McKendree’s listing in the US News and World Report rankings is interesting and heartening, but it’s not the truest indicator of the increase in the academic quality of the College. Instead, that is to be found in the growing numbers, achievements and excellence of our students and our faculty.

Gerald Duff Provost and Dean of the College Professor of English

Over the last 8 or so years, McKendree’s successful pursuit of growth with quality has been one of the most astonishing stories in American higher education. I could provide the data about GPA, class rank, scholarly achievements, plant additions, scholarship funding, faculty professional achievement, etc. which demonstrate the truth of this assertion, but it would take pages. Instead, I prefer to point to what we all feel and realize about today’s McKendree: the sense that we are steadily and substantially improving in a myriad of ways. It’s in the air, and we know it!

The Carnegie classifications now list McKendree as a comprehensive institution, but McKendree is at its heart and soul what it has always been, a liberal arts college of distinction devoted to the study of the best that’s been thought and said (to paraphrase Matthew Arnold) and dedicated to educating its graduates for lives of accomplishment and meaning. Our faculty is wonderfully committed to making that vision a reality on a daily basis.

From what has this renewed success come? Essentially, I assert, from focused planning and dedicated hard work. A strategic plan devised by faculty, students, administration and board has guided our work for the past several years, and accomplishment of its goals are evident everywhere around us. We are in the midst of a major capital campaign of over $25 million, the largest in our history. Accomplishment of its goals will add substantially to what all of us want: a better, stronger, more well-known and more excellent McKendree.

Gerald Duff
Provost and Dean of the College
Professor of English