Dear Pacificans,

Despite stiff headwinds across higher education during this past year, University of the Pacific advanced across all fronts – from record enrollment and student success to fundraising and new academic degrees – thanks to you, our dedicated faculty, staff, students, alumni, Regents and supporters. But we still have more to do to achieve our goal of becoming the very best student-centric comprehensive university in the nation.

On Thursday in historic Faye Spanos Concert Hall, I outlined the fast-accelerating challenges across higher education, creating even more uncertainty and turmoil than ever before, and how at Pacific, we not only successfully navigated those dangerous waters, but bucked those ominous trends that imperil the existence of other colleges and universities in California and around the nation. I also outlined our plans and new strategic initiatives going forward. The address is available here, but please allow me to provide a written synopsis for you.

Enrollment, battered by the nation’s changing demographics and the global pandemic, took a new and unanticipated body blow this past year with the U.S. Department of Education’s disastrous roll out of the revised FAFSA process for student financial aid. Recent projections show some universities suffering a 20+ percent year-over-year decline in new student recruitment.

Political divisions over the war in Gaza triggered protests – in some cases violent ones – across hundreds of U.S. campuses, leading to student arrests and regular disruptions of classes, daily operations and graduation ceremonies. Targeted criticism on Capitol Hill over how universities responded to those protests led to the firings or forced resignations of presidents at some of the nation’s top universities, accelerating a trend where college presidents are leaving schools at record rates (among the Top 20 universities in U.S. News and World Report rankings, more than half either have vacancies or presidents in office for one year or less).

The enrollment declines, coupled with fast-spiraling escalation of insurance, utilities, and construction costs, are accelerating the closures of smaller independent colleges, proposed mergers and even layoffs and budget cuts at universities traditionally thought to be strong – including many of our peers.

Thankfully at Pacific, we are bucking all those dangerous trends. We are advancing on all fronts and continue, undeterred and guided by a laser focus on the success of our students, on our 10-year march toward becoming the top student-centric comprehensive university in America by 2031. Take a look at our new video illustrating some of those key achievements of the past year.

Enrollment is projecting to set another record this coming year, breaking last fall’s 172-year high of 6,755 students. Due to our enrollment success, we finished the year financially strong while many peers ran budget deficits and are facing cuts. And we became the highest-ranked private university in America to achieve Hispanic-Serving Institution designation from the U.S. Department of Education. We are one of only about 20 private universities with both HSI and Asian American and Native American Pacific Islander-serving institution status – critically important designations as California and the nation rapidly become more diverse.

We also set our second-best fundraising year ever (eclipsed only by the Powell gift year). New alternative revenue sources, such as the Pacific Summer High School Institute and the professionalization of campus venue rentals, have soared. We completed our most successful expansion since the acquisition of the McGeorge School of Law nearly 60 years ago with the creation of the Physician Assistant Building and the Pacific Health Care Collaborative on the Sacramento Campus. We created the largest merit pool for employees in 15 years. And we kept tuition to the lowest among our California peers.

Our successful trajectory is being recognized. The new Wall Street Journal rankings of colleges and universities place us No. 87 in the nation – our best national ranking in Pacific history.

Despite the significant progress that defies the gloomy and dangerous national trends, there remains much work still to do. While we celebrate the progress we have made, now is not the time for us to bask in our victories. Instead, we must redouble our efforts and maintain our monomaniacal focus on the success of our students. I am more confident today than ever before that – with the continued collaborative efforts of our faculty, staff and leaders – we will meet our ambitious 10-year goal.

On the new enrollment front, we are projecting to set an all-time record for the second consecutive year. Our faculty are working on a set of new undergraduate and graduate degrees to attract even more deserving students to our three campuses. We also are working on plans to have a major expansion of the Dugoni School of Dentistry in San Francisco, leveraging that world-class institution and our growing reputation for teaching biological sciences on the undergraduate level.

This year, we are reimagining our student success and retention efforts, which are at all-time highs but are not progressing as quickly as we would like. Additionally, we redesigned how we attract, recruit, enroll, teach, care for and graduate a growing cadre of international students. And we are working on better ways to explain the enormously beneficial value proposition of a Pacific education to prospective students and their families.

On the capital project front, we will open the renovated Manor Hall to house our student-veterans while breaking ground on a new Southwest Hall, the Student-Athlete and Sports Medicine Center and the Pacific Inn.

We are submitting our application to earn Community Engagement Classification from the Carnegie Foundation to recognize our extraordinary work in public service across all three campuses. And we are on track to secure the gold level in sustainability from STARS by 2026.

Finally, we are starting two new initiatives that we believe will play an important role in our university culture, recruitment, retention and ultimately the success of our students. We are launching the Presidential Lecture Series at Pacific, where we will bring in prominent thought leaders from different disciplines each semester to engage with our students and faculty. In the spring we will host Cathy Davidson, an author and influential thinker in fostering student success for college students in the 21st century, and Judy Woodruff, the legendary PBS News correspondent.

The first speaker in the new series will be Mónica Guzmán, the author of an excellent book on our divided nation and the need to hear each other in order to learn and grow (“I Never Thought of it That Way: How to Have Fearlessly Curious Conversations in Dangerously Divided Times”). The book and the author’s visit to Pacific is part of something we have not done previously – a campus-wide “common read” for our first-year students. Common reads are employed by some colleges to help create intellectual engagement and help build a community through a shared experience. The author explores the simple but powerful idea that to learn, we need to be able to listen to each other – even to those with whom we disagree. And this, of course, dovetails perfectly with our core belief: “At University of the Pacific, we develop lifelong learners and leaders by teaching students not what to think, but how to think.”

Thank you for your tremendous efforts over the last year that have created so many tangible successes. Our “flywheel” is indeed gaining momentum.

I’m looking forward to a great year together. Please reach out with any ideas, questions or issues.

Sincerely, 

Christopher Callahan
President