The St. John’s College Board of Visitors and Governors met virtually June 24–26, 2021. They discussed the college’s financial outlook and the achievement of a balanced budget, the successful conclusion of the Winiarski Family Foundation Challenge, the Annapolis presidential search, and ongoing work in enrollment and student support initiatives.
What follows is a summary of these discussions.
With the hard work of our leadership, faculty, and staff, the college has reached a balanced budget in fiscal year 2021, keeping both our promise and our timeline for this essential milestone on our path to financial health. We met or exceeded our deficit reduction goals in every year of our five-year journey to a balanced budget.
Eliminating a deficit of $12 million, or 25 percent of our operating budget, was a huge task. We did it by not just holding the line, but by actually reducing expenditures each year despite rising costs in essential commitments such as health care. The college is projecting an operating surplus of $1.1 million for FY21 and $500,000 for FY22, which will resemble a more normal year.
While this is a substantial achievement, we are well aware that we are using non-recurring pandemic-related federal dollars in both FY21 and FY22. Our optimism is tempered by the awareness that we will need to achieve stronger results from other revenue sources in FY23 to keep our budget balanced. The college must maintain the momentum of the Freeing Minds campaign and keep growing our Annual Fund, which supports our operating budget. Doing this will allow us to finally address faculty and staff salaries that have been frozen for many years now.
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The generosity of our alumni and friends is a major factor in our future fiscal health. At the beginning of the Freeing Minds campaign, Board Chair Ron Fielding (A70) and Campaign Chair Warren Spector (A81) both graciously allowed their $25 million gifts to be used in part to cover existing deficits. Because of this, we were able to guarantee that the generosity of our other donors would go directly to students and programs and strengthen the college’s future.
After that critical commitment, we asked: What can we now do to secure the financial future of St. John’s College?
Alumni Warren Winiarski (Class of 1952), founder of Napa, California-based Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars, and Barbara Winiarski (Class of 1955), a member of the first class of women at St. John’s, provided an answer with their challenge: If alumni and friends could raise $50 million in cash gifts, the Winiarski Family Foundation would match those gifts with a $50 million contribution to the St. John’s endowment.
The college has met this challenge. Our success is due to the generosity of nearly 5,000 alumni and friends who offered more than 17,000 matched individual gifts, 96 percent of which were less than $5,000. This wide-ranging support helps ensure that the college will be able to offer the benefits of the Program to students, regardless of their financial circumstances, for generations to come.
The success of the Winiarski Family Foundation Challenge is a significant campaign milestone and has energized our entire community. While we are proud of this success, we also know there is still much more work to do to raise the final $50 million of our $300 million campaign goal.
In additional good news, the board’s Investment Committee reported the college’s endowment has increased to $231 million, up $14 million since the close of 2020 and a gain of more than $70 million since the public launch of the campaign.
The Presidential Search Committee also provided an update on their work to move a talented slate of candidates through a rigorous evaluation process. The committee has made substantial progress and believes we will have a new Annapolis president in place by the fall.
During the plenary session, Board Chair Fielding expressed his thanks to President Kanelos for his service to the college and highlighted some of his many successes as head of the Annapolis campus, as well as his tireless championing of St. John’s.
“I thank him for his many contributions to our admissions efforts and to our movement back to financial health, but we are perhaps most grateful that he was such an effective and sincere proponent of the St. John’s academic Program,” Fielding said.
The board also presented President Kanelos with an engraved croquet set as a memento of his tenure in Annapolis.
The news from Admissions is broadly positive. Despite ongoing effects from the pandemic on the national recruitment environment, both campuses are projected to meet or exceed their fall undergraduate enrollment goals, with Santa Fe projected to have its largest fall freshman class in more than a decade.
The Graduate Institute on both campuses has also seen very encouraging application and deposit trends for the fall 2021 semester.
The Task Force on Diversity & Inclusion discussed their draft report with the board and are in the final stages of completing their recommendations.
Our extensive collegewide collaboration to improve retention and student support continues to be a major priority. One example of this work is that this fall every freshman on both campuses will have an assigned faculty advisor. We look forward to updating you on these efforts in future reports.
This has been one of the most difficult academic years our community has ever faced, and our faculty and staff deserve our gratitude for the strength and determination they have shown under extraordinary conditions.
Our hard work is paying off, as all leading indicators—the budget, enrollment, and the endowment—are headed in the right direction.
Because of the sustained support of our donors and alumni, and the commitment and resolve of our faculty and staff, we are more confident than ever about our future.
As always, we are very grateful for your passion, your support, and your continued partnership with the college.
If there are topics that you think we should be covering in the emails that follow board meetings, or if you have specific suggestions on how this message could be more helpful, please email presidents(at)sjc.edu.
Sincerely, Mark Roosevelt and Pano Kanelos
