Empowering students: A Q&A with UE President Christopher Pietruszkiewicz
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In June, Money magazine released the 2023 Best Colleges in America with a new rating system. Instead of ranking the institutions in order, the publication rated more than 700 colleges on a scale of 2.5 to 5 stars.
The University of Evansville received a 4-star rating based on quality, affordability and student outcomes. Christopher M. Pietruszkiewicz, UE’s president since 2018, spoke with Inside INdiana Business about the Money magazine distinction and his honor as one of IBJ Media’s Indiana 250 in the not-for-profit and education category.
How do you feel about Money magazine’s new rating system to evaluate the best colleges in America?
It uses more objective standards. There are lots of other ranking systems that use surveys about reputation. This seems to be using more objective standards, and that’s a really good way of looking at how our students be able to perform in the marketplace.
UE received a 4-star rating. What does that score say about the university?
It sounds like the marketplace is valuing what we’re doing at the University of Evansville, and there’s a whole bunch of different factors that they use to come up with that. The most important of which is 98% of our students have jobs within six months after graduation. And that’s a big way that we can measure whether what we’re doing here is being valued by our business partners out in the community.
How does UE plan to boost that 4-star rating?
We always look to get better than we are, and there are a lot of things that are happening at the university to be able to help us do that.
One of the major things that Money magazine uses is the cost of attendance. We have started what we refer to as an Aces Opportunity Grant program, and it’s only for Indiana residents. Any student whose family has an income of less than $60,000 a year can come to the University of Evansville and not pay tuition. We want to make sure that private higher education is available for everyone in Indiana, and it’s going to represent about 16% of our class this year.
We’re doing our job to make sure the cost of education is more affordable at a time when most people think the value of higher education is going down. We think the value of higher education is going up. One of the major criticisms of higher education is it costs too much, and we’re doing our best to be able to lower that cost.
Why is UE one of the best colleges in America in terms of quality, affordability and student outcomes?
I read a lot of mission statements by lots of different places, and most of them are fairly uninspiring. If we are able to live our mission, all of the things that follow from it are very good for our students. It’s very simple, it’s 18 words: “to empower each student to think critically, act bravely, serve responsibly and live meaningfully in a changing world.”
We don’t want them to just graduate from the University of Evansville with a diploma to put on their wall. We want to help transform their lives while they’re here, and we ask them to make our communities a little bit better.
We’re trying our best to make sure our curriculum matches our mission statement, and we ask the students to have a good outlook on the future by making sure we’re not only helping them prepare for the future, but they’re helping us prepare our communities for the future.
What’s new at UE this year, and how’s the fall semester going so far?
It looks like our enrollment will be up about 20% this year from last year in our freshman class. Last year’s class was about 15% higher than the previous year’s class, so we are doing well from an undergraduate perspective. Over the last two or three years, our graduate enrollment is up about 30%, so we are doing extraordinarily well, and we’re attracting students both from Indiana and across the country.
About 60% of our students come from Indiana, and we’re really excited about making sure not only that we educate them here, but that they stay in Indiana and can contribute to the marketplace here in Evansville and all throughout the state.
You were recently honored as one of IBJ Media’s Indiana 250. How did you feel when you got the news?
That was very exciting. It’s nice to be able to see not only your name mentioned, but the university mentioned, along with so many other people that influence the state policy, state economics as well as the nonprofit sector. I felt that was a very exciting way to be able to recognize the things we’re doing at the university. Adding new programs, increasing enrollment, building new infrastructure and most importantly having an impact on our community.
We received a $30 million grant from the U.S. Department of Education a little bit earlier this year with $32 million in matching funds. That’s kind of the unicorn in federal grant funding. It impacts six schools or zip codes, twelve census tracks, about 18% of the Vanderburgh County population. It’s designed to address intergenerational poverty, so we’re in it for the long run.
We have some really great community partners, so hopefully, that distinction recognizes the university and the community partner together so well to make our Evansville community in southwest Indiana just a little bit better.
How has UE changed since you became president?
Higher education has changed pretty dramatically. We have more students doing internships. About 95% of our students do an internship, so we’re using our business community and the community as our classroom.
Lots of things happen inside the classroom, but most importantly, the way to get ready for the real world is to be out in the real world. More of our students are doing that over the course of the last five years. And it’s paying off with employment rates or going off to graduate school. Over 98% over the course of the last year. That’s a good improvement for the university.
What are your thoughts on the enrollment cliff, and what is UE doing to address the shrinking population of college-age students?
In Indiana, between 2013 and 2029, the college-going population will decrease by about 19%. The enrollment cliff is more pronounced in the Midwest and the Northeast than any place else. We have to adapt and change to be able to attract students in a smaller marketplace.
A lot of times when you talk about sports, defense wins football games. Well, defense doesn’t win in higher education. It’s how higher education adapts and changes. And that’s the offensive part about how we think about the education at the University of Evansville.
Ten new programs over the course of the last two years, two new residence halls, some modernization of our academic buildings. A combination of investing in our faculty, investing in our students with financial aid, infrastructure and academic programs that align with what our students are asking for has been extraordinarily helpful for the university over the course of the last couple of years increasing enrollment in a declining marketplace.
What’s next for you and for UE?
The next part for us is we just welcomed a class this year. We had a convocation earlier this week. We have a lot more students on campus and some new academic programs. The biggest change for us will be to continue to build the infrastructure that we need for the continued growth of our student population.
You’ll see a lot more partnerships between the university and our community, whether in Evansville, southwest Indiana or the state. The University of Evansville is typically a university that doesn’t attract a lot of grant funding, but we have over $41 million in outstanding grants. We’ve raised about $87 million in the last three and a half years towards our goal of $125 million. That means that we have a lot of support from our alumni and friends to be able to help us build a bigger and better university that’s attractive for students in the future.