Why St. Francis University is Leaving DI Athletics

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Teresa Valerio Parrot

Hello and welcome to the Trusted Voices Podcast. I’m Teresa Valerio Parrot alongside Erin Hennessy, and in each episode, we discuss the latest news and biggest issues facing higher education leaders through a communications lens. For these conversations, we’re often joined by a guest who shares their own experiences and perspectives. But we also make time for one-on-one conversations about what we’re seeing, hearing, and thinking.

Trusted Voices is produced by Volt, the go-to news source for higher education leaders and decision makers. Remember to visit Volt at voltedu.com and Subscribe to Trusted Voices on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, or wherever you get your podcasts to make sure you never miss an episode. 

Thank you for joining everybody. We have a little bit of a shift in plans today. Unfortunately, Erin wasn’t able to join today. She had a family situation come up. And so I’ve mentioned this person many, many times on the podcast. And so…Dr. Michael Harris, thank you so much for joining me today as my co-host. Michael, would you like to introduce yourself to the people who listen?

Michael Harris

Thanks, Teresa. It’s good to be here. I’m a long-time listener, first-time caller, so glad to be here.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Hahaha!

Michael Harris

For those who don’t know me, I’ve been at the Southern Methodist University in the School of Education and Human Development here for the last 13 years. Currently serving as the interim dean, which has been an interesting experience, but my background is as a professor of higher education. So I love talking about all things higher ed and love listening to Teresa and Erin talk about these issues. So glad to sub in.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

And Michael was one of my professors. The first time that he met me is when I had an emergency meeting called for Michael to defend all of our fees, our student fees to us. And so I laid out all of the fees, got all my colleagues riled up, and then I left the room so that I could take a call. And he had to listen to all of my colleagues go one by one through the fees, and he had to defend them. So you’re welcome, Michael.

Michael Harris

Yeah, why am I here again? 

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Hahaha! We’re here to talk about the news of the day. Would you like to go first or do want me to go first?

Michael Harris

I’ll go first. I’ve been fascinated for the last several years around the issue of accreditation, which I don’t think we often think of in higher education as a really sexy topic, but it has somehow become a thing that politicians want to talk about and everybody’s got an opinion on in or outside of higher ed.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Wait, when was accreditation never sexy? How did I not know that? I’ve always thought of accreditation as sexy.

Michael Harris

That’s because every faculty member who’s had to fill out one of those learning assessments or fill out one of those annual reports, and it feels like a bureaucratic exercise and far away sometimes from the actual assessment of helping students learn better. But I think this is a fascinating time to be talking about accreditation because we had a great story that the assembly put together out of North Carolina and was co-published with the Chron of Higher Education looking, really a deep dive in this new accreditation system that’s coming up that folks in Florida, North Carolina, and some other red states have been looking at. And I just, I love the detail on the story, really understanding where did this come from? How is it coordinated with the Department of Education and Secretary McMahon? And it really strikes me as an implication for public versus private institutions And if folks haven’t listened to your and Erin’s conversation with Belle Wheelan last season, I guess it was last season, right? 

Teresa Valerio Parrot

It was season, it was last December.

Michael Harris

It’s a great one to go back and listen to and still, I think, salient when you look at some of these issues, because I do worry about what happens if we have an accreditation system that turns red versus blue or public versus private. And how in the world are we gonna ensure institutional quality? And there’s a lot of rhetoric around about not being about ideology, but it’s hard to look at the states that are involved and not wonder to what degree ideology is gonna inform who’s gonna be accredited by this new system. So, the story was fascinating. This whole question is fascinating to me. And I don’t think we’re yet anywhere close to knowing how this story is gonna end.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Well, and I think one of the nice things that the article did is it laid out the players. Because one of the things that I didn’t know as well is the role that UNC, the University of North Carolina system, played in the creation of this new accreditor. Right? 

Michael Harris

I don’t think any of us knew, right? I think that really was groundbreaking news coverage.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

DeSantis was the one who came out and said, we’re pulling together this new accreditor and he did the press conference and it was a big deal. But I’m going to quote from the article.

“There have been no major decision points where North Carolina’s preference has not been followed.” That’s a quote from a UNC official. And I just thought that was fascinating that he was very clear to say DeSantis is taking the lead in speaking about this, but really we are the architects of this. I thought that was just, it’s a really interesting shadow docket, if you will, that’s going on at UNC.

Michael Harris 

Yes, yes!

Well, and I think the other thing that struck me in the article was how much they’re planning for the next presidential administration and one that may be less ideologically aligned to their beliefs than the current one. And that they saw some safety in numbers, right? If we can get these various major systems involved, they think that a new Department of Education might not come after them.

And I think that’s also an open question, right? We haven’t seen an administration come after a higher ed like this one, which is why we need to fight for higher ed. 

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Correct, we need to fight for higher ed, correct, yes.

Michael Harris 

But at the same time, is this the new playbook where if there’s a democratic administration, they’re going to come after red state higher ed in the way this one’s come after blue state and private higher ed? I do wonder, right, that they seem to be getting ready for that possibility to some degree.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

I think that’s a really fascinating concept because if we think that that’s the future of accreditation, accreditation standards are these big blocks, right? These are big core elements for institutions. It’s not like this is a pendulum swing and it’s not like these are whims, but they’re being treated that way right now. And that’s a really scary prospect in my mind. That actually scares the bejesus out of me.

Michael Harris 

I just think about the poor folks who are doing this hard work on campuses, not just faculty, but assessment professionals and accreditation liaisons. And all of the work that goes involved into one of these visits, it’s a tremendous amount of work. And the initial idea of changing creditors every 10 years, which was, I think in lot of ways, an attack on sex, is now where you’ve got a whole new accreditation system and at least the story noted three institutions that were basically pausing efforts to find out where North Carolina was gonna land. That’s a lot of effort and work on campus that’s paused right now. And I feel for those folks along with everybody else who’s trying to navigate uncertainty right

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Well, and today, Linda McMahon, so we’re recording this on the 8th of September, Linda McMahon gave a speech at Hillsdale and she said, we have administrators for diversity and sensitivity for liaising with professional associations from micromanaging professors classrooms for compliance paperwork on all the regulations handed down by the state and federal government. Well, then maybe have less regulations. You can control the last one.

Michael Harris

I was going to say, they don’t seem shy about getting

rid of regulations when they want to. So here’s your chance.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Exactly.

Yeah. So let’s talk about that last one. I think maybe we don’t need so many administrators if you didn’t want to have so many. So it’s an interesting, interesting time for us. And it’s a little bit of speaking out of both sides of mouths on a number of different things, whether it’s accreditation or it’s administrators or diversity or a whole bunch of things.

Michael Harris

Well, it brings up the second story I wanted to note because I think in some ways on Earth too, this is where accreditation is focused, which is around micro credentials and non-credit accreditation. And so there’s a story in Inside a Higher Ed looking at the New England Commission on Higher Education and HLC, the Higher Learning Commission, who are kind of gearing up to accredit non-credit providers. And I think in some ways this is probably a needed effort as the story notes.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Agreed.

Michael Harris

The non-credit market has grown and continues to grow while in some ways the credit market is shrinking. And so accreditation should largely be thinking about how do we assure quality in these non-credit spaces? And so it really struck me the juxtaposition of those two stories. It felt like an old school higher ed story. How do we get quality assurance and non-credit providers, which seemed completely divorced from what’s happening in North Carolina, Florida, Iowa and others. So it just, it strikes me that accreditation is still working its wheels and trying to ensure quality and that students are learning what institutions promise they’re learning. But the federal government, as with many things, making that also difficult.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Well, and I love that you brought in that second article I was going to bring in as well. And based on how you just framed that, I just had an epiphany. And that is, I think I’m an old school accreditation-liker because what I liked is the good housekeeping seal of approval that would come with some of these micro-credentials because right now nobody knows of the quality or of anything associated with them. And everybody and their best friend is coming up with these certificates and programs and just things, and anybody can be offering anything and promising whatever they want. And it seemed to me that having some kind of regulation, I can’t believe I’m saying that, but some kind of guidance or something felt safer than not having anything. I don’t know. I think I just got old.

Michael Harris

And I think you could probably arguably say in some ways, the better knock on the accreditation system was they were not tough enough at times on institutions. 

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Right, agreed. And that’s where Belle and I really had a difference of opinion.

Michael Harris

I remember quite vividly. But it feels like the fight around accreditation in the political environment is divorced from the fight in higher ed of how do we assure quality? How do we have that good housekeeping seal of approval?

And it’s, I don’t know how you can have both of these fights happening simultaneously because they’re both really important and take a lot of institutional time, energy and effort. And that’s, I just worry where accreditation is going to be 18 months from now, much less five or 10 years from now.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Yeah, absolutely agreed. And I wish I could zoom forward and see because I think there’s so many people who are nervous about what happens to higher education based on that answer.

Michael Harris

But if we zoom forward, would that be more anxiety producing or less? I’m not sure.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

I don’t know. Let me add another one that is giving people a whole bunch of heartburn. There is a whole bunch of consternation around, this is a Chronicle article, The Death of Shared Governance: When administrators attempt to slash programs and layoff staff, should faculty have a say? There’s a whole bunch of articles in the Chron right now around shared governance. In what role should we be having faculty play in that?

And I wanted to have that conversation with you as a tenured faculty member, as a former chair, as an interim dean, and as someone I know who just recently wrote a chapter in a book about shared governance, with everything going on in shared governance right now, what should be the role of faculty in all of the changes happening in higher ed?

Michael Harris 

So I served as a faculty center president and I said to colleagues when they said, why in the world would you want that job? I said, well, because I’ve preached enough about shared governance in class over the years, and I’m nerd enough to actually believe in the value of shared governance. That being said, I think some ways to me, this all actually still ties back to the pandemic and that we had to make so many changes with so little information so quickly that there was almost a understanding that although the AAUP had a report and was cited in the story, you mentioned the Chronicle piece, there was somewhat of an understanding that people have to really rapidly respond and there wasn’t time to get a task force and a committee and go six rounds with your faculty senate about what you’re going to do during COVID. But I think there was some hope or expectation that coming out of that, we might quote unquote return to normal. And I think in some ways, particularly the last nine months, have put us back in that crisis mode. And so I think administrators are somewhat logically making decisions around this is a crisis and we have to decide immediately. My argument back would be, sure, it’s a crisis right now. But the time to have had that conversation was two years ago. You should have been educating to think about what kind of education do you need to do with your faculty? What kind of education do you need to do with your board? So that more people are understanding of the state of the university. Not everybody’s gonna know everything, the time and complexity involved in leading institutions now. Faculty members, they have a day job. They can’t be as immersed in it as our institutional leaders, but it’s just to me even more incumbent to take the time and effort and educate your faculty around the state of where does your money come from? Where do our students come from? What are the things that would put us at risk as an institution?

And if you had had that conversation two years ago in a lot of places, things like a loss of federal funding, loss of grant funding, loss of state support, any number of things that were predictable, at least in the abstract, you could have been having those conversations then, which would buy you goodwill and to one of your favorite words, trust now when you need to rely upon it. And you can’t build that up in the middle of a crisis.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Funny you should say that Dr. Harris because I’m gonna hold up a prop. I also wanna call out a report that Lee Gardner wrote for the Chronicle, it’s called Building Trust. You and I both are in it. We had a really fun experience being interviewed together and that’s in here as well. 

Michael Harris 

I’m not sure Lee thought it was as fun as you and I did, but that’s okay.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

And I think he did, he thought it was fantastic. We kept him very entertained. But I think what you’re talking about, this report actually gets to the heart of. How do you build trust in advance? That’s the key, in advance. How do you maintain trust? How do you think about trust? Because to your point, usually it’s an after the fact whoops, rather than something that people plan for in advance. And I think that’s a common thread across the many Chron articles that we’re seeing right now around cutting programs and making significant changes on campus and the lack or the involvement of shared governance.

I thought there was something interesting. I want to share with you an idea that Robert Kelchen had as well. He was mentioning that most faculty are on nine-month contracts. And are we getting to the point, because so much work is done during the summer, should we be giving faculty stipends over the summer if there is a shared governance component that they need to be working on? I actually thought that was really smart, something that recognizes that the work goes year-round. And do we need to be paying faculty for that time because they are off contract? We are doing work that is different than their contractual cycle. 

Michael Harris 

Well, and I think what it does, and I say especially with my administrator hat on, I’d love to pay faculty for every little thing we want them to do, right? But I think there is an important acknowledgement of the value of this labor and the value of governance labor. You know, we can talk as much as we want till we’re blue in the face around service and the importance of service. But the reality is most faculty get hired, promoted, rewarded around teaching and or research depending on the university. We have all kinds of freeloaders around service and people who don’t carry their weight and people who carry too much weight. And I do think an acknowledgement of the importance of service roles and that they are worth compensating for in various forms. Sometimes that could be time, sometimes that could be money. But I think you’re right, we are no longer in a space where we can afford to not make decisions for three months. Or I would say equally in a space where you can make decisions without your faculty because they’re quote unquote not here in the summer. We’ve got to find a better space.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Especially if we want buy-in and especially based on the culture components tied to the decisions that are being made.

Michael Harris 

And not just buy in, make better decisions. This is always marketed around governance. Governance helps you make a better decision. It doesn’t help you make a faster decision, but it does, I firmly believe, help you make a better decision. And so you need faculty to participate and to share those ideas and to push back. And even if you don’t ultimately agree, that pushback is sometimes really important to think through the kind of changes one needs to be making.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Perfect. I have one more headline that I wanted to share with you. I wanted to get your reaction on. It was an article from about a week and a half ago about Homeland Security moving to restrict how long international students can stay in the US. So right now the proposal would limit international students’ duration of stay to four years. This was an article from Katherine Knott in Inside Higher Ed. And I mentioned this because how long does it normally take for people to earn a PhD, Michael, a PhD?

Michael Harris

Little longer than four years.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

A little longer than four years! And that ends up becoming a real issue as we think about international students. So we’re already restricting visas writ large for all international students. But now we’re looking to have like a second culling, if you will, of student visas and who might want to come to this country purely based on the timing of how long it takes to get some of these degrees. Kai Ryssdal had a really great post on Bluesky and he said higher education is a full dollar export weird for a president consumed by the trade gap to go after it. And I think that’s just such a great way to think about this is that I don’t know if they do or they don’t know how long it takes to earn a PhD. I don’t know if they care, but you really are limiting and then limiting who might want to come here and who might want to stay and what their contributions might be based on their higher education experience.

Michael Harris 

No, I couldn’t agree more. I mean, we will talk about trade wars. We win every trade war in higher education with anybody on the planet. 

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Exactly!

Michael Harris 

And instead of getting in a fight with your best industry, your most exporting industry that has done more goodwill and sent more American culture, it’s sent more American economic power, soft power, hard power, you name it, higher education has done that. And so…

Teresa Valerio Parrot

And foreign students for most institutions offset the cost for domestic students.

Michael Harris 

No question, no question. Not to mention all of the incredibly smart, talented individuals who have come and uplifted our economy that had their gateway into this country through various forms of higher education. I mean, this is one of the great American success stories of the last century. And I do worry what it means for the long-term health of the country as higher education gets beaten down in this environment.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

I agree. And I hope that there starts to be a recognition of what this industry, because people like to think of us just as a service or something that is just in people’s backyards and they don’t recognize, to Kai Ryssdal’s point, that we are a full dollar export. We contribute to economies in very specific ways. We are employers. We are generators of innovation, all of the ways in which we give back in ways that we’re starting to be better at talking about.

Michael Harris 

And you’re the communication professional, but we’ve got to tell that story better as an industry. 

Teresa Valerio Parrot

It’s not just a communications issue, Michael.

Michael Harris 

But it is the way we talk about ourselves, the way we explain to people the value that we have. I’ve found this as a Dean, even the last few months, when I talk with people in the community, it’s about the impact that we’re having, that our students are having, that our faculty are having, that our school is having. That’s the debate we need to be having, not about who lost this amount of money or that amount of money. It’s about the impact that is lost if we’re not able to continue the good work that we’re doing.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

I absolutely agree. So I’m gonna have my last clip because I’m gonna segue us to our guest. As you know, I love intercollegiate athletic discussion. And I thought the easiest way to, with you being on with me today, segue us to a talk about division one intercollegiate athletics is to just mention to you, a Tar Heel, the game that happened on Labor Day, which was By the numbers: Why [Bill] Belichick’s UNC debut was a disaster for the ages at North Carolina. That’s courtesy of CBS Sports. Just wanted to ask if you saw the game and what you thought, Dr. Harris.

Michael Harris

So as a proud Carolina graduate, I will say I have been round and round with North Carolina football for the better part of my adult life. It’s Lucy and the football. Every time I think we’re going to be there, Lucy pulls the football back. Did I fall for it every time? Yes, I did. Did I turn off the game in the third quarter? Yes, I did.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

I watched it all the way to the end, Michael, just so that you know. But here’s what I will say. Basketball season starts soon.

Michael Harris 

Not soon enough.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Hahahaha. And with that, we’ll turn to our guest.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Father Malachi Van Tassell assumed the office of the president at St. Francis University on May 12th, 2014. Prior to the presidency, he spent 12 years at the university as an assistant professor of accounting.

He previously served as the treasurer and vicar provincial of the Franciscan Friars Sacred Heart Province. Father Malachi professed vows as a Franciscan in 1999 and was ordained to the priesthood in 2004. He has a PhD in higher education leadership from Capella University, a master’s degree in taxation from Arizona State University, and an undergraduate degree in accounting and Spanish from Franciscan University.

A certified public accountant, he worked for Coopers & Lybrand in Phoenix, Arizona, and Arthur Andersen in Albuquerque, New Mexico as a tax accountant before becoming a Franciscan.

Thank you so much for joining us, Father. We’d love to talk to you about the current intercollegiate athletics environment and why changes over the past few years have made it difficult for small colleges and universities to participate at the Division I level. What are your thoughts about that change?

Father Malachi Van Tassell

Teresa, thanks so much. I tell you, ever since we’ve announced our intention to move from Division I to Division III, I’ve been getting that same question from a lot of people. And what I’d like to share with them is that, from our point of view, Division I changed around us. And we’d always been the smallest Division I school in the NCAA. And honestly, it was kind of a point of pride for us as well. But really, a few years ago when the transfer portal liberalized and when name, image, and likeness became what it is now, we realized that at that point, the times were a-changing. And so I can remember when the transfer portal liberalized in favor of students. And I just remember feeling in my heart of hearts that we probably would not be long for the Division I world. And in March, we made a proactive decision to move from Division I to Division III beginning in fall of ‘26. And really, I point to the external factors that drove us to that decision. We liked being Division I, and it was very much a part of our culture. But because of factors beyond our control, we decided it would be good to make that move.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Do you think in part your history and your background is that you are an accountant? Do you think that you were able to look at athletics as a president, as an accountant, and separate some of the emotion that some institutions and presidents and boards have tied to this? And look at this really about what does this mean for the institution? How does or does this not tie to the mission?

Father Malachi Van Tassell

You know, as you pointed out, I am a certified public accountant and so, even as a president, I still look at a lot of decisions through an accounting lens and it’s not the sole lens that I look through. But, definitely cost was one of the deciding factors here. When you look at NIL and transfer portal, or even just the day-to-day expenses associated with running 23 or 24 Division I sports programs, one has to ask themselves the question, is this a sustainable path? And for years, it was always an expensive path. So there’s nothing new there. So the decision wasn’t made solely for financial reasons, but it was a big factor in this. And so, I would look at this through the lens of accounting and through business sense. And so, yeah, so I was able to separate myself on an emotional level from it. At the same time, I’m the university president who enjoys going to Division I competition games on our campus. You can spot me at any number of football, basketball, soccer, you name it, games. And, as we were wrestling with this decision, I would be at these games watching our students compete and thinking to myself in the back of my mind, life could be very different here if we’re no longer Division I. These games could look a little different. And so that also factored in. So it was not strictly a business decision. It wasn’t simply a CPA and his accountants looking at the numbers. But really, we had to take really a holistic look at things.

If it was purely a financial decision, on the one hand, we could have made this decision years ago. But, again, this is our culture and Division I is so much of what we do and we’re proud to be both Division I and a small school. And we’ve been proud to tout that for 10, 20, 30 years. But again, when it came down to it because of the winds of change that are blowing in Division I, I like to say that Division I changed around us, and if it weren’t for that, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation. But yeah, just a lot has happened in the last two to three years in the Division I world.

Michael Harris 

When you say all the changes that are happening around, is there a single one that led you to say we need to have this conversation now? Or was it a cumulative effect of all of the changes that have been happening the last few years?

Father Malachi Van Tassell

I think a number of things converged. But what really got me soul searching honestly was the transfer portal, and I saw a couple of years ago when the men’s basketball team, a number of them transferred out at the end of the season. And then, it’s pretty stark there because that team is so small. But then I was I was seeing it with the football program, present day we have a football program with not a lot of juniors and seniors, a lot of freshmen and sophomores. But I looked beyond that. I’m the guy who hands out diplomas at commencement, and so being a small school, I see who crosses the stage. And what I noticed this year was I did not hand a lot of diplomas to students of color. And I attribute that to the transfer portal. Okay, I have a lot of students of color on campus but not a lot of them are graduating. I hope they’re graduating from someplace else, but when I saw that, I went, okay, that’s pretty stark. And so going back to the transfer portal, I realized that, we were now becoming a campus of student athletes who were here for a year or two, using us as a stepping stone to go and be successful somewhere else. And I wish them all the best, but I prefer the environment where a student comes and stays for four years or more if they want to stay for their master’s degree so that we can develop their entire person. They’re educated, they become a better athlete, they become a better man or woman for having spent four or five, however many years at St. Francis University. So that’s when I went, okay, times are a-changing and maybe because of a desire for purism, if you will, I long for the days when a student would come here for four years and join the alumni family when they got done. Well, that’s not happening anymore. Now, granted, there are, of course, students who stay for four years, and that’s great, but the Transfer Portal has really made it so that it’s become just much more transactional, and that’s not us. I want our students to experience St. Francis for their entire college career. And so I think more and more, as I reflect, I really do point to transfer portal as what became the pivot moment or the moment when I had to do some soul searching as a president and ask myself, what do we as St. Francis University want to do in this new milieu?

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

And I also think there’s a part of the fan experience that is going to shift as well. There were a number of articles this past spring that said with St. Francis making its change, with others considering a change, we’re going to shift away from having the Cinderella stories because the Cinderella’s are no longer going to be able to be a part of Division I athletics. And that means those teams that we rooted for, those teams that we hoped would make it into the Sweet 16 and maybe into the Final Four, whatever the case might be, we will no longer have them to root for. And that changes the fan experience as well.

Father Malachi Van Tassell

Absolutely. And having been to a first four game this year with my team playing in the first four, that was a great, great gameday atmosphere. I mean, we did so much alumni stuff around it. I mean, it really brought the university community together. It was an awesome experience. But then when you then go to the end of that of the whole tournament session, the four, the final four were four number one seeds. Okay? And nothing against those teams, but how boring is that? Okay. Like there was no, no upsets. There were no Cinderella stories. You know, there wasn’t Fairleigh Dickinson playing, there wasn’t a number 64 or number 16 seed beating a number one and so forth. So I’m with you on that, and I was happy to be, for my school, to be, kind of a Cinderella story in this. No one expected us to get to the first four games and I’m proud of the team that got us there. But you’re right, it just changes the whole dynamic. It was kind of, my opinion, kind of a boring NCAA tournament after we lost.

Michael Harris 

When I think it raises the question around one of the other ways the character of athletics has been changing in this new environment is around conferences and conferences realignment. And I say that as a school who’s in the Atlantic Coast Conference, which I’m in Texas, so we kind of have an Atlantic Coast. Stanford and Berkeley now, not exactly on the Atlantic Coast anymore. As you were thinking about the change with St. Francis, and I’m curious how much some of the pressures and challenges you were facing as a member of the Northeast Conference kind of pushed your decision to think about a transition to Division III. But also as you’ve made that decision, how did you go about thinking about what was the right conference home for St. Francis and what did that mean for the overall institution?

Father Malachi Van Tassell

Right. And here again, all of the things being equal, if, you know, if some of these external factors hadn’t changed, we were happy to remain a member of the Northeast Conference because Northeast Conference has always been a right fit for us. It’s a conference that gets it in terms of academics as well as athletics. There’s other Catholic schools in that conference. It’s a conference of like minded schools, similar sized for the most part and really get it when it comes to the academic piece. So in that, and plus I have to say too, there’s always been helpful people over the years who have encouraged us to move up, in their terms, in Division I, move to the Mac, move to the Patriot League. But my response to those folks has always been absolutely not. We were right positioned in the Northeast Conference for reasons that I just described.

But again, once we went down the path of going to Division II or Division III, it really then became a question of philosophy. Because I do get the question a lot, why not Division II? But when I looked at the geography of the DII and DIII conferences within our region, the President’s Athletics Conference in Division III became the best fit for us because of mission.

Here again, there’s a number of Catholic schools, a number of Christian schools in that conference, similar sized, similar philosophies when it comes to academics. And I felt that we would be a better fit in DIII. So really the question was not one of athleticism or athletic competition or that, but really it became one of mission. And then concurrent to that, when you make a change of this magnitude, this is a change that you make once and a change that you want to do it right the first time. And so you’re just on a practical level, to have gone, say, from Division I to Division II, and then God forbid, realize, oh gosh, maybe I should have gone to Division III in the first place and then make another change. That’s too much change for an institution. That’s just, it’s just too much. It’s also too much for the president, but but more importantly, I wanted us to make one change, make it once, make it right. And again, because of reasons revolving around mission, the PAC in Division III was really the best one for us. And so, it puts us in a very Pittsburgh-centric conference. And, it’s less travel time for our student athletes. It’s less travel time for our fan base, and it allows us the opportunity to create some regional rivalries. Our sister school, Franciscan University, is in the PAC. so there was a lot of benefits, just in terms of, again, who the members of that conference are.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

We’ve talked a lot about change and I want to talk about how you got to the point of making a change. So I would love for you to discuss with us how you approach discussions with your board about the athletics reality and the process by which the board made the decision to move from Division I to Division III.

Father Malachi Van Tassell

That’s an excellent question because this was no, one it was no easy decision. And at the same time, it was not a quick decision. And so, it was over two years ago that I had what I called a fireside chat with my board of trustees. Now bear in mind, my board is probably two thirds alumni of St. Francis, which is great. They know the history. They love the institution, so they’re passionate about the place.

I also have trustees who are from various age demographics. I have graduates from the 1960s all the way up through the 1990s and early 2000s on the board. Each of their experiences was different. Some are athletes, some are not. And so I had to educate my trustees just to get them on the same playing field to say, this is what it means to be St. Francis in Division I, present day.

So some of it was the basics, just in terms of what athletic scholarshiping was, but there was some other macro level stuff that went along with that. So we took the time that we needed and we were very thoughtful and we made sure first and foremost to educate trustees. And then the trustees really engaged and dug in on the topic. So there was discussions on the finance level, looking at pro forma’s, what would it look like if we were Division II or III and so forth. We also then realized pretty quickly that this was more than just an athletics discussion. This really was a discussion that revolved around enrollment and who do we recruit and the type of student that we recruit. And so we brought in the financial aid people as, part of the discussion, and, so really it was, from that fireside chat to when we made the announcement was about a year and three quarters, almost two years. So we took the time that we needed as a board, all the while realizing this was gonna be a culture shift. This was not a financial decision purely. This was gonna impact the culture of the institution and would set the stage for the institution for the coming decades. So we realized the magnitude of the discussion that we were having and we included senior staff in this and at a certain point late in the game, intentionally late in the game, we brought some of our athletics senior staff in. But at the end, it was a unified, unanimous board decision to go down the path of reclassification. And again, there’s still emotion revolving around this announcement, but I can say in all honesty, I’m very proud of the board because they took the time they needed and they asked the right questions and brought in the right expertise to bring them to this very monumental decision.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

And kudos to you. If you think about a nearly two year process for any institution and not to have it leak, that’s phenomenal. 

Father Malachi Van Tassell

Thank you. Thank you.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Michael, can you think of any other discussion? Because you and I have talked about so many things going on in higher education. Name another situation that has held for two years of this magnitude.

Michael Harris

None of this magnitude, right? The nature of, and the willingness of trustees to have the faith in each other that we’re going to have these conversations in this room. And we won’t necessarily all agree, but we’re going to come to what’s the best decision in the interest of the institution. I mean, that’s kudos to that board.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Right. I agree.

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Michael Harris

So Father, one of the interesting aspects of your background, as I was looking at your experience, is you’ve got not completely unique, but somewhat unusual among the university president of having been a faculty athletics representative. And as someone who is three months into that job and is still trying to learn about what an FAR does, I’m curious how that experience with athletics and with your faculty colleagues working with athletics influenced you and kind of prepared you for the nature of the decision and discussions you had to have around this change for the university.

Father Malachi Van Tassell

Thanks so much! I want to believe that having been a faculty athletics representative and having been so involved with athletics in general during my time as a faculty member, I want to believe that that adds credibility to what I’m doing. So in other words, like I’m not some president who came in from the outside, who very dispassionately looked and said, OK, let’s make this very clinical decision, which is a no brainer because of finances. Quite the contrary. Because I’ve been intimately involved with athletics at St. Francis since 2002, when I became a faculty member and I became the FAR in 2004, it gave me a lot of insights, and just in terms of, the practical piece of what it means to be a student athlete, what it means to be a coach. But then also, I’ll call the emotional part of it. I’ve seen for decades how hard our student athletes work. I see how passionate our coaches are. I also see how the faculty are overall very supportive of our student athletes in terms of working with them so that they can be a nursing major or an engineer. So, on the one hand, made the decision all the more difficult because I’ve been, a D1 person for the better part of 25 years. But at the same time, it also gave me insights to see how the world has evolved. So life as a D1 institution, coach, athlete, et cetera, is much different now than it was in 2004. So I’ve seen the evolution. But again, kind of a long way of saying, I think it’s, I want to believe it’s helped my cause because I’ve been so involved with it.

And I know there are people who gave me unsolicited feedback to say, you betrayed us, or how could you do this, that kind of thing. That comes with the territory when you make a tough decision like that. But I take the approach, no, all the more I see what’s happening here. And for the good of the institution and for the good of the student athlete, we want to make this proactive change to preserve a certain culture at St. Francis, if you will.

Michael Harris

And the credibility, right? Having been there and seen all of the changes, you’re not just seeing that as someone who’s experienced that as a president, but you’ve seen the impact on student athlete welfare from travel schedules and how to be a student in this environment. That’s a, I would have to think a beneficial perspective to bring to the table.

Father Malachi Van Tassell

Yes and that’s the thing when it comes to the student athlete experience, that was really, one of the centralities of the decision, what is the best thing for a student athlete in the year 2026 and onward and and we want them to again experience, the culture of St. Francis be able to optimize their St. Francis experience. And yeah, and this change is really going to help to facilitate that, honestly.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Father, can you talk a little bit about how you approach the rollout of this message? And I say that because I led you a little bit astray by starting by saying you were an accountant, because I would say the rollout was the antithesis to that. You really approached this from such a student athlete-centered, community-centered approach that it was first and foremost about how they would experience this and making sure that they heard everything first that they were your primary audience and that you were taking care of their needs. Can you talk to us a little bit about how you approached that and why?

Father Malachi Van Tassell

Absolutely. I’m in my 12th year of the presidency, plus I’ve been at the institution for almost 24 years now. So there’s a lot of what I call goodwill that has been built up over the years. And so, I wanted to lead with the student athletes. Again, this was, well, certainly there was a financial aspect to this decision. And certainly there’s external factors that led us to this decision. First and foremost, this is about what is best for the student athlete, and the students are central at this university as they are at any university. So I wanted them to hear the message from me first, and I wanted their wellbeing to be at the heart of this. And we wanted to take care of them because we knew that this was going to be a very challenging, if not traumatic announcement for many of our student athletes. So when we rolled this out, there were certainly, obviously an external announcement and we would deal with the media and response from alumni. But we spent the bulk of our time caring for student athletes. So we wanted to, to the best of our abilities, have them hear this from us first, and it’s challenging in an age of social media because there’s always somebody that’s going to scoop you or they’re going to blast something on social media. And so I didn’t have the luxury, of having, one-on-one conversations with 600 student athletes. But to the best of our ability, we communicated with them first. And so this way, the coaching staff, the faculty, the academic support staff could provide our students with the resources they needed to help them to process this decision that we had made, and then also determine the best path forward for them. Because we knew that there was going to be students who would want to transfer, go to a D1 school somewhere else. And we wanted to help them in that. We also believe and have seen that there are students who are staying with us through this change. And we’ve helped them to accommodate that. What did it mean for their scholarships, et cetera.

So we really went all out in terms of caring for the student athletes. And I’m very proud of my staff in terms of the job that they did in that. But yeah, again, but that reflects who we are. We’re student-centric here. We pride ourselves in really going above and beyond in accompanying our students. And that’s what we did through the rollout of this decision.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

I’m gonna take that one step further because I think there’s something about your leadership style that I just wanna touch on and I’d love to get your feedback on. One thing that I’ve heard you talk about is that you made a decision that was in the best interest of the institution and that you kept students in the center of your thinking for it. And you said that secondary was whether or not you were going to be liked or if you kept your job through this process.

So what advice would you give to other presidents to help them center in this leadership approach, especially because we’re in such difficult times for presidents across the country?

Father Malachi Van Tassell

People have said to me that I’m a courageous leader for having made this decision and made the announcement. And I appreciate them saying that. From my point of view, though, this was a necessary decision to be made and the analogy that I always give is like, we cannot wave a magic wand and make it happen. This is part of leadership. So this is what we’re called to do as leaders. And this is why some of us are in the big bucks running the institution. But really, I think because I’m a Franciscan and because, I’m a member of the sponsoring order of the institution, I’m looking at this through a lens of wanting the institution to be around for another 175 years. So in some ways, that made the decision easier for me because I knew I was working for the good of the institution.

But to your question, like, what would I say to other leaders? Here again, this is what we’re supposed to do as leaders. I have the support of a board of trustees. And so as long as a president has support of the board, that’s first and foremost. The president really has to do what’s best for the institution. So my advice is don’t wait. My advice is, do your homework, get your ducks in a row, and then go for it. This is what we do as leaders. You know, absolutely, absolutely. And for me personally, I went into this with a lot of peace. I didn’t look at social media, and that was by design. let the marketing department do that, but I could tell by…let me just go back.

The Sunday after the announcement, I had the mass on campus and I was shaking hands with people as they were coming out of church. And so many people said to me, “we’re praying for you. Don’t listen to these people on social media.” So I knew it was bad. Okay. I knew it was bad. 

Michael Harris 

That’s all you needed to know.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

It wasn’t that bad.

Father Malachi Van Tassell

But even with that, like I did feel a profound sense of peace because I knew this was the right decision. it wasn’t easy. But at the same time, you know when your heart of hearts when it’s right and that’s where you step out in faith.

Michael Harris 

Well, I want to pick up on that last point because you never know for certain. When you have a decision of this magnitude, you never know with absolute certainty it’s the right call until you can look back, years down the line. 

Father Malachi Van Tassell

That’s true. That’s true.

Michael Harris 

So if I said to you 10 years from now, this was a successful move, what are the things that you’re doing right now or that you put in place in the process of making this decision that you would say that probably is what made it successful?

Father Malachi Van Tassell

Thank you for that, because you’re right. And my senior staff and I, we are very quick to not declare victory. Okay, now we did, if I do say so myself, we did a great job during the rollout and we had great advisors guiding us through that, for which I am very grateful. So that’s important, but you’re right. There are certain milestones, certain hurdles that we still have to overcome. So it’s not over yet.

Having said that, I feel very confident that we are on the right path and that we’re doing the right thing. At the same time, what I said to my board, what I said to my senior staff, and I think I’ve even said this publicly, I’ll say it now, having been a president for over a decade, on the one hand, I had nothing to lose. A new president has a harder time coming in and doing this. An established president has the political capital, the trust, the confidence to say, can do this. And that’s where I know the institution will be fine, and that we’re on the right path, it’s going to take some time, but I see where this is going to go. And I see a success story unfolding and I see us getting to the point of thriving, and it’s kind of like the rider and the horse. If the rider believes that the horse can make the jump, the horse is going to feel it, and the horse is going to make the jump. So I think there’s an element of that at play here as well. But you’re right. It’s a process that’s still unfolding. Did I answer your question? I feel like I missed maybe part of the question. Did I answer that?

Michael Harris 

No, and I think what it is is how do you embrace that uncertainty, right? When you’ve got to make a decision, do all the homework, you do all the due diligence, and then you’ve still got to kind of work that decision that it’s not a single point of a decision, right? It’s an ongoing process.

Father Malachi Van Tassell

Right, right. And that’s the thing because, yes, if not this, then what? We briefly entertained dropping athletics altogether. And when I say briefly, I mean about six seconds. Okay, literally, like, we’re not going down that path, so there were certain things that we said, okay, well, we’re not going to do this. But based on the information at hand, we believe that this is the path for us. And we researched it. And then, of course, as a person of faith, prayed about it a lot. So there’s, on a number of levels, we believe this is the right path.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Father Malachi, I know you made the announcement and then very soon after you had a gift announcement that came with it. Did that give you a little bit of peace that you were moving in the right direction? What was the gift? And did that also help?

Father Malachi Van Tassell

Yes, I received, well the university received a seven figure gift for an athletics project from an established donor who had never given to athletics projects previously. Okay. So I said this to the staff, and I also kind of said this in the rollout, I believed that our donors would support us. I believe that our major donors would support us when we made this decision.

And when I communicated with all of our million dollar donors, they were all very supportive. And then one of them did write a check for a seven figure gift. And we’re going to use that to develop a baseball stadium. And we’ll use that to add baseball to our Division III program. So that’ll be, we have to do some more fundraising around that. But in the next three, four, five years, we’ll be adding baseball and we will have the Buffalo Funds ball field where our Red Flash baseball team will be playing. And like I said to the university community, that is also a validation of where we’re going. And I said very bluntly to the university community, I said, no self-respecting millionaire is gonna give a seven figure gift to a school that’s going down the toilet. Pardon the crass example.

But I made the point that this is an endorsement of what we’re doing. And this is a sign of confidence in the path that we’re on. And I knew in my heart of hearts somebody would give a seven figure gift. And praise God, it happened pretty quickly because we made the announcement in March. I had the conversation with the donor at the end of May, beginning of June. And we were able to announce it just a short time ago. And I think that’s a sign of some other good things to come as well.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

So you’re building those markers that you’re gonna look back on in 10 years and say, we did this, more to come. 

Father Malachi Van Tassell

Yes. Yes.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Well, Father Malachi, thank you so much for your time today. We appreciate you.

Father Malachi Van Tassell

Absolutely. It’s been a pleasure to have this conversation with you both. So thanks for the invitation and happy to be with you today.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Thank you.

Michael Harris

Thank you.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Okay, Michael, you know that I was obsessed with this story in March and you know how much I love athletics governance and you know that I have just developed such a professional crush on Father Malachi because they just did it right.

Michael Harris 

And for good reason, we always talk about mission as part of athletics. And here’s a case where you’re making a really smart decision that is mission-based and in the interest of your student athletes and could take a lot of heat for it, but seems to have worked out at least to date exceptionally well.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Right, at least to date. I know they’re still looking to see what’s going to happen with enrollment numbers, what’s going to happen elsewhere. They have about 40% of their student body is student athletes. So their numbers this fall look strong, but I know they’re really looking at what will retention look like in the spring once those first, all the fall athletes decide where they’re going to go or if they’re going to stay for the spring semester. But thus far from a fundraising and from an enrollment standpoint, they’re looking really good.

Michael Harris 

Well, and what I appreciate too is when you put the mission and the student athlete welfare at the center and make the smart decision for your institution, you’re not necessarily following the model that everybody else is following right now, which is just try to get more money, keep feeding the beast, keep trying to move to Division I, add sports, that whole game. An institution like St. Francis could really smartly find a good niche for themselves in Western PA and say, this is who we are and we’re comfortable with who we are. And we’re going to be really successful by being who we are.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

Right. And the reality is I have heard from a number of institutions that are flirting with, should we be moving to Division II? Should we be moving with Division II? And there comes a point where not everybody can move at the same time. Right? So to be one of the first institutions to make this bold step, you’re taking a big risk. 

Michael Harris

Huge.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

But you’re also able to set your trajectory in ways that whoever comes next may not have as many opportunities. So kudos to St. Francis and to Father Malachi and their board for going about this. But I will be curious to see what happens this next spring. I was just reading some articles about how much athletics is costing different D1 programs this year. And to say that I was shocked by the tens of millions of dollars additional, not just purely that they’re paying, but additional this year with pay for play. Father Malachi didn’t even mention pay for play because they opted out, but it’s getting really, really expensive for institutions.

Michael Harris

And I appreciate the notion of I’m sitting there on stage handing out diplomas and I’m not seeing a whole lot of student athletes come across the stage because we’ve turned into the farm team for other institutions. And that’s not what we’re here for. And that’s not what we’re about. And to be able to step up and say, we’re not leaving D1, D1 has left us. I think it’s a really powerful statement and that they were having that conversation two years ago. It’s going to look really, really prescient as other institutions now scrambling in this new reality.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Right. I was pretty sure this last spring we were going to have a handful of institutions that were going to make this decision. And I think it’s just such a scary decision for boards and presidents to make that a whole bunch of them thought, whoop, let’s see what everybody else does and let’s wait another year. And in the meantime, you have to continue building that trust. You have to continue building that political capital. And at the same time, you’re incurring more costs and you may not think that this next year is the right timing for you yet again. And what does that mean?

Michael Harris 

And score one for an experienced president, right? We talk about how much presidents turn over. Here’s the value of keeping a president around and have the currency on campus and with their board, because if it were not for that, there’s no way you could have had this conversation for the last two years. And so to have that, that’s such a luxury for institutions in this current environment.

Teresa Valerio Parrot

But let’s go back to that because he kind of made me sit up a little bit taller when he said that. We have so many presidents who have been around for a long time and they are less likely to make that move because they want to be liked. And they are thinking about their legacy, but they’re thinking about their legacy from the lens of how will I be most liked? And so that he said, I did it because I want to, like he wants to make sure that his legacy is having made a difference, having sustained the institution, having stayed true to mission versus that likeability, I just give him so many compliments and kudos and all of the claps for that because that’s the hard work.

Michael Harris 

That’s what you’re there for, right? We talk about this so much in this current environment. You’re there to support and lead the institution and ultimately make some of those hard decisions. And that’s, as he said, that’s why some get paid the big bucks and the abdication of leadership in this environment. I mean, this is the exact time institutions need experienced presidents to step up and lead. And you can’t do that being fearful or worried about your personal legacy. It’s got to be about what’s in the best interest of the institution and more importantly the students at that institution.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Absolutely agreed. And I think allowing boards also to have the time to make a decision. You and I talk about this all the time because we’re both governance nerds and that is, a lot of boards are given something in 24-48 hours to vote and that he gave them two years because of the significance of this decision. That means that good governance was allowed to occur. 

Michael Harris 

And the education that was required, it wasn’t trying to turn to arm twist. It was, let us help you understand the reality of this institution that you’re also leading. And it doesn’t look the same as when you were a student in the 60s or the 70s or 80s. Here’s the current reality. That’s also a trust bargain you have to be able to have with your board that they’re going to listen and absorb the information, and to be able to make a better decision. And then as you say, give them space to make that decision.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

And that means that you’re really allowing them to live that fiduciary responsibility. Because we think of fiduciary just as numbers and cents, but as we talked about in many different ways with him, fiduciary is so much more than that. It is numbers and cents, but it’s also about the long-term keeping of the institution and its health. And that, I think, goes to culture, and it goes to environment, and it goes to so many other factors. And we treat so many of our boards just as the people who rubber stamp the finances, and we don’t pay attention to or allow the processing that they need for the bigger roles that they’re responsible for.

Michael Harris 

And especially when you have boards that are alums of the institution.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Yes.

Michael Harris 

And they knew and see the institution sealed through the lens of their own experience. And I think, again, especially with something like athletics that has changed so dramatically in the last six months, much less the last six years or 20 years, that is a reality. You’ve got to help people come to that decision. And it can’t be a quick one, but you also can’t let it drag on for forever. At some point you have to call the questions and make a decision. And so to know when is the right time to do that, again, an experienced, capable, savvy president, you need someone to help lead those conversations.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

And that goes back to trust. That goes back to knowing your board. I was just talking to a president recently and I was asking, where is your board? And they just stopped and looked at me and they said, well, I know where my executive committee is. And I said, we have a whole bunch of work ahead of you because I need to know where your board is because a board votes, not just an executive committee.

Michael Harris 

That’s right.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Well, thank you, Michael. Thank you so much for joining today. And as you know, I mention you all of the time on the podcast. So whether you join me as a co-host or I just talk about how much I think you are the bee’s knees, I appreciate you very much.

Michael Harris

It’s fun. No one can replace Erin, but I’m happy to be a substitute teacher for a day.

Teresa Valerio Parrot 

Excellent. Thank you and thank you to everybody who listens. Have a fantastic day everybody.

Thank you for joining us for this episode. You can find links in the show notes to the topics and articles referenced, as well as a copy of the show’s transcript on the Volt website, Voltedu.com. Remember that you can always contact us with feedback, questions, or guest suggestions at trustedvoices@tvpcommunications.com. Follow Trusted Voices wherever you get your podcasts, and be sure to check out Higher Voltage in Campus Docket, the other podcasts on the Volt network. Until next time, thanks to Erin Hennessey, DJ Hauschild, and the Volt team, including Aaron and Maryna, for a great episode. And thank you for listening.