 Image c/o Saint Mary’s Official YouTube Channel By Andrew Martinez Cabrera Editor-in-Chief In May, the Board of Trustees approved Roger J. Thompson, EdD, to become the 31st President of Saint Mary’s College of California, beginning his duties over the summer. Pres.. Thompson came to Saint Mary’s after serving 14 years as the University of Oregon’s Vice President for Student Services and Enrollment Management. He succeeds interim president, Brother Thomas Jones, FSC, who took over from former president Richard Plumb, PhD, serving from July 2021 to June 2023. On Sept. 9, the Office of the President sent out a mass email to all Saint Mary’s students with the subject titled “My September monthly video message!” Attached in the email is a thumbnail that redirects to a video on Saint Mary’s main YouTube page with the video titled “President’s Update: September 2024.” Many of the positions and comments which Pres. Thompson throughout the video follow the throughline of growth for the college. Starting the three-minute video off with expected greetings and congratulatory statements, Pres. Thompson shifts gears to sharing his initial priorities for Saint Mary’s future. Firstly, Pres. Thompson, promises to enhance the student experience both inside and outside the classroom, wishing to “do better.” Elaborating, Pres. Thompson explains that he wants Saint Mary’s to be “the very best in the country” in terms of the student experience, in the hopes that the student experience would be a major pull factor for deciding students across the country. Pres. Thompson’s second point is filling vacant job positions on campus, promising to “[spend] a fair amount of time talking to people all around the country to find the very best talent…” who are ‘eager’ to join the Saint Mary’s community. Building on the first point, Pres. Thompson emphasizes, in the video’s more serious tone, the need to grow enrollment following an enrollment decline in the past few years. This record tracks, deemed “a renowned national expert in enrollment management,” by SMC Office of Marketing & Communications in his official announcement press release. However, Pres. Thompson is confident that the strength of the academic community and student experience will draw interested students to apply to Saint Mary’s, without offering any insight into what those strategies might be. Interestingly, Pres. Thompson, possibly as a preview of how to grow enrollment, announces his efforts to offer new academic programs to Saint Mary’s, hoping to build on the “strong academic foundation” that already exists here. Similarly, Pres. Thompson does not name any programs potentially in development. Pres. Thompson caps off his first video message by talking about the continued implementation of Transformation 2028, Saint Mary’s recent five-year strategic plan to move and evolve into the future. Transformation 2028, adopted in 2023, seeks to “reinvent Saint Mary’s identity as a liberal arts institution,” with initiatives such as extending the college’s reach and impact, as both a Catholic college and a Bay Area school, with aspirations to building its reputation as a global institution the likes of Stanford or UC Berkeley. Much of Transformation 2028’s points are echoed in Pres. Thompson’s rapid points, hoping to continue implementation. On September 18, the GaelAlumni Instagram page posted a video announcing Pres. Thompson’s Golden State Gaels Tour, where the President visited Saint Mary’s alumni in various spots across California. The first tour lasted from September 24 in Pasadena and ended on October 8 in Oakland. Pres. Thompson’s October monthly video, shot in Southern California, was released on October 3 and offered an update to the Golden State Gaels Tour, thanking those who attended. While not offering any new campus updates, Pres. Thompson discussed events that he attended such as the faculty celebration, Saddle Up for Fall and the SMC Museum of Art fall opening. Pres. Thompson wraps up the video by stressing the importance of Fall Preview Day on October 26, hoping to “grow enrollment and enhance our student experience by bringing in larger freshman classes than we have in the past.”
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