I am joined tonight by interim president of CBU, Brother Chris Englert.

Thanks for being here.

- Thank you.

Glad to be here.

- Along with Board Chair for CBU, Emily Greer.

Thank you for being here.

- Good to be here.

- We'll talk, it's been a rough year, and we'll talk about that, but I don't totally want to just dwell on the negative, but I think people care a lot.

I mean, this is not editorializing, that care a lot about CBU.

It is a really extensive alumni base.

You are an alum.

I mean, so we wanna talk about what happened and how things are, y'all are coming back from that.

And so let me go to, I guess you first as the interim president, you're seven weeks in the job.

- I'm seven weeks and I- - How's it going?

- It's been a learning curve.

You know, Emily can give more of the history of the past year.

I was on a sabbatical up in St. Louis at a retreat center on 180 acres, wearing jeans and hoodies every day until I got the call to consider coming to CBU.

What I've done over the first seven weeks, I've been meeting with all the schools, the presidents and their teachers, taking tours of the facilities.

- By you mean the departments within CBU?

- Different colleges, engineering, the business, the arts, and also meeting with maintenance staff, you know, with the security people, admissions, all across the board.

So I've had about 20, 25 meetings already to get the lay of land then, and for them to get to know me as well.

- Yeah.

Let me go through some of the, a bit of what happened, and again, to talk about what happened and how you're bouncing back, and this is all against the backdrop of a really tumultuous time across higher ed, not just in Memphis, but across the country.

Essentially there was a financial hole that y'all ran into.

You were put on probation by your accrediting agency, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission.

You had to do big cuts in December, about 28 staff members, I think about faculty members, about a third I think, of the staff.

And it was really shocking for people.

I think we wrote about it at The Daily Memphian, you've been on the board for some amount of time and president for a year.

Welcome.

Or not, yeah, head of the board, I should say, chair of the board.

What happened and what are you doing to get the university back on track?

- Yes.

Yes.

And I think you're right.

It's a symptom of kind of what's going on in higher ed.

You know, people like to think it started with COVID, but if we're honest, it started before COVID, you know, declining enrollment to some extent.

Perhaps we needed to resize, restructure sooner.

But certainly after COVID, the numbers did not add up, the class sizes, the resources to those class sizes weren't aligned.

And as a board, we said it's time to do that.

The financial exigency is associated only with the financial piece.

The academics are still stellar.

And so financial exigency allowed us to cut the staff and to make the changes we need to make.

And so that's what we did.

- And you talked about the enrollment.

There's a thing that as I was doing research for this, and I've talked to the president of U of M, the former president of U of M and various presidents of Rhodes.

There's this thing, it's called the enrollment cliff.

And it's a declining birth rate and declining number of available students.

And it's also things like a lot of kids, four years is a lot, it's expensive.

- Yeah.

- It's a lot of student debt.

And that's been a big topic in the country and there are a lot of jobs available now that pay really good wages, without any degree, or with a TCAT, with a kind of certification.

A six-month program, a two-year program, all that, I assume was in this kind of headwind.

- All that.

And perhaps we should have reacted sooner, you know, to that.

But we, you know, we saw it when we saw it.

We made the moves.

We've been doing that work for two years and really proud of where we are right now.

- There are still, if I have this right, and you'll correct me, there's still 41 undergraduate majors, I think, and 11 graduate degree programs.

I think that's about right.

So it's not like it's down to a couple of things by any stretch, right?

So we don't give the wrong impression to people.

- I think, I'm glad you brought that up.

The point is, you know, there were some majors where there were just a few kids and you know, those aren't efficient, right?

And so we made some changes along those lines, but no, we didn't cut, you know, full colleges or anything.

- Yeah, yeah.

Back to you Brother Chris, your role as interim is to do what you talked about, just kind of getting the lay of the land and meeting people, but the board has charged you with doing what in terms of this role?

- Well, when they asked me to, I've not been a college president, I can do high school very well.

- You did CB... - CBHS, Christian Brothers High School.

I was there for 30 years and I've done other administrative positions.

But what they asked from me is, first of all, to calm the nerves, you know, and it was very difficult for the faculty, you know, to eliminate that many.

A lot of 'em were, some of the positions were not filled.

So it was not totally 28 people, but it was still a hard hit for the faculty member.

And then to lift up the image of CBU in the community.

And because of my association with Memphis for so many years, there was a lot of connections.

A lot of CBHS grads.

I am a graduate of CBU, 1977.

So part of it is just to get the name back out, make connections with our advancement staff with some of the people in the city as well.

And then really we have to map out where we're gonna go in the next year, the strategic planning.

And that's an important goal for us as a, it's not me that's going to move the school, it will be everybody else, but we have to get off probation.

And we have to increase enrollment.

- Is that, you partly just answered my question.

The path back to financial stability.

Is that more students?

Is that more students paying full rate versus, I mean very few, you know, all colleges and universities have a stated rate and then there's a whole lot of numbers that people actually pay.

It's like an airline.

Everybody on the plane is paying a different ticket amount.

It's a lot more money when we're talking about colleges though.

So is it enrollment and more paying students or is it fundraising towards various programs or is it both?

- It's both.

It's more scholarship money obviously, but we do need to increase enrollment.

We need to increase the amount of students that are actually living on campus 'cause they want that college experience.

So those are things that we have to look at and what are the best ways to do it and how else should colleges be looking?

What other programs should they be looking at that aren't being served by the community?

You know, there are seven, six Christian Brothers Universities.

We call 'em Lasallian after our founder St. John Baptist de La Salle, in the United States.

So what we're doing is working with them.

We meet regularly, and what kind of programs can we share that will broaden what we can offer our students?

We also have 23 universities worldwide where you can also broaden their international experience.

And what kind of resources can we combine?

I was talking to our head of our IT and he meets with all the IT guys of these six universities.

Well, there's a way that CBU can save $400,000 by, you know, the collaborative effort with these six universities.

So we have to think a little bit out of the box.

And really have strong, forward-thinking people in charge.

- Let me just give some stats I pulled from your website.

1746 students, about half black, about half, no, excuse me, half women, half men, excuse me.

Eleven to one student to faculty ratio, class size average about 16, 40% people of color.

I think 99% of full-time undergrads receive some financial aid.

An endowment of about $35 million, which is in the world of higher ed, I mean, $35 million is a lot of money, it's a relatively low endowment, right?

Is that part of, I mean, some of these universities can fall back on, I mean at the high end, the Ivys, but others can fall back on a really big endowment in times that are bad and so on.

Thirty-five million is not a lot.

'Cause you don't want to just, people say, "Well just spend the endowment."

Well that's not what the endowment's for.

It's not your savings account.

It's there to grow and you live, you take interest off it and so on for certain projects.

- That's right.

That's right.

As Brother Chris said, enrollment is the key, right?

We've got to have the students to come in and support the university.

- And the selling proposition to students is what?

- My gosh.

- Why CBU?

- You know, the academic excellence, first of all, faith, service.

It's the reason I went there.

You know, "enter to learn, leave to serve".

Those things mean something to this community.

Small private, where you wanna know the teachers and where you want that community.

It's a very, very special place.

- And it's a faith-based school, which is an attraction.

There's I think like 35 different faiths now.

A number may be Christian, I think we're about 20% Catholic, but, you know, part of the Lasallian network, the founder, St. John Baptist de La Salle, it's being an inclusive community, concerned for others, excellent education, belief in the presence of God.

And when St. John Baptist de La Salle, he wrote, he was a prolific writer, on trying to set up schools in France in the 17th century for kids that weren't being educated.

But he always talks about the relationship of a teacher with a student as the guardian angel, the older brother and sister, the shepherd.

It's these teachers guide these kids through their four years.

And I imagine most students have had that high school teacher who they really connected with, you know, and that kid wanted to do everything for that teacher, that really wanted to excel in that class.

And I think CBU has a lot of those professors.

That get those kids that might get lost in a larger atmosphere or larger university.

And they really make sure these kids get their education and get them excited.

The other side is I think it's 70% of our students, our graduates live within 90 miles of Memphis.

So we're also investing in the city.

You know, we have a very large nursing program.

You need a college education for the nursing program.

So we're really helping the city as well with these young people staying in the city and taking leadership roles.

- Well it is, again, it's just a personal comment, but it is always striking, the alumni base, and the folks I know who I didn't know were at CBU who are in leadership positions and civically engaged across the city.

It's really remarkable.

When you were there, that was part of the expectation?

- Absolutely.

- Because you were at ALSAC, you've been engaged in all kinds of things in this city.

- Absolutely.

- Beyond CBU.

- Absolutely.

- That was partly born of your experience?

- I mean, you know, I've said it, "enter to learn, leave to serve".

You know, you get your faith-based education at Christian Brothers, where the teachers, it's a very small class, you know, student to teacher ratio.

So you're not a number, you are a human being who is showing up with needs.

And I was related to in that way.

I grew up, you know, in South Memphis and came to Christian Brothers with a mother in a wheelchair.

We made a way because that's the education I wanted.

And it absolutely shaped who I am today and what I went on to do.

The fact I stayed in this community, and the fact that, you know, I've tried to give back to this community, and more importantly, to my university.

It's very important.

- I think I'd read somewhere that the fundraising, giving from, which I assume is a lot from alumni, increased dramatically as you guys came public with "We've got trouble.

We've got a problem."

Was that an easy ask of the alumni?

I assume a lot of that giving was from alum.

- Oh, of course.

The community.

From the community.

Nothing was easy, you know, about this past year.

But when we put the call out, we had an accelerated fundraising goal and we exceeded that goal as of May 31st.

So the community has responded and it's very much helped us and saved us in this academic year.

- You've been through a couple presidents over a few years.

John Smarrelli, who was president for about a decade.

He was on the show numerous times and was, I think in many ways, did a lot of transformative stuff for CBU, then a couple of presidents in quick succession.

I don't wanna disparage anybody, but what are you looking for next?

I mean, is Brother Chris the answer for the long term?

Or what have you learned about what you need for a president for the long term to I assume stability, fundraising, increasing enrollment and so on?

And when will, is that search beginning or when will it begin?

- Well, first of all, we are so happy to have Brother Chris, when we knew we had an opening, the community overwhelmingly, my phone blew up.

You know, "We need Brother Chris, "we need a Christian Brother "to come back and help guide us and lead us through this.

"We need his faith-based approach.

We need his experience as a academic leader."

Brother Chris knows all of the leaders in this town.

You know, he knows them.

He's out meeting with them.

He knows many of the alumnus, you know, that we're dealing with.

So he's the right leader for the right time.

And we are, you know, acclimating him right now back into the university.

He's right.

We need to focus on what's next.

So we are leaning forward, we are thinking about strategic planning and I'd love him to lead us during this phase.

So I am not looking for [everyone chuckles] a leader right now, I'm looking at the leader, and then it's up to him, you know, how that looks to him.

- Again, we talked about the landscape.

I mean, you know, it's only just a couple years ago, the Memphis College of Art closed, right?

I mean, and against, it was in COVID, and it was sad that it closed.

And it was sad that it kind of, I think their last graduation ceremony was by Zoom 'cause it was during COVID.

This is not unique.

And there are schools across the country have closed.

I'm gonna read some trends that I pulled, you know, undergraduate college enrollment increased from 1985 to 2010 at a rate of about 2.22% each year.

And in 2010, this is nationally, it peaked.

And what's remarkable is that since 2011 enrollment across the country in colleges decreased by 38%, it's just huge numbers.

At a same time when the costs go up, right?

And I know enough as somebody went to college who somebody was, kids went to college, it goes up every year.

Right?

It just goes up every year.

And so what do you do when you have, and I think part of the reason that college expenses go up every year, and I think it's true of private high schools and private grammar schools, is every year it's mostly staff.

And every year you're gonna give your staff even just a cost of living adjustment.

And healthcare goes up every year.

And so you've got 2-5% increases in your expenses every year if you're just static.

And parents and students and the people who pay for this expect more than static, right?

I mean, I'm sure it was some version of the dynamic at the high school.

How do you balance that?

You've got this expense pressure in a shrinking pool of students, - Right, and that's the challenge.

I really think there are a number of people out there that, one of the thing, I'm not here to close the school.

You know, I'm here to help build it up.

You know, the school has no debt, which is a big plus.

And we did end last year in the black, which is a real positive message that this, you know, Emily and the group made some very strong decisions.

But one of the things that I'm very optimistic about is when I go out in the community, everybody wants, everybody I've talked to wants to see CBU survive.

CBU has a very unique niche just as Rhodes does, LeMoyne-Owen, Memphis.

They're four different, very different universities and colleges, and Southwest.

But I think there's enough people out there that are willing to step forward that we can, obviously scholarship money's going to be the key for us to get these kids some help.

- And when you talk about increasing the student body, again, you're at about 1750 right now.

Is that doubling it over a number of years?

Is that increasing by a couple hundred over a few years?

I mean, what is that goal in terms of increasing enrollment?

- I don't think that's realistic to consider it doubling.

I think sometimes, you know, we've had this pie in the sky thing that we could have.

But you know, my guess is if we could have 300 freshmen, you know, I think that would be a big corner that we have turned - Versus, right.

With school starting in a few weeks- - Like 200 to 250, you know, right.

And we're still, obviously you've heard about FAFSA and all that.

That's been on the news all the time.

- FAFSA is the financial aid.

I can't do it.

- The federal aid.

- The federal aid.

And it's been a bit of a disaster in terms of forms, for all schools.

- It all came out after the kids left campus.

So you weren't trying to, you know, even the kids that are trying to re-enroll are... - Right.

And that was a national issue.

Not, again, not unique to CBU.

With about eight minutes left here in the show.

Well, CBU will be successful in a year if it looks like what?

- Increased enrollment.

- Okay.

- I have an excellent advancement staff, that they work hard and make sure, and we have to have the right people in admissions, which I think we do.

I'm working on that.

It's really having the right players in the right position.

And I think, you know, one of the other side, the thing that I, when I came here, people didn't leave.

You know, these good professors did not leave.

These good administrators did not leave.

You know, they didn't jump ship.

And I'm sure they were offered other jobs, but there's such a commitment to the mission.

So we just have to get that message out.

And we have to be better at recruiting students.

- You're, I guess I'll get to use this for both of you, but I'll start with you, Emily.

Your main competition in terms of students, I mean, it is a business on some level, right?

And the competition is U of M, is it Rhodes?

Is it the community colleges?

What's the competition?

- You know, that's a great question.

We don't think about it in those terms.

I know when I chose CBU, I wanted a small private education, a small private Catholic faith-based education.

And so those students who yearn for the kind of environment that we offer, where the academics are rigorous, but you have that help.

Really small class sizes, vibrant experiences on campus.

Those are the kinds of students, if they come on campus, they know if it's for them.

And it's more about what you need as a student, I think.

- And the, I should have started here and I forgot to write it down.

The stated tuition per year at CBU right now is what?

Give or take.

- That's a good question.

- I don't know that per se.

- I would say around $30,000, stated, yeah.

- Yeah, but there's, again, there's financial aid and there's what you can pay.

And it's, again, it's a moving formula for all universities and colleges.

I think Rhodes is in the 50 to $60,000 range.

I should have written down what U of M is, but it's quite a bit cheaper than 30.

Again, we're talking about that sticker price and then there's what people actually pay.

But that's part of that calculation, right, that families are making, you know, in terms of what they can get, what they can afford.

About how many students, what percentage of students do live on campus?

- I think we were at about 400, 375 to 400.

And so we can take another 2 or 300 students.

- 'Cause you did do some construction over the last decade, decade and a half, right?

To expand, to have more of a residential campus.

U of M doing the same.

- Yeah.

- You know, feeling like that's more.

I think I read that, you know, 99% of full-time undergrads receive some sort of financial aid.

That's a mix of federal scholarships from the school, et cetera?

- Right.

A lot of athletic scholarships as well.

- I think 49% maybe are around the federal level.

- Are on the federal level.

Okay.

To build the endowment at a time like this.

This is, I've been on nonprofit, well I run a nonprofit.

The Daily Memphis is a nonprofit.

We do not have an endowment 'cause we are raising money beyond the subscriptions and so on.

The part that we raise philanthropically is for, you know, current operating expenses.

It's always the quandary.

Again, take out the big ivys and the billion dollar endowments.

For a small school with a small endowment, when you go to ask people for money, you kind of want that money right now to support the programs.

But you also, as board chair and as the full board of trustees, you're trying to plan for the future.

And so how do you balance that ask of where the money goes?

Endowment versus current expenses?

- Right.

Well, first and foremost, if we can get the enrollment base to where it's covering operating, then when we, you know, ask for funds, we can be more judicious about what we need for the immediate to spend, to operate the institution versus what we can, you know, invest.

And sometimes, you know, donors, they have a very specific idea about how they want their money spent.

and many times, you know, scholarships and the like, so it's a partnership with our donors for sure.

- Are all the programs four-year programs or do you do some two-year programs?

I mean, at the undergraduate level.

- I don't think so.

I think we did try, I thought we did try associates for a while.

But I don't think that's in existence anymore.

- It's not, I mean, I guess part of that would be that you can go to the public community colleges and the TCAT colleges and it's free, essentially, the state will pay for anything that the federal government doesn't.

So you're up against that as well.

With just a couple minutes left, what did the students think?

We talked about the staff, we talked about, you know, alums and donors.

Have you had a chance?

I mean, I know it's the off season, so you haven't had a chance to- - I can't find them.

- You can't find any students.

- Well, I'm eating the cream of the crop.

You know, like today there's a new, there's 60 new students on campus, you know, and they have the ambassador.

And these ambassadors are phenomenal.

You know, they interact with the kids.

But I've talked to other Brothers who've served on the board and I think the kids just don't see the, I mean, they kind of know something's going on, but for them, it's such a positive experience and what's happening in the classroom every day.

I just, they're pretty resilient.

- Yeah, yeah.

- Yeah, they want, you try to protect 'em as much from, you know, bad things and, but I think the teachers still continue to perform.

- Yeah.

And for you all, as you were going through these hard decisions, you must've gotten feedback from students, worried.

- Absolutely.

I think Brother Chris is being modest.

- Yeah.

- I mean, you know, he's a rock star.

Everyone wanted him in that role.

My son who was a graduate of CBHS, he sent me a picture when we announced it.

"Good job.

Good choice."

You know, and that's been universally, you know, that's been the feedback that the board has gotten about Brother Chris's selection.

- And students as well?

- From students as well.

- What have I missed in, as we get down to the last couple minutes here, I mean, again, for you, what does success look like?

You know, five years?

Because as a board, you know, you got the immediate things, but five years from now, what does success look like for CBU?

- First of all, I want you to know we're extremely optimistic.

It's been a tough year, but we've made progress in important ways that we've needed to make progress, and we cap it off with a wonderful leader that's pivoting toward the future.

You know, progress is getting a handle on enrollment and getting those numbers we need to establish the institution and get that money, fundraising, you know, community, you know, continuing to support us and to allow us to grow the university in important ways and in strategic ways.

While at the same time, you know, adding to endowment as well.

And it's clear.

It's clear.

- And I think partnerships, you know, we have a very good partnership with the Memphis city schools so far as trying to get more teachers into the classroom.

You know, getting them the teaching programs.

Most of 'em come through CBU.

- Oh, teaching teachers to teach, not teachers who come to... - Well some of 'em are getting the master's, but some are just teachers' aides.

But they need teachers so they're getting their degree.

And then they're going to go get their master's degree and they move up pretty quickly in the ranks to help out the city schools.

So partnerships like that, partnerships with other universities and other programs that really would not be a huge expense but would certainly broaden the offerings to our students.

- Alright, that's all the time we have.

Thank you for being here.

We appreciate it.

Good luck.

Thank you for being here.

It was good to see you.

Thanks very much.

That is all the time we have this week.

Coming up soon, in the couple weeks the Republican district attorney for much of West Tennessee, Frederick Agee is coming on to talk about in part some of the things he's working on, but also DA Mulroy here in Shelby County is under fire and we'll get his perspective on that.

We also had DA Mulroy, if you missed that, a couple weeks ago.

So you can go to wkno.org, Daily Memphian wherever you get your podcasts.

We also had Josh Pickler and Brent Taylor, State Senator Brent Taylor last week.

All past shows are available at wkno.org, Daily Memphian, go to YouTube and search for it.

That is all the time.

Thanks very much and we'll see you next week.

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