This paper describes the historical record of events at Saint Michael's College (SMC) from 1965 to 1971 and compares that record to the contemporary process of strategic change. The purpose of this paper is to gain an understanding of the strategic change process at a denominational college and relate that process to current strategic change processes. The sources used for this paper are primary texts from the archives at SMC and several textbooks pertaining to strategic change. The conclusions of this paper examine the need for cooperation among constituent parties as a means to implement the process of strategic change at an institution of higher education.

In 1906, the Society of Saint Edmund (S.S.E.) founded Saint Michael's College on "faith and $1300.00" (“Edmundite Society Founded the College,” 1970). By the mid-1960s, faith had brought Saint Michael's through 60 years of dynamic development, however many at the college recognized that it would need more than faith to be successful in the years to come. President Dupont S.S.E. had become increasingly convinced that the college had systematic faults at many levels, and began to study how the college might be altered to better meet contemporary challenges.

He identified two main areas that were in need of change. The first was the administrative structure of the college and the second was the board of trustees. Some 60 years after the college's founding, President Dupont had decided that there was a lot of work to be done. He wrote in 1968, "one thing is certain, none of us can face the future with complaisance. On the other hand, no one at SMC ever did. Hence, we should be ready for whatever we have to do" (Dupont, 1966, p. 19).

President Dupont had become the 11th president of Saint Michael's College in 1958 and remained in that post until 1969. His tenure at SMC began much earlier however. He was a 1935 graduate of the College and was ordained in 1939. He also received his master's degree from the University of Toronto in 1943 (“Fr. Dupont Dies,” 1974). He completed his Doctorate of Philosophy from the University of Montreal in the late 1940s. While in college he was a fraternity member and a varsity athlete participating in football, baseball, tennis and hockey.

He received many honors for his work as an administrator at SMC, but two accomplishments were most notable. First was his implementation of the SMC Plan, which reorganized the academic structure of the college. His commission instituted the concepts of core requirements and much of his reform work remains part of the curriculum today. President Dupont also conducted a governance study of cohort institutions while president of the College and his findings, among other ramifications, led to a laicization of the board of trustees (Edmundite Chronicle, 1961).

President Dupont was a dynamic individual who, when confronted with a problem, would first find out how cohort institutions were handling similar situations. This tendency to study a problem before reaching a conclusion earned him nationwide respect. His practices are known today as "benchmarking," and they were a focus of each of his major accomplishments.

Together with a consultant named Dr. Earl McGrath, President Dupont engaged in a self-study of other Catholic higher education institutions around the United States. The result was a controversial report that led to significant changes in the leadership and administrative structure of the College. The impetus for change came from many areas, but the speed of change was related to the significant financial difficulties that confronted SMC in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The College had been managed as one of the Society's many social and educational endeavors for decades. Saint Michael's dominated the annual S.S.E. meetings with issues such as budget proposals, grounds maintenance and dealings with financial institutions. Managing the College had become an increasingly time-consuming affair and the complex world of American higher education demanded the Society's constant attention. The individual at the center of the operation of the College was President Dupont and he began to worry that "the burdens of the office had become too great" (Dupont, 1968, p. 20).

The burdens were many in the increasingly competitive market for students. Admissions had some difficulty attracting qualified students. Financial Aid complained that the lack of an adequate endowment left the College at a disadvantage because other institutions could discount their tuition through the use of scholarship dollars. The deferred maintenance reached roughly $5 million by the late 1960s. There was a significant loss of income, because the residence halls were not at full capacity due to diminished enrollment. Officials also noted that the cost of education exceeded the amount charged to students by $617 and that more faculty had been hired than budgeted. Finally, the budget process failed to account for basic concepts like student attrition.

President Dupont realized that developing a more fiscally responsible institution would be an enormous task. He therefore asked Dr. McGrath, Director of the Institute of Higher Education at Columbia University, to work as a consultant. To create the change necessary to remedy many of the problems at the College, President Dupont focused on the board of trustees as the key mechanism for creating change. The board of trustees, comprised entirely of Edmundites, would need to be involved in the process of self-evaluation and change. In May of 1966, the board began that process by commissioning a study to ascertain how other Catholic institutions across the country were handling fiscal challenges and, more importantly, how other similar institutions were maintaining their Catholic missions, while accommodating change.

The report focused on 380 Catholic higher education institutions and involved questionnaires discussing the relationship of the religious board of trustees to the campus community. Specifically, the respondents were asked to comment upon the role of laymen on the board (Board, 1966, p. 20). The responses reinforced President Dupont's belief that the inclusion of laymen on the board was necessary for future development of the College. It appeared that two models of governance at other institutions had been developed. The first model created "autonomous boards of clergy and laymen," and the second involved the creation of "advising boards" that were related to the existing board of trustees with the exception of voting rights (Dupont & McGrath, 1965, p. 14). The report concluded, "of the institutions with no laymen on their governing boards, 98% have lay advisory bodies which presumably serve somewhat comparable functions" (Dupont & McGrath, p. 14).

A respondent at Notre Dame commented upon laicization by concluding that trustees have a duty to ensure the financial stability of their institutions. He additionally asserted that a board of trustees comprised of clergy alone was likely to lack the professional skills necessary to run a college well (Dupont & McGrath, 1965, p. 6). President Dupont also found that at Webster University in St. Louis (formally Webster College), the General Council of Sisters of Loretto had already transferred ownership of the college to a lay board. The sisters responded to the questionnaire by stating:

Higher education today is big business. It is becoming more and more difficult for a religious order to finance a college adequately from internal resources. It is fitting that the public the institution serves, upon whom it increasingly depends, have real power on the governing board. (Dupont & McGrath, 1965, p. 6)

Additionally, the sisters pointed out that 75% of the faculty consisted of lay persons and that their particular order "lacked adequately qualified sister-personnel" (Dupont & McGrath, p. 6). President Dupont found that nearly 50% of the 380 Catholic institutions had already laicized their boards and that the pace of laicization was quickening. He also detailed to the SMC board of trustees that several institutions had laicized their boards as early as 1846 as documented in the cases of Fordham and Villanova Universities (Dupont & McGrath, p. 14).

President Dupont noted that the number of Edmundites was eroding while the number of laicized faculty steadily increased and those trends resonated with the situation at Webster College. Additional anecdotal information taken from the comments of the college presidents surveyed was processed by Dr. McGrath and President Dupont. The most common comment centered on the idea that higher education institutions are "large, complex and costly institutions demanding administrative and financial expertise, and knowledge of legal processes" (Dupont & McGrath, 1965, p. 8). Another common issue focused upon a desire "to avoid parochialism" and many presidents responded that laicization had led to greater objectivity within the administration and among the faculty (Dupont & McGrath, 1965, p. 9). Finally, President Hesburgh of Notre Dame echoed the comments of many college presidents when he stated that he had to continue to build his endowment, "so you don't have to spend your life raising money and to keep Notre Dame from pricing itself out of the market" (Dupont & McGrath, p. 16).

Amidst some controversy, President Dupont and Dr. McGrath presented the report and a list of recommendations to the board of trustees on September 9, 1966. Controversy stemmed from the belief among some of the Edmundites that the report had been improperly commissioned by the board of trustees and therefore should be omitted from deliberations pertaining to laicization (Board, 1966, p. 7). Even the fairly innocuous Society minutes from 1966 to 1970 reflect some heated exchanges between the Edmundites who supported some form of change and those who did not.

Two comments made by Edmundites in the minutes frame the disagreements very well. One Edmundite explained, "this is our apostolate and we want to do a good job at it. The college can be related to a daughter who wishes to get married and begs her parents to let her go and live a life of her own…the historical thrust of change is upon us" (Extraordinary 59th, 1968, p. 1). A second Edmundite responded "that the correct daughter metaphor might rather be, I'm in, I like what I see, now you go" (Extraordinary 66th, 1968, p. 1).

The weight of the report was immediately understood by the board of trustees. The report was also accompanied by significant recommendations regarding the administrative structure of the College as well as the composition of the board of trustees. President Dupont and Dr. McGrath argued that the College should be divided into four units: development, academic affairs, business affairs, and student affairs (figure 1.0). They stated:

We believe that each of these units should be presided over by a highly competent administrator who would report to the President, but should lift from the President's shoulders all responsibility for matters beneath the level of these four offices. (McGrath, 1966, p. 3)

They also recommended that a full-time plant superintendent, comptroller and bursar be hired to complement the administrative staff.

The questions relating to the laicization of the board of trustees were vigorously debated with President Dupont and Dr. McGrath supporting a composition of 75% lay and 25% plus one clergy. This would enable the Edmundites to veto any changes to the charter of the College, and would accommodate the need for the expertise of specific lay persons on the board. The report found that some Catholic institutions retained a clergy-based board and utilized the skills of business people in the role of advisor only. Despite that option, there appears to have been little conversation regarding the use of lay advisory boards. One month after the initial presentation Dr. McGrath met with the board of trustees, which approved the administration proposal establishing the four units. The trustees opted for a more liberal approach to the constitution of the board than President Dupont had advocated. It was to be expanded from 10 to 24 people with 14 new lay trustee positions.

President Dupont had begun the process of change in 1966 when he wrote, "changes will take place at SMC in the area of administration. There are strong points and admitted weaknesses. The latter must be remedied and they will be" (Dupont, 1966, p. 1). College presidents do not often make comments such as these, nor do they often effect substantial change when institutions are running well. Saint Michael's was not an exception to this rule. Leslie and Fretwell, in their book, Wise Moves in Hard Times, comment that, "the more serious the fiscal problem, the greater was the pressure on presidents and their immediate staff to do something" (Leslie & Fretwell, 1996, p. 61). The major factors which precipitated President Dupont's reform-minded actions included a perceived degradation of the role of Edmundites in the College community, and significant financial turmoil.

The Superior General of the Society established a committee to make recommendations for the "canonical ratification and civil ratification" of their conclusions. In essence, the College and Society would be closely linked with the Edmundites "continuing their apostalate" at the College (Extraordinary SSE-SMC, 1968, p. 2). The Society, however, would no longer be solely responsible for the leadership of the College through the board of trustees. It was decided that each Edmundite faculty and staff member would enter into a written contract with the College and that S.S.E. faculty could be tenured. As a result of the committee created by the Superior General, the SSE-SMC report was released. The report called for, among other things, an end to absentee landlordism which had resulted from significant decreases in the numbers of Edmundites among the faculty and staff. The committee concluded that a lack of manpower among the Edmundites had led to a situation in which the College was governed by a group that was increasingly removed from the day-to-day operations of the institution.

The report also outlined a historical analysis of the role of the Edmundites in the evolution of the College. It stated in its conclusion that "the society. . .is exercising a Jack-of-all-trades mentality, but with few personnel" (Extraordinary SSE-SMC, 1968, p. 3). The report called for "decisions to be made about what activities to keep and which to withdraw from" (Extraordinary SSE-SMC, p. 3). The Society met in 1968 to discuss these issues and published a report of their findings. They concluded that the Society would remain deeply involved in the development of SMC's Catholic heritage, but placed limits on their role in the financial and administrative management of the College.

Despite his success at effecting significant structural change to the College, President Dupont wrote in the conclusion of his annual report in 1968:

I have been thinking of resigning for the better part of a year, because I feel that the burdens of the office have become too great for me and that a younger man might carry them out better than I shall be able to do. (Dupont, 1968, p. 9)

It appears that President Dupont had been preparing the College for future growth and for his departure for several years. He had presided over the controversial plan to laicize the board of trustees, and had successfully argued for a complete restructuring of the administrative side of the College. The board of trustees also responded with some symbolic changes of their own. It was decided that "all the trustees should receive a subscription to the Chronicle of Higher Education," which was in its third year of publication (Board, 1968, p. 7). Trustees were recognizing the links between trends in higher education and their ability to successfully operate the College.

In many ways, President Dupont had implemented change that prepared the College for the rough financial times that lay ahead. This allowed his successor to lead the College out of financial duress, rather than focusing on effecting significant institutional change, a process that often earns a president the ire of various campus constituents. President Dupont brought a higher degree of organization to the College through his reforms, however there was still more work to be done.

Financial problems were developing as President Dupont began to write about the need for analysis of the College's core functions and the need for change. The scope of the problems would grow rapidly and by 1970 the College was confronting enormous budget deficits, a struggling enrollment management picture, mounting deferred maintenance, and a general lack of centralized strategic management of resources.

The problems began in 1967-68 when the College operated with a budget deficit of $331,569.61. The deficit resulted in enormous amounts of deferred maintenance. Funding the institution was also increasingly difficult, because the enrollment management picture of the College was volatile. The College lacked adequate resources that could be used for tuition discounting, and had high tuition compared to competitors. These and other issues caused significant problems attracting qualified applicants. From 1968 to 1971 the College had experienced a 10% increase in applicants, however during that same period the number of applicants deciding to enroll in the College dropped more than 30%. In 1971 Father Purtill noted that the College needed roughly 360 new enrolls each year to remain financially stable, but by May 1971 only 99 first-year students had committed to attend (Michaelman, 1971, p. 1). The volatility of the enrollment picture added to the uncertainty of the budget and a sense that the College was in trouble.

Given the circumstances and the large budget deficits, administrators resorted to postponing maintenance of facilities. Officials reported that by 1970, the College faced $5 million worth of deferred maintenance (Michealman, 1971, p. 1). The policy of balancing the budget by avoiding scheduled maintenance and the use of development gifts for the current budget year allowed SMC to balance the budget and temporarily avoid a major crisis.

In November 1969, Mr. Bernard Boutin was elected the first lay president of Saint Michael's. He was also one of the first lay persons elected to the board of trustees, and as President he promised to bring more fiscal stability to the College. One of the first significant actions of President Boutin's tenure at SMC was to propose and successfully support co-education.

The move towards co-education had begun several years earlier when SMC allowed female students to take courses at the College, but did not allow women to actually enroll full-time. In June 1969, the Treasurer's Office requested an additional $100,000 to $150,000 from the board of trustees due to lack of income from residential halls, dining services, and international programs (Board, 1969, p. 4). Additionally, Mr. Hawley, the chief accountant, noted that "ninety beds were empty and that the college should fill those beds in order to prevent the waste of income" (Board, 1969, p. 5). Following Mr. Hawley's comments, members of the board of trustees wondered if there were any plans to admit women to SMC.

One year later, the board of trustees, under the leadership of President Boutin, elected to admit full-time undergraduate women to SMC. The board of trustees "felt that women were an essential part of a truly dynamic education, just as were individuals from differing cultural, economic, religious, and geographic backgrounds" (“First coeds,” 1970). Moments after the vote, board members commented that admitting women to the College might not be enough to meet enrollment targets. One member felt that "this situation might be helped by the fact that some male students would reconsider SMC in view of the fact that more females would be present" (Board, 1970, p. 1). It appeared that the board of trustees genuinely desired to have a co-educational college because women helped create a dynamic atmosphere on campus, but it was also clear that many trustees were anxious to fill beds and coffers.

Contributing to the chaos surrounding the budget was an inability to construct and abide by the guidelines that would define spending limits during a given period of time. In May of 1970, the board of trustees met to discuss the possible causes for the budget deficit. They noted that administrators had approved the "hiring of ten more faculty than allowed for in the budget" (Board, 1970, p. 2). Additionally, it was noted that the budget did not allow for attrition within the student population. Therefore, projected income was higher than actual income.

The challenges to a viable future for Saint Michael's were mounting and significant change was needed to turn the institution around. President Dupont and the board of trustees were able to meet the challenges as they became actively involved in the resolution of many structural problems. They set a precedent by starting their search for answers outside of the College and then applied their findings to their current situation. The Future Governance Report compiled by the President and Dr. Earl McGrath is an example of their willingness to search for answers beyond the boundaries of the campus. This is important because long before buzz words like "long-term planning" and "strategic change" became common terms for administrators, SMC utilized these concepts.

In contrast, "traditional change" processes are typically directed and defined by campus constituents. This commonly leads to the creation of solutions that are defined by pre-existing campus political considerations and individual biases. By assuming a macro-approach to campus problems, President Dupont and Dr. McGrath were able to identify new trends within other Catholic institutions as well as trends within the business community. Dr. McGrath's association with the College is an example of the macro-approach assumed by the College. He was brought in because the College needed a more objective person who could incorporate the "big picture" into the planning process (Dupont & McGrath, 1965, p. 1). The use of outside individuals and the focus upon trends within the larger higher educational community made the change process at SMC more strategic than traditional in nature.

President Dupont had concluded that the structure of the College administration led to an inefficient use of the executive office. Many micro-decisions needed to be cleared through his office before implementation. This left him very little time to focus on trends in higher education, long-term planning and new initiatives. Additionally, President Dupont recognized that the College lacked professional individuals with expertise in running a large financial enterprise. This included building and investing the College's endowment, borrowing money, and setting budgets based upon complex enrollment management projections.

The Governance Report had been created in an effort to find out how cohort institutions were solving similar religious, financial and social challenges. Specifically, the report allowed President Dupont and others to argue that the College needed to not only laicize its board, but create a more dynamic decision-making structure. This led to the structure outlined in figure 1.0 and also to the modified relationship between the Society of Saint Edmunds and the College itself.

Saint Michael's found itself in a situation in which the state of the campus "was the result of neither comprehensive planning, nor rational decision making" (Rowley, Lujan, & Dolence, 1997, p. 34). The board had managed affairs well for many years, but prior to the change process that began in 1965, SMC lacked an adequate administrative structure conducive to long- and short-term goal setting.

The philosophy that drove many of these changes is remarkably similar to the philosophy of strategic change. Strategic change can be described as "opportunity seeking" and as a process that seeks to "align an organization with its environment" (Rowley, Lujan, & Dolence, 1997, p. 34). The process at SMC was focused upon learning how cohort institutions were meeting similar challenges, and then adopting some of those solutions for Saint Michael's. President Dupont did not seek to copy a particular college's governance structure, but instead to create a similar model that worked for SMC. The compromise that laicized the board of trustees for example, created ample room for lay persons to join the governance of the College, while preserving the role of the Edmundites in the College's future.

A key ingredient in any strategic change process is to have campus constituent support for any proposed changes. President Dupont could not have acted unilaterally to change the structure of the College, because he needed the board's support for laicization. There are many factors that created an atmosphere within the board of trustees that was conducive to change. The presence of President Dupont, a devoted S.S.E. member himself, was surely a key factor. His willingness to exert leadership throughout the strategic change process was accompanied by the degree of trust afforded to him by the Edmundites on the board of trustees.

The role that financial turmoil played as an impetus for strategic change is important as well. "[It is] possible to measure the financial health of an institution by its accumulation of all resources that allow an institution to set its level of tuition and fees below the operating cost of educating a student" (Leslie & Fretwell, 1996, p. 15). Saint Michael's was forced to raise its tuition often throughout the latter 1960s and early 1970s. By 1971 SMC and Providence College were tied for the highest tuition among their competitors (Michaelman, 1971, p. 1). Despite the high tuition the College was still confronted with budget deficits and many trustees were ready for a change.

President Dupont and a significant number of Edmundites held the belief that the institution was not fiscally sound and they believed the lack of modern management practices was at fault. President Dupont and Dr. McGrath concluded in their report to the board in 1966 that "underlying all of these statements on administration, however, one detects the desire to bring the practices of well managed business organizations to bear on the day-by-day administration of the institution" (Dupont & McGrath, 1965, p. 20). These conclusions led to the principle that the leadership of the College needed to incorporate individuals with significant technical and business experience and this meant the inclusion of lay persons on the board of trustees.

That simple conclusion was not an easy principle to implement. It involved convincing a group of individuals that they would need to relinquish some of their control over the College in an effort to increase stability. The College was in a unique situation. Power was vested in the Edmundite board of trustees, and although there were other campus constituencies with vested interests, none could compete with the centralized power held by the Edmundites. President Dupont's task was then to provide a persuasive argument for laicization of the board of trustees to the current board of trustees.

A key concept that most administrators embarking on a strategic change process must confront is "the presence of shared governance" (Rowley, Lujan, & Dolence, 1997, p. 40). This was not entirely the case at SMC. The considerable power of the Edmundites was undiluted by the power of a competing administrative structure or faculty, partly because Edmundites were some of the administrators and faculty as well. The College also lacked a significant hierarchy of administrators that could resist change and reorganization. In 1966, one of the main tenets for creating an organized administrative structure originated in the concept that too much of the day-to-day operation of the College was the responsibility of the President. This, however, provided decided advantages because President Dupont needed to deal with fewer constituents as he considered changes.

It is clear that "as the available surplus or uncommitted resources declined, pressure grew to generate a strategy, to redefine options, to establish procedures, to work out decision rules, and to choose solutions" (Leslie & Fretwell, 1996, p. 61). Internal and external forces were conspiring to create the need for significant change at SMC. Those forces combined with the efforts of President Dupont and many of the Edmundites on the board of trustees to bring about strategic change.

In conjunction with the change process, the Edmundites and the administration clearly defined one aspect of the College's mission that would not be altered: its Catholic tradition. Dr. McGrath concluded that the College should continue its efforts to offer a Catholic education. He also asserted that SMC was not a "private preserve" and that the school has a strong constituent base outside of the Catholic church. He wanted to be sure that the College was accountable to the lay people that comprised the faculty, staff, students, and alumni as well (Dupont, & McGrath, 1965, p. 6). He achieved that goal, and as a result, the College averted serious upheaval in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s.

The process of strategic change would look very different at SMC today, because the number of constituents has grown immensely. However, the core ingredient of cooperation in the creation of change remains the same. If administrators work together to define problems, then the process of change will be successful. An inherent danger in not working cooperatively is that some constituents of a college can be so heavily "preoccupied with today's problems that they can not disengage long enough to deal with tomorrow's challenges" (Rowley, Lujan, & Dolence, 1997, p. 37). Strategic change is a way for a campus community to disengage from daily problems long enough to form a consensus on ways to meet future challenges before they become today's problems.

The popularity of strategic change at many U.S. institutions is encouraging because it can be a beneficial way to meet new challenges. What matters most, however, are the ingredients for change: cooperation, resolve, and the ability to care about the direction of the institution as a whole. The 1960s and 1970s were particularly challenging for SMC, but the community was able to make tough decisions about governance and financial matters. The College was founded on "faith and $1300.00," but it was the determination to work cooperatively that allowed the President and the board of trustees to effect the strategic change necessary to create a viable institution for the next half century.

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Tom Robinson is a graduate assistant with the Vermont and Scholarship Teams in the Office of Admissions at The University of Vermont. He is a first-year student in the HESA program. He is also a 1995 graduate of Saint Michael’s College with a B.A. in Political Science.