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THE ROLE OF THE PROVOST
Advancing Academic Excellence at CSB+SJU
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STRATEGIC AND INTEGRATED LEADERSHIP
Operating within the Strong Integration framework, the Provost leads a truly unified academic and student life enterprise across both institutions—one faculty, one curriculum, one strategic vision for student success—while honoring the distinctive student life residential experiences that define each campus.
The Provost serves both the College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University, providing strategic vision and operational leadership for all academic programs, curriculum development, faculty affairs, student life, and student success. In this capacity, the Provost supports more than 228 faculty members and 149 staff across fortyone majors, forty-five minors, select graduate programs including CSB’s graduate nursing program and SJU’s School of Theology and Seminary, and a robust division of student development programs.
As a member of the senior leadership team, the Provost works in close partnership with other senior leaders and President Bruess to develop and implement institutional strategy, ensuring that educational and student life priorities align with the broader mission and financial realities facing the institutions. The Provost serves as a strategic advisor to the president on matters ranging from board relations to accreditation, from program prioritization to organizational development. This role requires someone who can move fluidly between big-picture strategic thinking and detailed operational execution, who can build consensus while making difficult decisions, and who can honor mission traditions while driving innovation.
The Provost provides direct oversight to four key leadership positions: the Dean of Curriculum and Assessment, the Dean of the Faculty, the Dean of Student Academic Success, and the Associate Provost for Student Success. Through these leaders and their teams, the Provost ensures excellence in teaching and learning, supports faculty scholarship and development, advances student retention and completion goals, and maintains the academic quality and integrity that have made CSB and SJU nationally recognized liberal arts institutions. A critical dimension of this work has included guiding an academic program prioritization—one of the most complex and consequential undertakings within academic leadership. At CSB and SJU, this mission-centered, data-informed effort has focused on ensuring that the academic portfolio remains both distinctive and sustainable, aligning resources with areas of greatest student need and institutional promise. As the academic program prioritization reaches full implementation by the end of the academic year, it will provide a strong foundation for the next Provost to build upon in advancing academic excellence and innovation.
COMMITMENT TO MISSION AND VALUES
The College of Saint Benedict and Saint John’s University seek a Provost who will embrace, uphold, and advance the Catholic and Benedictine mission that defines and unites our two institutions. Rooted in a nearly 1,600-year-old Benedictine wisdom tradition and animated by the Catholic intellectual and social traditions, CSB and SJU educate for the transformation of mind and heart—cultivating wisdom, reverence for truth, and a deep sense of responsibility for the world.
The Catholic intellectual tradition at CSB and SJU affirms that faith and reason are complementary paths to truth. It encourages critical inquiry, dialogue across difference, and an enduring search for meaning that integrates intellectual, moral, and spiritual growth. The Benedictine traditionanimates this foundation by emphasizing community, stability, and hospitality as the framework for how we live and learn together. These values call our campuses to honor the dignity of every person, to listen “with the ear of the heart,” and to shape an educational environment marked by respect, humility, stewardship, and justice.
The Provost will be called to lead in ways that embody these traditions—advancing academic excellence while ensuring that our educational mission remains centered on the formation of the whole person. This includes fostering a vibrant residential liberal arts experience where students grow in intellect, faith, and character; promoting community life grounded in hospitality and mutual respect; and supporting faculty and staff in their shared vocation as educators and mentors.
ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE AND INNOVATION
At the heart of the Provost’s work is the responsibility to advance academic excellence while fostering innovation that keeps pace with student needs and workforce demands. The Provost leads ongoing program review and assessment processes, using data and evidence to make informed decisions about program development, enhancement, or discontinuation. This requires balancing respect for disciplinary traditions with responsiveness to market realities, and honoring faculty autonomy within shared governance while exercising administrative accountability for outcomes.
As the senior educational officer, the Provost is also responsible for leading the execution of strategic priorities related to faculty and student development outlined in the institutions’ Strategic Plan. This includes ensuring that the academic and co-curricular enterprises actively support:
- Mission-Centered Practice, by integrating Benedictine values, Catholic intellectual tradition, and liberal arts learning into curricular and co-curricular experiences, and advancing inclusive excellence as a foundational expression of mission.
- Financial and Operational Excellence, through cultivating a data-informed culture of decision-making, optimizing resource allocation, and supporting academic innovation that sustains enrollment and advances institutional priorities.
- The Student Experience, by elevating the quality and impact of teaching, learning, advising, and mentoring; strengthening the connection between academic and residential life; and ensuring equitable access to high-impact practices such as research, internships, and study abroad.
The Provost plays a central role in advancing the True North Journey, CSB and SJU’s signature four-year experience that integrates academic advising, career development, and mentorship from day one. This ambitious initiative represents a fundamental reimagining of how liberal arts education prepares students for tomorrow’s workforce. The Provost must champion this work and collaborate with faculty to ensure that academic programs integrate career readiness authentically, that all facets of student life are aligned, and that the initiative delivers measurable improvements in student outcomes.
The Provost also provides strategic oversight for CSB and SJU’s growing portfolio of academic centers—such as the Center for Teaching and Learning, the Donald McNeely Center for Entrepreneurship, the Eugene J. McCarthy Center for Political and Civic Engagement, the Jay Phillips Center for Interfaith Learning, and the Mark and Teresa Fleischhacker Center for Ethical Leadership in Action. Emerging centers, including the Center for Principled Leadership, the Center for the Environment, the Center for Health-Related Partnerships, and a Humanities Institute, reflect a forward-looking approach to academic and community engagement. The Provost works collaboratively with faculty leaders of these centers to ensure their activities align with institutional priorities, demonstrate measurable impact, and contribute to the holistic education and formation of Bennies and Johnnies.
FACULTY EXCELLENCE AND ACADEMIC LEADERSHIP
The Provost serves as the champion for and steward of CSB+SJU’s core academic community: its faculty. With 228 faculty members—ninety percent of whom are full-time and hold terminal degrees—the institutions enjoy a strong foundation of scholarly expertise and teaching excellence. The Provost is responsible for fostering a culture where faculty thrive professionally, where teaching excellence is recognized and rewarded, where scholarship is supported and celebrated, and where every faculty member feels valued and empowered to contribute to the institutions’ mission.
This work includes overseeing faculty recruitment, retention, tenure, and promotion processes to ensure they consistent with the Faculty Handbook and are equitable, transparent, and aligned with institutional needs. The Provost must balance the imperative to build a diverse, inclusive faculty with the practical constraints of budget realities. They must champion faculty development initiatives that keep faculty current in their fields and effective in their teaching, while also supporting faculty scholarship and securing resources for research, creative work, and professional growth.
Equally important is the Provost’s role in collaborating with faculty governance and ensuring shared governance principles in decision-making. CSB and SJU have strong traditions of faculty voice in institutional affairs, and the Provost must navigate the productive tension between collegial governance and administrative efficiency. This requires someone who listens deeply, builds trust through transparency and empathy, engages faculty genuinely in institutional challenges, and makes difficult decisions when necessary while maintaining faculty confidence and support.
STUDENT SUCCESS AND HOLISTIC DEVELOPMENT
The Provost oversees both academic and student affairs and as such, success in this role requires deep collaboration with student affairs colleagues to ensure a seamless, integrated student experience. The Provost oversees the Associate Provost for Student Success and works closely with student affairs leadership to advance retention, progression, and graduation outcomes while maintaining the distinctive residential, mission-centered experience that defines CSB and SJU.
The True North Journey exemplifies this integrated approach, connecting academic advising with career navigation and professional network development in ways that break down traditional silos between academic and student affairs. The Provost must champion this holistic model, ensuring that academic support services— from tutoring to accessibility services to first-year programming—are robust, effective, and aligned with student needs. They must use data to identify where students need support and develop evidence-based interventions to close opportunity gaps.
This focus on integrated student development is already yielding results: CSB and SJU are recognized as the top two colleges in Minnesota for securing jobs after graduation, rank nationally for study abroad participation, and have been honored as top producers of Fulbright scholars. The Provost will build on this foundation by establishing clear accountability structures for retention, progression, career outcomes, and alumni success.
Increasingly, student success means demonstrable outcomes. Today’s students and families expect that a liberal arts education will lead to both personal fulfillment and professional opportunity. The Provost must be a passionate advocate for the enduring value of liberal arts education and ensure students graduate with the skills, experiences, and networks necessary to launch meaningful careers. This requires tracking and improving key metrics: four-year graduation rates, first-destination outcomes, graduate school placement, career satisfaction, and long-term alumni achievement. Success will be measured not only by what students learn but by how effectively they translate their education into lives of purpose and principled achievement—the ultimate measure of CSB+SJU’s educational mission. This includes expanding experiential learning opportunities, building industry partnerships, strengthening alumni engagement in student career development, and ensuring that all programs help students articulate the value of their education to employers.
FINANCIAL STEWARDSHIP AND ACADEMIC STRATEGIC PLAN
The Provost serves as the steward of academic and student life resources, managing budgets totaling over $45 million across both institutions. This requires sophisticated financial acumen, strategic resource allocation skills, and the ability to make difficult programmatic decisions in an era of enrollment uncertainty and financial constraint.
CSB and SJU, like many private residential liberal arts colleges, operate in a tuition-dependent financial model where enrollment directly drives revenue. The Provost must work closely with enrollment management colleagues to ensure that the academic portfolio attracts and retains students while maintaining academic quality. This includes monitoring program enrollment trends, assessing market demand for new programs, evaluating the cost-effectiveness of existing offerings, and making strategic investments in high-demand or strategically important areas while redirecting resources from programs that no longer serve institutional needs.
Beyond managing existing resources, the Provost should also think creatively about revenue diversification and new revenue opportunities. This might include developing new academic programs that respond to market demand, exploring partnerships that generate revenue while advancing mission, expanding continuing education or certificate programs, or increasing grant activity across the faculty. The Provost should also support faculty in securing external funding for research, programming, and institutional initiatives.
PRESIDENTIAL PARTNERSHIP AND SENIOR-LEVEL LEADERSHIP
The Provost’s success depends fundamentally on their ability to serve as a trusted strategic partner to President Bruess and an effective collaborator with cabinet colleagues. President Bruess has led CSB and SJU through significant organizational transformation, including the implementation of Strong Integration, and the launch of a new strategic plan. He seeks a Provost who can match his strategic vision, complement his leadership style, and serve as a thought partner on the complex challenges facing the institutions.
This role requires someone who can represent the President at events and meetings, communicate institutional priorities effectively to internal and external audiences, and provide leadership during the president’s absence. The Provost must also work collaboratively with other senior leaders—particularly the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer—to ensure that academic and student life priorities align with operational and financial realities, and that decisions are made with full consideration of their cross-functional implications.
Within the leadership team, the Provost brings an educational perspective, ensuring that decisions about everything from campus facilities to technology investments to marketing strategies consider their impact on teaching, learning, and high quality student experience. The Provost must be able to advocate persuasively for educational priorities while also understanding that they are one member of a team collectively responsible for institutional success.
BOARD RELATIONS AND EXTERNAL ENGAGEMENT
The Provost plays an important role in supporting the president’s work with CSB and SJU’s Boards of Trustees. Under the Strong Integration model, with two Boards of Trustees, both institutions share the same trustees, the same meetings, and the same board leadership, though they maintain separate corporate members and fiduciary responsibilities. The Provost regularly engages with the board’s Student Experience committee, providing updates on academic performance, student life, and strategic initiatives. This requires the ability to communicate complex curricular and co-curricular matters clearly to trustees with diverse backgrounds, to educate board members about higher education trends and competitive positioning, and to build board confidence in academic and student life leadership and direction.
Beyond board relations, the Provost serves as an ambassador for CSB and SJU to external constituencies. This includes maintaining strategic partnerships with Saint John’s Abbey and Saint Benedict’s Monastery, the founding religious communities that continue to play important roles in institutional life. The Provost manages agreements and collaborations and supports entities such as the SJU School of Theology and Seminary, Saint John’s Preparatory School, and ensuring that these relationships benefit all parties while honoring the distinct missions of each organization.
The Provost also represents CSB and SJU in regional and national higher education circles, building the institutions’ reputation and visibility while developing partnerships that advance student and faculty opportunities. This might include engagement with peer institutions, disciplinary organizations, higher education associations, civic and business leaders, government officials, and alumni networks. The Provost should be someone who finds energy in these external relationships and understands how to leverage them for institutional benefit.
