Dr. Colleen Hanycz Named Xavier President

[GoMuskies]

exactly the bball program makes his University tick

I never would have known to consider Xavier without the basketball program. It's fantastic marketing for the school for sure.

[XU '11]

I'm pretty familiar with her tenure at La Salle. The bad - she knows nothing about athletics. The good - she is very self-aware about that and allows the AD to do their thing. While her background in Canada meant she didn't really understand how American athletics worked, she was supportive and understood their importance - even at a school like La Salle.

[xudash]

My first reaction was "f'ing LaSalle" as well. At least some of you know how I feel about that school from prior posts during our A10 days (lack of commitment to basketball, etc.). I was kind of thinking along the lines of something like "picking off the #4 person at Georgetown" or landing an "up and coming Harvard dude" would be the way to go, then I read up on her a little.

Then I did one better to gain an abstract measure of her: I actually visited the LaSalle bball message board to get their reaction:

https://explorertown.proboards.com/t...leaving-xavier

One of their posters who is close to the situation at LaSalle seemed to have some good inside perspective:

Very disappointing development... She was dealt a crappy hand and did what she could with it... All loose arguments being tied to her are exactly that "loose" at best... Like 'Lowest freshman enrollment in years'... right that is really her fault, I could think of oh I don't know about 3-4 things easy that would bigger negatives for enrollment that are simply outside of her... Obviously starting with the largest one, COVID.

Xavier is making history with this hire and it could not come at a worst time for us.... I have seen and worked with a few Presidents in my time at school, she is the standard...

Great for her and terrible for us... Final point, as usual with the astute point explorer88, the ideal that "the ideology worked for La Salle in the 60s and 70s, so it must work now", is still very much alive.. She was a champion willing to make the hard decisions needed to reverse decades worth of bad decisions.. BUT with that, the BOT has a slightly different composition now vs 15-20 years ago.. As someone who has been a noted critic of them over the last decade, they are slowly turning the tide on me.. Some of the new leaders of the Board are of a different cloth than the Board member of years past (think real estate heirs, construction owners vs tech/VC start ups, finance innovators, etc).. Still some work to go but progress is being made... The BOT was able to identify and sign Colleen when she was certainly an outsider candidate compared to say more traditional American University candidates whose experience usually centered around fundraising... I have to hope we are going to able to find a diamond in the rough from one of these smaller schools whose writing on the wall but no fault of their own and with that I pray for the BOT's success..

People can provide opinions without knowing all the details and you are entitled to them.. But I can with full confidence this one hurts.... Xavier making this hire validates the point.. Xavier chooses and takes who they want, they are NOT a receiver institution...

And as a whole, the consolidation of the universities will continue.. D2 and D3 schools should be first in a contraction and from there will be the talent pool for La Salle to pick from...

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LaSalle seems to be shackled by its tough situation and a leadership that never effectively adapted to change. They may be worse off now than when we were conference mates with them in the A10. That's important to note, because she appears to have been brought in to navigate change and position LaSalle with a more stable foundation for moving forward. She wasn't able to do that overall, but not because of her personal failings.

In other words, with how Xavier is positioned and with its resources, we may be in for the next phase of positive growth for the University.

She likes basketball (imagine going from Gola Arena to a private box in the Cintas Center) and Oktoberfest, so she can't be all bad.

[JTG]

My han itched the other day, I put some cream on it.

[drudy23]

There were some visionary moves by past Presidents that resulted in the Cintas Center and the move to the Big East.

Is a President distanced from athletics going to put it in a position to make that next visionary move, whatever that might be? Seems less likely - really just hoping for a potential Coach K type hire in the future to catapult us to basketball royalty - is that asking too much?

[xudash]

There were some visionary moves by past Presidents that resulted in the Cintas Center and the move to the Big East.

Is a President distanced from athletics going to put it in a position to make that next visionary move, whatever that might be? Seems less likely - really just hoping for a potential Coach K type hire in the future to catapult us to basketball royalty - is that asking too much?

James Hoff was THE past president that made the Cintas Center happen. The wave he started helped X and Father Graham ride that growing wave straight into the BE.

She apparently loves basketball and attends most if not all the LaSalle home games. If she is willing to attend a LaSalle home game at Gola, I have to believe that your concerns about her being distanced from athletics are not warranted.

[Masterofreality]

The "Visionary" part is the most important.
In this environment with world wide learning available, schools need to have ideas to grow and differentiate themselves. I don't know what her "visions" were at LaSalle, but it can't just be a continuation of the past. Life comes at you fast.
Xavier is well positioned now, and hopefully her associations with the other successful Big East school admins will help her. But I sure want to hear about innovations to come.

[drudy23]

To be clear, I'm thinking Mark Cuban style - no?

[xudash]

The "Visionary" part is the most important.
In this environment with world wide learning available, schools need to have ideas to grow and differentiate themselves. I don't know what her "visions" were at LaSalle, but it can't just be a continuation of the past. Life comes at you fast.
Xavier is well positioned now, and hopefully her associations with the other successful Big East school admins will help her. But I sure want to hear about innovations to come.

Totally agree.

She appears to have been shackled at LaSalle, due to its overall condition, culture, profile and leadership issues. It's as though LaSalle has been under a Mulligan-like cloud since the 60's. I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of their data storage requirements still reside on DASD.

It's fair to believe that our BoT did an excellent job of identifying excellent candidates with its placement firm, then proceeded to fully vet them, sifting down the process to land on her.

It's not about the brand she is coming from; it's about her and what she is equipped to bring to us. She is an interesting pick. It happened a little sooner than I thought it would. Xavier must have landed on their top pick.

Drudy, anyone who could successfully weld entrepreneurial vision and results (I'll relate that to your Mark Cuban reference) with academia, should receive $1 billion, just for that achievement.

[waggy]

What are your hobbies or interests outside of work? "I find baking and gardening great for stress reduction; not surprisingly, my garden last summer during Covid was on point, and I won’t even comment on the amount of baked goods that came out of our kitchen. Also, I am a keen student of college basketball!"