When Amy Carey became president of Friends University in 2015, the school was deep in debt and enrollment was declining.
Ten years later, the school is financially stable and undergraduate enrollment has set records each of the last four years.
Friends was founded in 1898, and Carey became its 14th president in June 2015. She also was the first woman to lead the school.
Carey, 62, came to Friends from University of Northwestern, a private school in St. Paul, Minnesota. She also has her undergrad and graduate degrees from private universities in that state.
Carey talked with The Range about how Friends has turned things around, its rebranding as a Christian university and her father’s impact on her career path.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Your father also worked in higher education. Tell me about him.
My father was in higher education administration his entire career, so I grew up around small college campuses and really came to love that experience and just to love the academy. I'm one of those people that enjoys school, and I just fell in love with it … I spent some time in health care and knew that I really wanted to be in education and higher education. And so he has had a big influence in my life and has been a mentor to me. He's just a very wise man, and so it's a privilege to follow in his footsteps.
When you came to Friends 10 years ago, debt was up, enrollment was down. … And ironically, you did your thesis on struggling colleges that turned themselves around. Was that useful when you came to Friends?
I would look back on my research often in those first few years as we were working on our turnaround here at Friends, and I employed a number of those strategies that I gained and understood through the research and that helped us here at Friends University. Particularly to expand our sports program, to grow through athletics was one of our strategies; to add new market demand programs like cyber security, mechanical engineering.
So those are a number of the strategies that we put in place, but also some cost-saving measures and restructuring our debt and working on increasing revenue through gifts, through donors, and that has been a huge factor for us as well.
Part of your work at Friends has been to rebrand the school as a Christian university. Why was that important to you?
Well, it's not only important to me. It's important to our board of trustees, and they made that determination before bringing me on board as president that Friends University was going to reclaim our Christian mission. It's been a part of our history and our DNA for 127 years now. So, it's been a part of who we are as an institution, but we lost our way for a little bit. … I think that's important that we continue to live out our legacy as a Christian university of Quaker heritage. And it's also been a part of our growth plan, as we have seen students that are interested in traditional values, the kind of education that we offer. Not all of our students that come to Friends University have a faith background … but they recognize that these are some important values, and that we treat every person with respect here at Friends University and really enjoy being together as a community, and have that kind of family feel here at Friends.
In that same report about the school's turnaround, you said that mistakes were made during the process. Can you talk more about that?
I think it's a balance between a visionary approach to set the stage for the way forward, and at some times having to make very difficult decisions to ensure that we stayed on track with our Christian mission and trying not to be too heavy-handed in those situations. But I think there are times that it was viewed that way, and maybe we could have approached it differently. I'm sure there are people that didn't appreciate some of the decisions, and those are difficult things to to work through. So, I think it's that balance that's very difficult to manage. As you know, we want to be a place that's winsome and welcoming and also maintaining a certain level of standard as it relates to our mission.
Many students are skipping college because they don't think the return on investment for a degree makes sense. What would you say to them?
I think there's an option for everyone post high school, and that might be a large state school, a small private, tech program, or some type of a trade apprenticeship. And I think students need to evaluate those options and figure out what would be best for them.
There's value in all of those opportunities; the time to mature, to explore, perhaps some different avenues for what students want to do as they leave college.
Obviously we believe in the small-college experience. But I also think we want to lift up all of those avenues for students and for families. We need plumbers and electricians, and we need our doctors and teachers as well. And so I think those are things for students to explore.
You attended smaller private colleges in Minnesota as a student, and you've mentioned to me that the attraction those schools have for families in Minnesota is a dynamic that's missing in Kansas. Why do you think that is?
I'm not exactly sure why that is different here in Kansas. I would say that there is a very high value for private institutions in Minnesota and some of the surrounding states. There's not as much support, maybe, and strong affinity for some of the public institutions.
And then there are many families that if they went to St. Thomas or St. John's or Bethel or Northwestern, they are going to make sure that their son or daughter has that same kind of experience. And what I see here is families explore all the options and look at the privates and look at the publics as well. So, we just don't have that long legacy history … among some of our private institutions here in Kansas.
You spent 10 years at Friends now, which is almost twice the average (tenure) for a college president. Do you have 10 more years in you?
I don't know. I think for college presidents now, it's like dog years. We have to multiply the years.
College presidents have so many different constituencies to work with and appeal to, so that sometimes can be difficult. And you know, you can see sometimes that one wrong sentence in a tweet, and you could be in big trouble. So, it's a pretty tenuous job at times.
What would you like to see happen at Friends University over the next five to seven years?
So, my goal is to put Friends University in the very best place that I can financially with the right … set of programs and to make sure that we increase our endowment. I believe that there will be winners and losers in higher education, small privates. Last year, Inside Higher Ed reported that one small private institution or a branch campus of a larger state school closed each week … and I want to position Friends University to thrive well into the future.
So, that's my big plan is to make sure that I can do everything possible to set Friends up for success for the long term and to ensure that we have our … Christian mission on solid footing.
