New president Engh to start in January

By Winston Yu

Michael Engh, S.J., a former history professor and dean of the Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, will replace Paul Locatelli, S.J., as university president.

The transition, which will occur Jan. 1, 2009, will mark the end of Locatelli's 20-year tenure at Santa Clara.

The announcement was made Sept. 17 after a five-month search for a new president. More than 70 applicants were examined.

Engh sat down with The Santa Clara after the Board of Trustees announced him as the 28th President of Santa Clara. He discussed everything from on-campus Greek life to what he'll bring to the university.

TSC: It sounds like you've played many different roles at LMU.

ME: I've done a whole variety of things. I've taught, but I was moderator of the history club for six or seven years, and we fielded a softball team and played political science every semester and tried to beat them.

TSC: Did you win?

ME: Frequently! Frequently, particularly when I made sure they didn't open the coolers to start celebrating too early at the game.

TSC: Why do you think that out of 70 different candidates, Santa Clara chose you?

ME: I know they were very interested in someone who had an academic record, who had taught for a long time, so basically someone who was fairly recently from the classroom but also had administrative skills, someone who was versed in the contemporary Jesuit values in terms of service to the poor and dedication for education for justice. Someone who would be then compatible with the ideals here of conscience, compassion and competence. And then, somebody who's done fundraising, I've done a fair amount of fundraising -- for a college dean anyway -- so it's not entirely a huge surprise. And then somebody who's done strategic planning, which is what I put together for my college.

TSC: How did you feel when you were told that the Board of Trustees had approved you?

ME: That was terrific, because I had been in a one-month period of limbo, waiting for that final decision. So I had come up here this past weekend and done all the various interviews -- 24 different group interviews -- and then they said yes. And it was like, "OK, this is exciting. I'm out of limbo. I can now start planning. My life's not on hold, great opportunity, good people."

I was very energized coming up here and meeting the different people, because there are a lot of wonderful people here. So that was very energizing.

TSC: What has attracted you to Santa Clara?

ME: Like Fr. Locatelli, I share the dedication to the values of Jesuit higher education, and I'm enthusiastic about it. I believe in it, and I see tremendous possibilities here to develop that further.

You've got a great campus community here and this campus has done a great deal to move in the area of education for justice, concern for the poor, the immersion programs that go on here, the service programs that go on. I'm very, very interested in that, and I'm very concerned about that. I see this as something I can involve myself in, and I bring that with me.

When I was on my sabbatical, I lived in East L.A. I was working in the central juvenile hall, and working with Dolores Mission Parish. It was a very important time for me because I could look and see the real-life problems of justice and poverty. It got me to rethink in terms of how I wanted to engage with them, and how I wanted my classes and students to engage with that, and when I became dean, how I wanted the college to engage with that. So I bring that as a passion of mine here.

TSC: How does the role of president differ from that of a dean?

ME: There's a lot of things that a president can do at that level that a dean can't do at his level, in terms of moving an institution in the direction that I'd like to see it go. There's an opportunity here, as a president, that I can do that. That I can continue and enhance and move forward this institution according to the Jesuit values of higher education. But in ways that are particular to this place. You've got a new core coming in. That's an exciting thing.

You have three centers of distinction, and those are fascinating, because they're interdisciplinary in nature. The Markkula Center for Ethics, the Center for Science, Technology and Society and the Institute for Jesuit Education.

Those are all very, very fascinating and they're up and running. They don't have to be built. They need to be expanded, developed, further enhanced, but they're up and running. Those are great things to be associated with. Interesting people and interesting programs.

TSC: Greek organizations are not affiliated with the university. You're coming from LMU where, according to the Web site, more than 25 percent of students are Greek. Would you consider revisiting this issue at Santa Clara?

ME: I would want to have a better understanding of how the Greek organizations contribute to better relations with the neighborhood. How they contribute to better behavior by students in the neighborhood. I'd like to see how they're contributing in that fashion.

I've seen much of the downside of Greek life as a teacher, particularly when students are rushing and grades go down significantly. I haven't seen much in terms of leadership development by fraternities and sororities. However, a teacher is always looking to discover new facts. If there's something to be learned here that might make it more positive, I'd like to learn about it.

I have not talked with Fr. Locatelli about the reasons it was discontinued here on campus and I have not a sense of what's going on off campus at this time. How does the off-campus Greek life contribute to the betterment of the university and its relations with the neighbors? I'll be waiting to learn about that and waiting to learn what the facts are here.

TSC: What would you like to tackle first?

ME: What I want to do my first year is some real careful listening to people's experiences here and what the hopes and dreams are here. And be able to identify how I want the strategic plan to move forward. I don't want to come in here saying, "I've already got the answers." I want to come in here and say, "What's the right question?"

So that's the approach I'm taking. There are great questions to be asking here, and that takes a lot of listening to the people here. The strategic plan is being refreshed, and Fr. Locatelli was talking to me about that this morning. So I want to take a careful look at this and talk to people that are involved in this so I'm better informed. I have to know this campus much better than I do right now.

TSC: What changes would you like to bring to Santa Clara?

ME: I'd like to see, in terms of recruitment of faculty, that we strengthen the resources that we provide for faculty. I have to look in terms of how we do that, because I'm not making promises at this point. If you want to recruit and retain a strong faculty, you have to be attentive to the resources they need. Everything from salary to housing support so the teaching-scholar model can work well.

We ask a lot of the faculty here, then how do we find the means to provide them with the time to do the kind of scholarship we want them to do and the kind of course preparation we want them to do? Those are real bread-and-butter issues, extremely important to the life of the university and I want to be attentive to those and see how we can strengthen those.

TSC: What role do you envision for religion and spirituality at Santa Clara?

ME: Santa Clara is a place where we take spiritual development very seriously. It's a place where questions of values, ethics, spiritual belief are taken seriously. It's only at private schools, like a Catholic school like this, where that can happen, where a student can feel free to raise these questions, and where faculty actually engage in discussing them. Theological questions are real questions and theological research is as valid as scientific research. That's why it's extremely important, both for the faculty member who is exploring issues and research, as well as for the student going through personal growth and development.

That's why we have to have an active, vital campus ministry program here. Because that allows students to have access to times of gatherings. Whether it's retreats, whether it's liturgies, whether it's service opportunities, whether it's individual spiritual counseling. All of this has to take place on the campus, because human beings have a spiritual dimension that's as real to them as the physical dimension. To neglect that is to neglect part of the growth of one's life, part of one's very soul.

You have to be educated towards compassion. Compassion means actually seeing other people, going to other parts of the city or the country and exposing yourself to meeting these people that are in poverty, or suffering injustice or lacking medical care or education and getting to know them as human beings. Then, checking what's my response to that? Do I care? And if I care, then what do I do with that? Do I sit on it? Or does it somehow affect me and how I think, how I assess, how I vote? Do these things have any impact on me?

TSC: The cost of tuition rises every year. What steps will you take to ensure that anyone who wants a Santa Clara education has the opportunity to do so?

ME: One of the major responsibilities of a president of a private school is to raise money. Along with raising money comes managing money, making sure that money is used carefully and invested wisely, so that it can support the greatest number of opportunities. I'm much concerned about first-generation students coming to college and I'm much concerned about students who graduate with large loans. That's a huge issue for private education in the United States today. What about the loans that students have when they leave here, which encumbers those first years that they come out? So I'm very concerned about that. One of my tasks is raising money for student scholarships.

TSC: Would you consider bringing back the football team, which was eliminated under President Locatelli?

ME: I think Fr. Locatelli weighed the pros and cons very carefully, and that the benefits to Santa Clara outweighed the losses. So I do not foresee revisiting that issue or that topic. I don't know what else to say about that. It's enormously expensive and to make this school accessible to a wider number of students and students of limited means; we can better use the resources elsewhere, to build up the programs we have.

Contact Winston Yu at (408) 554-4546 or wyu1@scu.edu.

Some content in this article has been corrected.