The Rev. Kevin Wildes, S.J. said he is excited about the challenges that come along with being the new president of Loyola. Wildes wasn’t officially inaugurated until Oct. 15, but he reported to the Office of the President from his 11-year tenure at Georgetown in late July.
He said that on his first day as president, the Carrollton Hall dilemma was sitting on his desk. Dealing with the repairs of the water damage to the three-year-old building and the litigation that is slowing the progress down is just the beginning of Wildes work. He said that it is his job to think about the bigger picture of Loyola, and to do so he must prioritize his responsibilities.
“A lot of things were put on hold,” Wildes said. “Now a lot of people are anxious to get things moving so everyone wants a piece of time.”
Nancy Dupont, University Senate chairwoman, said she thinks Wildes has been effective with his time.
“I’ve been amazed at his energy,” Dupont said. “And his ability to juggle so many balls in the air at one time.”
FUND RAISING IS IN ORDER
Wildes said he lets fund raising take up 40 percent of his time. He said he spends a couple of days a week on the road visiting potential benefactors. Some of the alumni clubs he has met with this year are in Philidelphia, New York and Atlanta. He was slated to leave on Wednesday to meet with alumni in Miami.
Dupont said she feels confident in Wildes fund-raising abilities.
“Father Wildes is extremely personable and that is what fund raising is, establishing personal relationships with other people,” Dupont said.
She also said that he might end up spending more than 40 percent of his time when the year is up, because fundraising has become a major part of the job of the university president.
In his quest to raise the most money possible, Wildes has hired a consulting firm to work with him for one year. Grenzenbach, Glier & Associates will help him assess both the institutional advancement operations and the capacity that the university can operate. According to Wildes, GG&A has spent the past three months talking with the development staff, and he should be getting the first three-month report soon.
HURRICANE IVAN CAUSES TROUBLE
Wildes said the biggest surprise that he had so far as president of Loyola was Hurricane Ivan.
“It was the first time that I experienced a hurricane with so much potentially at risk,” Wildes said. “And also the first time that I had some sort of direct responsibility.”
He said when he had to make the decision to cancel class and consider the possibility of ordering a mandatory evacuation, he realized the gravity of his responsibilities as president of Loyola.
“When I was going through those meetings, that’s when it really hit me that I was in a different role,” Wildes said.
Dupont said that Wildes was conservative and cautious before canceling school for the rest of that week, but said it was done very thoughtfully and was “absolutely the right call.”
ATHLETIC SCHOLARSHIPS CONTINUE
In an e-mail that Wildes sent out on Nov. 4 he informed students, faculty and staff of his decision to continue the athletic scholarships pilot for the next three years.
Wildes dissolved the committee on athletic scholarships and in its place formed the Intercollegiate Athletics Advisory Council. He plans on asking the Scholarships and Financial Aid Policy Committee to oversee the scholarships and wants to target fund raising to support the scholarships. At the end of the four-year test run of the scholarships, Wildes said he would be able “[to] make a better judgment about expanding scholarships to other sports.”
Wildes consulted the University Senate for their opinions of the implementation of the athletic scholarships, unlike the Rev. William Bryon, S.J., interim university president, who made no indications of instituting the scholarship program last spring. Dupont said that the faculty feels that they should administer the scholarships.
But Dupont also said the academic standing of the university must be at the heart of the recruiting process.
“Though the [athletic department] has done a great job of recruiting those first six scholarship athletes,” Dupont said, “that has got to continue and be strengthened if we can.”
ENHANCING CAMPUS LIFE
Parts of Wildes’ plan for the future is to have a more on-campus culture. Although he realizes it is a challenge to build an anchor of activities on a campus surrounded by such an eventful city, Wildes said he wants to do more for an incoming first year class in which 70 percent is from out-of-state than just increasing residence hall space.
“It’s not just having beds,” Wildes said. “It’s having a life for students.”
According to Wildes, one of the reasons basketball is played on campus is because it is adds to and develops campus life.
In a campus e-mail, Wildes wrote he hopes to do target fund raising to support the athletic scholarships and how “Loyola is in the process of becoming a more residential university. As we do so we need to consciously build the life of our residential community.”
FACULTY LOSES THEIR LUNCH
Earlier this semester Wildes decided to no longer subsidize meal service in the Senior Commons Room. According to Wildes, the extra cost of funding faculty lunch in the upstairs room of the Danna Center came out of the president’s office budget.
After trying to manage his office’s expenses, Wildes said he saw potential in running a deficit this year, but by the end of the year they will balance out the budget.
Dupont said cutting spending for the room will not save money. She said when Wildes shut down their lunch area, faculty lost their quiet place where they could take guest speakers or people interviewing for jobs to have a conversation, which cannot happen in the noisier Orleans Room.
“What happens is we end up taking them off campus to a nice, quiet restaurant, which costs more money and is time consuming,” she said.
SCHOOL RESPONDS WELL TO CRISES
While adjusting to a new city, a home in Biever Hall and a new job, Wildes has dealt with three difficult situations: a stabbing, a student hit by a streetcar and a hostage situation.
“It is always better if bad things don’t happen,” Wildes said. “These things all have potentially happy endings and that’s a good thing.”
Wildes said what he looks at is how the university responds.
“I’m very concerned about the students,” Wildes said. “The parents are appreciative of the support that they have gotten from the Loyola community.”
The mature response from the community is a measure of who Loyola University is and what is stands for, Wildes said. Dupont agreed with Wildes in how the events were relatively minor and handled well.
“The crisis that I’ve been aware of that he has responded to have … been handled very sensitively, with the care of the person involved,” she said. “We’ve got to stay true to our Jesuit values.”
TOWN MEETINGS ONCE A SEMESTER
Tuesday’s town meeting with Wildes was a quick overview of what he called “stuff that has been on my desk.”
“If it is goes okay,” he said, “I might try to do one a semester.”
His speech was based on his Report from the President that he will present at the upcoming Board of Trustees meeting. Before becoming the university president, Wildes served on Loyola’s Board of Trustees for six years.
It was his fascination with a strong institution that wanted to be better that made him leave Georgetown, Wildes said. And now he runs around Loyola with his Blackberry, a wireless communication system, and as he put it, “getting my ducks in a row.”
Gigi Alford can be reached at [email protected].
