in communio | Cover story | insightonbusiness.com
President Laurie Joyner adds, embraces value at the world’s sole Norbertine college.
A flash of lightning is said to be what led St. Norbert of Xanten to a life of goodness and peace. Born into a noble family on the border of Germany and Holland in 1080, Norbert had lived a life of worldly pleasures until that fateful moment he was thrown from his frightened horse in the driving rain and awoke to ask, “Lord, what do you want me to do?” On Christmas Day 1120, he founded the Norbertine Order around the principles of love, selfless sharing and radical hospitality, leading to 900 years of Norbertine tradition that would spread to five continents.
It was nearly 770 years later that Abbot Bernard Pennings left Holland to settle in Wisconsin, where he and a small group of Norbertines began an educational ministry tutoring three boys at the parish along the Fox River. The rest, says St. Norbert Abbot Dane Radecki, is the history of St. Norbert College.
“I think the charming thing is that he just continued his ministry and developed it into this educational gem,” Radecki says. “It’s the only Norbertine higher ed institution we have in the world.”
Finding community
A first-generation college student, Laurie Joyner chose Loyola University New Orleans, a Catholic Jesuit institution, from among the three local college options her family could afford. It was during her sophomore year, sitting in a sociology class in Monroe Hall 157, that she committed her life to Catholic higher education. She was in love.
“We don’t just educate the head,” Joyner says of Catholic higher ed. “We educate the whole person — intellectually, spiritually, socially.”
Joyner, an applied sociologist who held faculty and leadership positions at five different institutions, four of them Catholic, had two years remaining on her contract as president of Chicago’s Saint Xavier University when she received a call about the presidential opening at St. Norbert College in 2022. Normally, she wouldn’t entertain such offers, she says. But her colleague Michael Marsden, a SNC faculty member from 2003 to 2013, had the institution “on a pedestal.”
“When the recruiter called, I was like, ‘Wow, St. Norbert College. Mike bleeds green and gold; I should probably take a look at this,’” Joyner recalls.
It turns out Marsden, who would ultimately follow Joyner to SNC for a one-year appointment as interim vice president for academic affairs, was right. The campus housed a tremendous amount of talent, Joyner says, and had a healthy culture — something she says is lacking these days at many institutions.
SNC Trustee Sandra Odorzynski, who served on the faculty for 40 years before retiring in 2018, co-chaired the presidential search that tabbed Joyner for her role. Odorzynski says the search committee’s work was guided by a campus survey that found the three most critical needs for the college’s new leader were to articulate a mission-centric vision, to create a strategic plan and to strengthen the work environment through the Norbertine ideal of communio — referring to a deep spirit of community that binds students and faculty with each other.
The New Orleans native was the board of trustees’ unanimous selection, and with support from the St. Norbert Abbey she became St. Norbert College’s ninth president, and first female president, in July 2023.
“We are blessed with a seasoned, passionate new president to inspire and lead us forward,” Odorzynski says.
“It’s kind of a dream job, to be honest with you,” Joyner says. “I want to dedicate my life to Catholic higher education, and to be at such a strong institution with so many assets really is like a dream come true.”
Leading with grace
Leading any higher education institution in 2024 is no easy task. And while Joyner says the challenges are fewer at SNC, she inherited a fairly significant deficit in the college’s operating budget as well as a pressing need to “right-size” the institution as colleges and universities everywhere reckon with declining enrollments. The tip of the “enrollment cliff,” which dates back to the Great Recession, is expected to hit next year. In Wisconsin alone, Holy Family College (2020) and Cardinal Stritch University (2023) have already been forced to close their doors.
“Higher education is probably overbuilt by three to four million seats,” Marsden says. “Now we have to pull back.”
At SNC, this meant the new president would have to work with her leadership team to identify 41 faculty and staff reductions less than two months into her tenure.
“When she became aware of the depth of the financial concerns, she was straight and open about it in a public setting,” Marsden says. “She promised when she came that she’d be transparent and open, and then when she did it, people were astounded.”
Joyner says she “doesn’t know any other way” than to be radically transparent and make data-driven decisions.
“It’s been downright painful in some cases, but I absolutely believe it was the right thing to do,” Joyner says. “Where all these institutions are getting into trouble is continuing to kick the can down the road and not live within their means.”
Marsden says that, in making the difficult decision, Joyner quickly demonstrated that her commitment to SNC was bigger than her ego.
“A lot of new presidents would like to have an easy first year, but that was not the way she felt it had to be done,” he says. “She faces problems directly, and I think the institution will be much better for it as we continue.”
An ideal campus
Marsden and Joyner are both quick to point out that SNC is “right-sizing” or even “ideal-sizing,” not “downsizing.”
In the past year, Joyner says, the college has created more new academic programs (27) than it had in the entire prior decade. A partnership with the consortium Rize Education, an articulation agreement with UW-Green Bay and private fundraising for an “athletics optimization” project that includes expansion of De Pere’s Cornerstone Community Center for Green Knights men’s and women’s ice hockey are all aimed at bringing more educational opportunities to new populations of students.
Joyner, a lifelong New Orleans Saints fan, says she has not only quickly transitioned her fandom to the Green Bay Packers, but her love of ice hockey has risen to match or possibly even exceed her love of football. She estimates that adding ACHA ice hockey as well as stunt, which is one of the fastest-growing women’s sports in the country, will ultimately help bring to campus 73 new roster spots for student-athletes — a population Joyner says represents SNC’s best and brightest.
“We have more than 620 student-athletes, and these are the strongest students on our campus,” Joyner says. “We have a fabulous athletic department that makes the student experience really, really strong.”
Business programs are a major area of academic growth, Marsden says, bolstered by the construction of the 44,036-square-foot Donald and Patricia Schneider Family Hall, which broke ground in May and is expected to be open for fall 2025 classes. The building will house the Donald J. Schneider School of Business and Economics, but it will also contain high-tech and collaborative spaces to serve the external community, Joyner says.
“We’re the hub of business intelligence in Northeast Wisconsin,” says Joyner, citing the college’s 25-year sponsorship of the CEO Breakfast series and the strong collaborations forged through SNC’s Center for Business, Economics and Analytics. “So we really want to live up to that by having businesses and organizations come into the building as much as we’re going out into the community.”
This includes providing “stackable credentials” for upskilling and other programs that may not fit neatly into the mold of a traditional liberal arts college experience, but Joyner says the innovation is not only imperative, but in line with the college mission.
Stabilitas loci
This summer, a Norbertine heritage tour through eastern Europe reinforced Joyner’s commitment to innovation and entrepreneurship. She saw Norbertine priests buoying ministries by brewing and selling beer, operating hotels and restaurants and engaging in somewhat unexpected enterprises.
“These places are doing the most entrepreneurial things, because they’re passionate about their core mission,” Joyner says. “They are doing all kinds of amazing work for those that are marginalized in their countries, but they realize in order to keep that ministry vibrant and alive, it requires money.”
Even 900-year-old traditions can be adaptable and resilient, Joyner points out. And the Norbertine core value of stabilitas loci calls on the 125-year-old college to serve the local community and remain vibrant for the next generation of students.
“We need leaders who are morally courageous and willing to do it, because my number one job is to protect the mission of the place, and by protecting the mission you are ultimately protecting future generations,” Joyner says.
This includes the next generation workforce, which Joyner says is an essential aspect of the college’s relationship with the New North business community. She estimates about 44% of SNC graduates ultimately secure jobs in the region, and about 70% remain in Wisconsin.
“There’s not a company or organization that employs our students that doesn’t say they really stand out for their education,” says Joyner, who is a board member for New North, Inc. “I often say the true measure of our success as an institution is who our graduates become.”
Mission focus
Joyner is proud of SNC’s heritage as a Catholic, Norbertine and liberal arts institution, with all three being equally important. Despite the rising popularity of rhetoric that dismisses liberal learning, Joyner is firm and clear about her belief in its value, which is in many ways reflected in the Norbertine value of contemplation — the highest expression of spiritual and intellectual life, leading to the development of what Joyner describes as an “open mind” and “open worldview.”
A board member and annual conference program chair for the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, Joyner says she is passionate about liberal education because it provides broad exposure to multiple disciplines, development of transferable skills, cultivation of a strong sense of personal and social responsibility, and integrative learning.
“I believe in this country, there’s never been a more important time for liberal learning outcomes,” Joyner says, adding that where people used to change jobs, now they change careers multiple times during their lifetimes. “You need that level of thinking to be an active and engaged citizen in this country.”
And despite the challenges of the past year and the fact that New Orleans still “has the best food in this country,” Joyner believes De Pere, Wisconsin is the place for her — that the intersection of Catholic, Norbertine and liberal arts education produces students who can change the world for the good.
“When it comes to this work, it’s a real passion for me,” Joyner says. “Even on my worst days, I can’t imagine doing anything that I think is more meaningful or important than this.”
