Law school dean named interim president

The first lay president of the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul announced March 1 that she plans to leave the role July 1 to become president of Santa Clara University near San Francisco.

In an email to the St. Thomas community, President Julie Sullivan said her decision to leave was “difficult” and “one which I have spent a long time discerning and praying about,” citing personal reasons that swayed the move. She noted that her husband, Bob, is in California, and she has adult children and four grandsons who live near Santa Clara.

“I yearn to be a more present grandmother to them, more than holidays and via FaceTime,” she wrote. “Yet, I will miss you — my cherished colleagues and friends — very much. You are a strong community of passionate people who care very much about each other and our students.”

University of St. Thomas President Julie Sullivan
(Mike Ekern / University of St. Thomas)

Sullivan, 65, has served as president of Minnesota’s largest private and Catholic university since 2013. She previously served as executive vice president and provost at the University of San Diego from 2005 to 2013, after teaching at the University of California-San Diego (2003-2005) and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (1987-2003). The Florida native holds a bachelor’s degree in accounting, a master’s degree in taxation and a doctorate in business from the University of Florida.

According to her biography on St. Thomas’ website, “Dr. Sullivan is a visionary academic leader, a champion for social innovation, and a leader in the global Ashoka Changemaker movement. She is a passionate champion for the tenets of Catholic Social Teaching, including creating opportunity and economic inclusion through education, dismantling racism and building belonging, and promoting environmental sustainability.”

St. Thomas’ board of trustees has appointed Rob Vischer, dean of its School of Law, to serve as interim president beginning June 1. The board plans to launch a national search for a permanent president.

In a March 1 statement, Pat Ryan, chair of St. Thomas’ Board of Trustees, stated, “Julie Sullivan has been a beloved and inspirational leader, and we are grateful for her incredible contributions to St. Thomas. She succeeded in elevating St. Thomas, building a team of strong leaders, and implementing several transformational priorities during her tenure.”

With eight schools and colleges on campus in St. Paul, Minneapolis and Rome, St. Thomas has about 10,000 students and 2,000 employees, according to its website.

Sullivan is the university’s 15th president and the first layperson and first laywoman to lead the university. She succeeded Father Dennis Dease, a priest of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, who led the institution from 1991 to 2013.

According to her biography, Sullivan serves on the boards of Catholic Charities, Minnesota Business Partnership, Loyola University Chicago, Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, Ciresi Walburn Foundation for Children and Greater MSP.

She has served on the boards of several for-profit private companies, including TCF Financial Corp., PICO Holdings, AppliedMicro and United PanAm Financial Corporation, and one private company, SI Group.

Under Sullivan’s leadership, St. Thomas created the Dougherty Family College, a two-year college based on its Minneapolis campus; launched the Morrison Family College of Health with a new School of Nursing; launched the Center for Common Good; opened a Center for Well-Being to address students’ mental health needs; established a new undergraduate core curriculum; raised $100 million in scholarships; and built several new campus buildings, including the Iversen Center for Faith with restorations to the Chapel of St. Thomas Aquinas.

In 2020, the university became the first under current National Collegiate Athletic Association rules to move from Division III to Division I, after the association’s Division I council waived the typical process for the institution’s reclassification. St. Thomas was previously aa founding member of the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference, but it was voted out of the conference by the majority of other participating institutions’ presidents for reasons of “athletic competitive parity” after St. Thomas dominated wins over multiple years in MIAC sports.

The university is in its second year of executing a 2025 strategic plan that addresses growth as well as efforts to “foster belonging and dismantle racism.” In May, ground is set to break on St. Thomas’ St. Paul campus for the Schoenecker Center, which will house music spaces, an art gallery and an engineering lab, with an anticipated 2024 opening. In the fall, the School of Nursing plans to welcome its first class.

In St. Thomas’ annual State of the University address Feb. 15, Sullivan noted that the word “build” was key to the university’s moment in time, stating, “In the last year alone, we have built tremendously: our national reputation, our diversity and our sense of belonging as a community, and our active voice and actions for social justice. And in the next year and years to come, we will build both metaphorically and physically — real bricks and mortar alongside capacity and vision.”

St. Thomas was founded in 1885 by Archbishop John Ireland as an all-male institution for educating seminarians for priesthood. A decade later, the institution developed a separate liberal arts college for men. In 1977, the College of St. Thomas became coeducational, and in 1990, it became the University of St. Thomas. The university is one of about 10 diocesan Catholic colleges and universities in the United States.

At Santa Clara University, a Jesuit Catholic college in Silicon Valley and California’s oldest operating Catholic higher learning institution, Sullivan will again make history by becoming its first lay and first woman president.

“The unique combination of leading an outstanding Jesuit, Catholic institution, along with the strong pull of my family, makes this an opportunity that I cannot pass up,” she said in her public statement. “I leave confident that the momentum we have collectively built will seamlessly continue with the strong leadership at St. Thomas.”