OK, so picture the scene. It's February 1860.
The United States is effectively sitting on a
powder keg. We're just months away from the election
of Abraham Lincoln. And the country is, well,
it's tearing itself apart at the seams. You can
really feel the tension. Oh, absolutely. It is
arguably the most volatile moment in American
history. Everything is uncertain. Right. And
right in the middle of this chaos on the edge
of the frontier in Quincy, Illinois. a group
of German Franciscan friars arrives. Now, looking
at the timeline, you'd expect maybe they're building
a fort or maybe just keeping their heads down
and trying to stay out of the way. But no. No,
exactly. They decide to plant a flag and build
a school. And not just a school, really. They
were building a cultural anchor. That is a really
important distinction to make right up front.
It is. So welcome to the Deep Dive. Today we
are looking at the source material on Quincy
University. And the mission here isn't just to
talk about a small college in Illinois. We want
to figure out how an institution started by 19th
century friars survives the Civil War, two world
wars, and the Great Depression. Not to mention
the modern higher education landscape. Right.
To end up offering something called sprint football
and producing an alumni list that includes both
a candidate for sainthood and a notorious serial
killer. It's a completely wild trajectory. And
when you look at the Wikipedia overview we're
using as our source today, the history, the financial
reports, the architecture, you realize this is
a fascinating case study and adaptation. It really
is. It's about how you hold onto an ancient identity,
that Franciscan intellectual tradition, while
desperately trying to survive in the modern cutthroat
business of higher education. So let's go back
to that freezing February in 1860. They didn't
call it Quincy University then. No, it was originally
St. Francis Solanus College. A bit of a mouthful,
but it tells you exactly who they were. St. Francis
Solanus was a Franciscan missionary, and that
fits perfectly because these friars were missionaries
themselves. Right. They had left Germany specifically
to serve the massive wave of German immigrants
flooding into the Midwest. That's a key piece
of context I think people miss. Quincy, Illinois
was a boom town at the time, but it was a German
boom town. Exactly. If you walk down the street
in Quincy in 1860, you were just as likely to
hear German spoken as English. So this college
wasn't just about hiring in the abstract, it
was about preserving faith and culture for a
very specific demographic. And they started at
8th and Main Street, but the real transformation
happens a few years later under Father Anselm
Mueller. Mueller's a fascinating character in
these notes. He takes over in 1863. Right in
the middle of the Civil War. Yes. And he stays
president for 37 years. Which is unheard of.
Today, a university president lasts, what, maybe
five years? Seven? It's a notoriously high burnout
job. If they're lucky. 37 years is a reign. It
really is. And that kind of longevity allows
you to build a true legacy. Mahler is the one
who says we need to move. He buys the property
on College Avenue, which is where they are today,
and he oversees the construction of Francis Hall.
Now, looking at the architectural notes, this
isn't just a classroom building. This is a fortress
of German identity. The sources describe it as
having strong German architectural influences.
built between 1871 and 1898. I mean, that is
a 27 -year construction project. They were building
it to last a thousand years. It's limestone.
It's heavy. It completely anchors the campus.
But here is the tension. They built this German
fortress, but the world around them kept changing.
And you see this reflected perfectly in the name
changes over the decades. Right. St. Francis
Solanus College becomes just Quincy College in
1917. Now, 1917, that is not a coincidence. Not
at all. World War I is raging. The United States
is at war with Germany. Suddenly being a overtly
German institution with a foreign sounding name
isn't a selling point. It's a massive liability.
It's survival mode. You have to read the room.
Precisely. Changing it to Quincy College grounds
it in the local American geography. It says we
are part of this city, not we are part of the
old world. It's a rebranding exercise forced
by geopolitics. And then much later, in 1993,
it shifts again to Quincy University. That's
a status signal. By the 90s, they had added graduate
programs like master's degrees in business, education,
counseling. In the American hierarchy, University
carries a lot more weight than college. It signals
professional preparation. It tells prospective
students that the institution has grown up. But
this is the thing that really surprised me. Despite
the rebranding, the wars, and the modernization,
they kept the original motto. I am the herald
of the great king. It's the dying words of St.
Francis Solanus. It's their way of saying, you
can call us Quincy, you can give us graduate
programs, but at the core, we are still friars.
Let's dig into that academic aspect because the
history here is surprisingly practical. I think
we have this stereotype that religious schools
in the 1800s were just teaching Latin, theology,
and maybe some philosophy. The classic ivory
tower stereotype? Right. I'm looking at the notes
from the 1870s, and they are teaching commercial
programs. They're teaching accounting alongside
Aquinas. That is the Franciscan pragmatism coming
through. You have to remember who their students
were. They were the sons of immigrants. They
needed to run hardware stores, breweries, farms.
They needed to build a local economy. They needed
jobs. Exactly. The Friars understood that if
you want to elevate a community, you can't just
feed the soul. You have to feed the family. That
DNA feels very present in how they're structured
today. They have five schools now, Fine Arts
and Communication, Humanities, Science and Technology,
Education and Human Services, and the Oakley
School of Business. But the source material highlights
a specific initiative launched in 2020 called
Success by Design. This is probably the most
critical thing they are doing right now. And
to understand why, you have to understand the
current crisis in higher education. The enrollment
cliff. Exactly. There are simply fewer 18 year
olds in America right now. Small colleges are
fighting for their lives. Parents and students
are asking if this degree is actually worth the
debt. So Quincy launches Success by Design. It
is essentially a promise of hyper personalization.
The documentation says every undergraduate gets
an individual Student Success Plan. And not just
once, but updated every single year. Think about
the massive labor that requires. At a giant state
university, you are often just a number. You
might see an academic advisor for 10 minutes
once a semester. Quincy is flipping that model
completely. They are saying, we are small and
that is our superpower. We'll curate your entire
four years to make sure you get a return on your
investment. It includes what they call high -impact
learning. research, internships. But they pair
it with something called the Bonaventure program.
Which is their general education core. And the
non -negotiable part of that program is service.
It doesn't matter if you are a nursing major
or a computer science major, you have to do service
hours. That ties directly back to those friars
in 1860. It does. They are telling students,
get your job, make your money, but remember you
are part of a broader community. It's that exact
blend of the commercial and the spiritual again.
It really does seem like they are trying to produce
a very specific type of person. Now, we talked
about Francis Hall being the anchor, but let's
mentally walk the campus for a second so you
can really picture it. It's described as compact
and walkable. It's nice, but I love the quirks.
The quirks are always where the history hides.
The quirks tell the best stories. What stood
out to you? The chapel. built in 1911, a beautiful,
holy space. But the notes say the design was
shortened and modified for a very specific reason.
To save the baseball field. Yes, I love that
detail so much. 1911, they were building a literal
house of God and someone says, well, if we build
the nave too long, we lose center field. And
the baseball field won. Or at least it forced
a serious architectural compromise. It speaks
volumes about the American college experience.
Athletics and faith have always been competing
religions in a way, but it also shows how incredibly
tight the campus fumbprint is. They are locked
into a residential neighborhood near the business
district. They have to fight for every square
inch. Speaking of fighting for space, they did
expand to what they call North Campus. Which
is a fascinating example of adaptive reuse. That
facility used to be a Franciscan seminary. It
was where they specifically trained priests,
but as the number of vocations dropped over the
decades, they didn't just sell it off, they converted
it. Now it houses the science and technology
division and the Connie Nieman Center for Music.
So the chapel where they used to pray is now
a media studio. Essentially, yes, it houses the
Quincy Media Incorporated television studio,
too. They turn the sacred into the scientific
and the broadcast. Though, again, a Franciscan
will probably tell you that studying biology
or communicating truth is just another way of
studying creation. It's a very practical use
of their asset. And we can't talk about the campus
without mentioning the limestone walls around
the athletic fields. built in the 1930s. It gives
the place a real gladiator vibe. It feels historic,
very rooted, and that naturally leads us to the
Hawks. Right, the Hawks. Victor E. Hawk is the
mascot. Colors are brown and white. Standard
stuff. Yeah. But the athletics program is where
I got a bit confused, and I need you to untangle
this for us. They are NCAA Division II. They
play in the Great Lakes Valley Conference. That
is exactly what you expect for a school with
1 ,300 students. Mostly. But then I see men's
soccer. They have 11 NAIA national championships.
That is a legitimate dynasty. It is. Before they
moved to the NCAA, they were an absolute powerhouse
in the NAIA. That legacy still attracts talent
today. But the real anomaly, the thing that makes
sports data nerds look twice, is men's volleyball.
Explain this. They were Division II, but they
play against the Giants. Men's volleyball is
unique in the NCAA. There just aren't enough
teams across the country to have separate divisions.
So the championship is open. Quincy plays in
the MIVA, the Midwestern Intercollegiate Volleyball
Association. That means this small Franciscan
school is lining up across the net from Ohio
State, from Penn State, from massive Division
I powerhouses. Yeah, and they hold their own.
They are punching way above their weight class.
It brings a level of national visibility to the
university that they just wouldn't get otherwise.
David versus Goliath story every weekend. But
the weirdest addition, and the source says this
just started in fall 2022, is sprint football.
I honestly didn't know what this was. I thought
maybe it meant, you know, really fast football,
like you have to snap the ball every 10 seconds.
A logical guess, honestly. But no. Sprint football
is regular American football. Same pads, same
hits, same exact rules. But with one major catch,
there is a strict weight limit. 178 pounds. Correct.
If you weigh 179 pounds, you do not play. It's
not governed by the NCAA at all. That changes
the game completely. No 300 -pound lineman. It
makes it a game of pure speed, agility, and strategy.
It's a very new sport. Historically, it was played
almost exclusively at military academies like
Navy and Army or Ivy League schools like Penn
and Cornell. So why is Quincy, a small Catholic
school in Illinois, adopting this Ivy League
military sport? It goes right back to the enrollment
cliff we talked about earlier. Think about the
high school football player who loves the game,
is incredibly athletic, but weighs 165 pounds.
He is never going to play division two or division
one football. He's just too small. Quincy says,
come here. You can play varsity football for
four years. It's a brilliant recruitment tool.
It opens up an entirely new market of students
who wouldn't have looked at Quincy otherwise.
It is brilliant, actually. It fits that whole
theme of success by design, find a niche, serve
it well. But all these pivots, the name changes,
the new sports, the master's degrees, they usually
come from a place of necessity. And the financial
records show things got pretty scary recently.
They did. It wasn't all smooth sailing. In 2016,
the music stopped. The university announced a
$5 million deficit. For a school with an endowment
the size of Quincy's, $5 million is not a rounding
error. That is an existential threat. It is.
The source material uses the phrase significant
financial issues, which is essentially polite
corporate speak for we might have to close our
doors. So what actually happened? A combination
of things. Enrollment dips, the massive maintenance
costs on those historic limestone buildings we
talked about, but the recovery is the truly interesting
part. Usually when a small college hits a wall
like this, they enter a death spiral. Quincy
didn't. They pulled off a turnaround. Was it
just cutting costs? Cuts were part of it, certainly.
But you can't cut your way to long -term growth
they had to be invested in. And in 2021, the
Oakley family gave $6 .5 million. That is more
than double the previous largest gift in the
school's history. Hence the naming of the Oakley
School of Business. Right. But... You don't give
$6 .5 million to a sinking ship. You give it
to a ship you believe can be fixed and steered
back on course. That donation signaled to everyone
else that Quincy is staying. And then in 2018,
they secured a major federal grant, $2 .25 million
from the Department of Education specifically
for STEM access. So you have local philanthropy
and federal tax dollars coming together to prop
this up. It proves that the community, both the
local business community and the broader academic
community, saw immense value in keeping the university
alive. They recognized that if Quincy disappears,
the region loses something irreplaceable. And
part of that value is the output, the alumni.
We really need to talk about this list because
Eclectic doesn't even begin to cover it. You
are looking at the full spectrum of humanity
here. It is a study in contrasts, absolutely.
Let's start with the light. We have a legitimate
candidate for sainthood, the Venerable Father
Augustine Tolton. An incredibly significant historical
figure. He lived from 1854 to 1897. He was the
first openly African American Catholic priest
in the United States. His story intersects with
the college right at the very beginning. It does
and it was not an easy path. You have to remember
the racial climate of the 1860s and 70s. No American
seminary would accept him because he was black.
The friars at St. Francis' Solana, specifically
the Franciscans there, stepped in. They helped
educate him so he could eventually go to Rome
to be ordained. So the university played a pivotal,
hands -on role in breaking that color barrier
in the church. Exactly. He is a hero of the faith.
But then... You scan further down the alumni
list. And you see Michael Swango. Yes. Now, for
anyone listening who doesn't follow true crime,
Michael Swango was a physician, but he was also
a prolific serial killer. He is suspected of
fatally poisoning up to 60 of his patients and
colleagues over his career. It is genuinely jarring
to see those two names, Tolton and Swango, on
the exact same Wikipedia overview. The Saint
and the Serial Killer. No. We are just stating
the facts here without sensationalizing. But
the contrast with the Franciscan values is stark.
It is stark. But I think it serves as a rather
sobering reminder of what a university actually
is at its core. It is a tool provider. Quincy
gave both of those men an education. It gave
them knowledge. What they ultimately did with
that knowledge comes down to human free will.
The Franciscan tradition heavily emphasizes hospitality
and service, but an institution cannot force
you to be good. Swango is a factual statistical
anomaly in their history, but he is part of the
record. And in between those two extreme polls,
you have just really successful, interesting
people doing their thing. You've got the guy
from the band Chicago. James Pankow, the trombonist,
he wrote Make Me Smile and a bunch of their hits.
I had no idea he was a Quincy alum. And then
John Mahoney. The dad from Frasier. Absolutely
brilliant actor. It just shows that despite the
commercial focus we talked about earlier, the
fine arts program there is serious and produces
real talent. And on the sports side, Josh Kinney,
who was a relief pitcher for the Cardinals, Josh
Rabe for the Minnesota Twins. And then in politics,
you have Francis G. Slay, who was a former mayor
of St. Louis, and Lindell Shoemake in the Missouri
House. It shows that the school consistently
produces leaders, whether that's in City Hall,
on a Major League Baseball diamond, or on a rock
stage. It is clearly not a factory stamping out
identical widgets. It is a community that gives
people the foundation to find their specific
lane. So when we step back and look at the whole
picture for you from the German Friars arriving
on the frontier in 1860 to this Sprint football
team lining up in 2024, what is the big takeaway?
What is the narrative arc of Quincy University?
For me, synthesizing all of this, Quincy University
is a master class in resilience through identity.
Unpack that a little bit. Well, look at everything
that changed. The name changed three distinct
times. The actual physical buildings changed.
They went from speaking and teaching in German
to English. They went from primarily training
priests to training modern business owners and
educators. But the soul of the place never changed.
The Herald of the Great King. Exactly. They are
still hyper focused on hospitality. They are
still deeply community oriented. They survived
the massive financial crisis and the world wars
because they knew exactly why they existed. They
weren't just a business selling degrees. They
were serving a specific mission. And when you
have a remarkably clear mission like that, you
can adapt your tactics like adding spring football
or rolling out success by design without losing
your way. It's the difference between being stubborn.
and being steadfast. Stubborn is refusing to
change anything at all as the world moves on.
Steadfast is changing everything around you so
you can keep doing the one core thing that actually
matters. That is a perfect way to synthesize
it. They adapted the vessel to protect the cargo.
So here is the provocative thought I want to
leave you in today. We are currently living in
the age of massive online degrees, of AI generated
coursework, of educational efficiency at all
costs. Quincy is essentially betting its entire
institutional future on the exact opposite approach.
They're betting on success by design. They're
betting on human -to -human mentorship, highly
individualized plans, small classes, and mandatory
community service. It is a massive high -stakes
bet. They are betting that high -touch ultimately
beats high -tech when it comes to human development.
So the question to mull over, is this in an era
of mass education, is this the only way small
private colleges actually survive? Do they have
to revert back to becoming the bespoke tailors
of education in a world flooded with off -the
-rack degrees? Or is that highly personalized,
mentor -based model just too expensive and doomed
to eventually fade away? That is the exact question
that will define the next 166 years for them.
But if their history is any indicator at all,
I certainly wouldn't bet against the Friars.
Thanks for diving in with us. We'll catch you
on the next one.