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Chasing the Cats
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our graduation numbers—students have a lot of success here.”
Temple isn’t worried about its status within the local hierarchy. The school has made significant strides over the past two decades and wants to continue its growth in applications and academic reputation. “We have a grittiness to us,” says Patrick Kraft, Temple’s athletic director. “We work hard, and that resonates with our ‘Temple Tough’ attitude. That doesn’t mean we’re getting into bar fights—it means we’re making the right decisions.”
La Salle University has a similar inward focus. It wants to be the best version of itself—a mantra repeated across the area. “I look at the opportunities that are here, the value in education we’re able to offer and the ability for us to transform lives,” La Salle athletic director Brian Baptiste says. “As I interact with alums, that’s one of the consistent things I hear, how the experience at La Salle transformed their lives and their families.”
It’s about finding an identity—
and, perhaps most importantly, a
value proposition that allows for sustainability in a jam-packed higher- educational climate. Reinvention can bring excitement, but it can also create confusion. And, these days, if you stay too grounded in traditional messaging, you risk irrelevance. “We just have to sharpen our focus a little,” Saint Joe’s Reed admits. “This is a very, very competitive market. As a result, being good is not enough. We have to do some things differently, like any good institution would do. We have something to build upon.”
Among the region’s Catholic universities, there may well be a shakeout coming. In response, smaller schools
have been offering course credit to high school students in hopes of attracting applications from those who like what they see and appreciate the value of
what they’ve acquired. Saint Joe’s will move forward with its strategic plan in
an attempt to make its campus more vibrant and its academic profile stronger. It has turned to Bodensteiner to create
an athletic program that resembles those mid-major departments that thrive on the fields and courts—one that also generates more revenue from fans and alumni who embrace the experience. “I think it’s helpful to focus on what other institutions are doing, because you get inspired and you get ideas,” Reed says. “But if everybody is chasing something, it worries me. We want to make sure we’re not distracted by too much of that.” MLT
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