Lexington, KY - Dr. Charles Shearer, Transylvania University's 24th president, has served in that role since July 1983. During that time, he has presided over a near doubling of enrollment at the college; Transylvania's endowment has soared to $120 million today; and more than $22 million in new facilities have materialized on the campus.
At a Board of Trustees meeting last October, Shearer made the surprise announcement that he would be retiring as Transylvania's president effective June 30, 2010.
He is to be succeeded by investment banker turned history scholar Dr. R. Owen Williams, whom we will be talking with later in the summer. Shearer spoke with Business Lexington's Tom Martin about his perspectives on higher education, gained from those 27 years in leadership at Transylvania.
TM: Sketch for us Transylvania's progress over the quarter century you've been in charge.
CS: It's been a pleasure to be Transylvania's president for that period of time. Transylvania has gone through some growth periods during that time.
You mentioned that the endowment has grown, and that's due to the good work of our Board of Trustees and our donors, who have been very generous over the years. They've also been generous in making it possible for us to expand the campus. We've added facilities, we've added buildings, playing fields for our intercollegiate athletics, so the campus has expanded in that way as well. Our enrollment has grown from about 700 students to about 1,100 students today, and that's been accomplished at the same time we've raised student quality along the way.
TM: Transylvania is a liberal arts college. How do you define liberal arts in today's context, and has it changed in any way?
CS: Liberal arts and the definition of it actually goes back centuries, but in terms of today's modern society, we talk about the ability of students to make connections among things that are obvious and things that are less obvious. We talk about the ability to analyze problems, to make career changes, because they have basic skills and analytical skills that are very important. When you go out into the world and you make a decision about something, you have to draw upon all the resources that you have available to you. So a broad liberal arts education with depth and a single major is an excellent preparation for today's society, which includes changing jobs, changing workplaces, how to technologically advance society - all those things really cater to the value of a liberal arts college and the ability of our students to make those connections, to draw conclusions, analyze problems and ask the right questions.
TM: The recession has been pretty unkind to the endowments of colleges all across the country.
Transy's endowment increased by a multiple of six during your presidency. How do you account for that performance, and what happened during the recession? Where does it stand now?
CS: James G. Kenan III has been our investment committee chair. He's given us great advice and counsel over the years, plus we've had several capital campaigns that have added to the endowment. The endowment actually reached, at one point, about $140 million at its height in June 2007. And, of course, then the recession hit, the stock market took a deep dive and it went down to approximately $85 to $90 million. Right now we're back up to $120 million. But if you go back 10 years and look at our investment performance, it was ranked among the top colleges in the United States. So we've had great investment performance, we've not invested in any unusual securities or private equities or items like that. So we've had good, solid, blue-chip stocks, and as the economy has rebounded, so has our endowment.
TM: Of course, the economy impacts the ability of students to enroll; have you had to increase your discount rate or do anything else to maintain enrollment?
CS: Looking at the discount rate, which is the amount of financial aid that you give as a percentage of tuition revenue, we've increased it slightly over the last year or so to help offset the financial pressures that our families face. And many of those who even have the resources to send their sons and daughters to Transylvania are questioning sometimes, because they worry about the future of the economy. But we've been able to offset that through some additional financial aid awards.
TM: Do you envision that rate being sustained over a period of time or do you think your successor might have to readjust?
CS: Well, everybody talks about the new normal. The new normal is we're in a very different economy today than we were four or five years ago, and so I think we have to be cautious going forward. I don't see any quick fixes in terms of the economy. It's going to take a gradual progression, and I'm sure that my successor will look at those items and those concerns closely and make the right decisions.
TM: How about on the facility and staff side - were there adjustments necessarily made there?
CS: Yeah, we did make some adjustments in terms of not getting raises and making some adjustments in retirement contributions to reduce expenses. But we've not laid anybody off, and we continue to forge ahead. The quality of our academic program has remained. The faculty is still doing a great job of teaching. We've had more Kentucky Professors of the Year in the last 10 years than any other college in Kentucky, so the quality of our instruction remains high and the quality of our services are consistently strong.
TM: Are there any aspects to the relationship between Transylvania and the University of Kentucky that the new president might want to look forward to, or perhaps approach with caution?
CS: We've had a great relationship with the University of Kentucky. Our students are able to take classes there. Our students are able to use the University of Kentucky library. Our students are involved in the ROTC program there, if they want to be involved in that. So there are many linkages between the University of Kentucky and Transylvania. Of course, a lot of our graduates go there for law school, medical school, graduate school, so all those connections have been very strong over the generations actually. So I don't see any caution flags that I would throw up in terms of that relationship. I think it's all been for the good and the good of both institutions.
TM: What specific ways do you feel Transylvania might contribute to Lexington's future?
CS: Well, I think this goes back to something our late chairman, William T. Young Sr. started in 1982 and that was the William T. Young scholarship program, where we offer merit scholarships to 20 incoming students each year, full tuition. And Mr. Young talked then about keeping Kentucky's best talent in the state, and other colleges and universities in Kentucky have followed suit with their own scholarship programs like that. So I would see Transylvania continuing to offer educational opportunities through scholarship programs to Kentucky's very best students to keep them in the state so they don't leave the commonwealth for their higher education experience, with the hope that after they graduate from Transylvania, if they go directly into the workforce, they'll stay in the commonwealth to work. And if they go to graduate school, maybe they'll go to graduate school or law school or medical school in Kentucky, or maybe they'll go beyond.
TM: On a personal level, running an institution like Transylvania is 24/7, and your engine has been running for 27 years. What do you envision for you after you depart, and, for that matter, are you departing really?
CS: That's a good question. People congratulate me on my retirement, and of course I've never retired before, so I didn't know what to expect. People say congratulations, and I say, "I guess so; thank you very much." It is a transition.
I'm looking forward to a lighter schedule. The demands on a college presidency today have been increasing with the various expectations of fund raising and the other responsibilities that are involved. I'm looking forward to having more free time. I'm looking forward to taking some time off, maybe traveling a little bit in the fall, and then in January I hope to be back on campus on a more regular basis and perhaps help the new president in areas where he may need me or ask me to help, and probably even teach a class.