Fr. Holtschneider to step down in 2017

My dear colleagues and friends, Last Christmas, I spent the days before the New Year on retreat, reflecting on all that has been accomplished at DePaul. Many of the goals we set at the outset of my presidency for DePaul’s enrollment, finances, academic quality, new academic programs, facilities, alumni organization, national reputation and, most importantly, its Catholic and Vincentian mission have been achieved. We’ve done this together through two, six-year strategic plans. My intent had always been to conclude my service with the end of my contract in 2019. I realized, however, that this does not time well with DePaul’s planning cycle. We have work still to accomplish on Vision 2018, yet within a year it will be time to prepare the next set of university goals. Strategic plans are six-year affairs at DePaul, and the campaigns that fund them are often longer in duration. I believe, therefore, it’s best for DePaul if I step aside in the summer of 2017 so that a new leader can assist the institution to name and ambitiously pursue its next set of strategic objectives. This way, momentum will continue unabated. To do otherwise would put the university in the position of having one president define the next strategic direction for another president to manage or, if we waited until 2019, put the university into a holding pattern until then. My decision to step aside as president has been underway since my Christmas retreat. In late January, the provincial of my Vincentian congregation gave permission for this transition. I informed DePaul’s board leadership in March, at which time we decided to share this news more broadly at the conclusion of the academic year. The Office of the Secretary and board leadership interviewed and hired a search firm in early May. Please know I am not leaving for another position. While I will remain open to assignments after 2017, my present plan is to return to DePaul in my tenured faculty position following a year away from the institution to give the new president the breathing room he or she deserves. The leadership of the board of trustees will write the campus later today to describe the search process and invite the broad involvement that is DePaul’s custom. In the meantime, we have one more year together. I intend to use it aggressively not only to advance the Vision 2018 goals we set together several years ago, but also to work on the new goals emerging from our conversations about race and speech taking place these past weeks. I know I will look back on my years leading DePaul with overflowing gratitude. This is an extraordinary university by any measure, and that is primarily because of the people who make up this institution. St. Vincent often attributed the developments in his life to God’s providence, and that is the only category that can encompass my experience of having been invited into the DePaul community twelve years ago. As we enter into the “baker’s dozen” year of my presidency, know how proud and grateful I am to work alongside you every day. God bless you, Rev. Dennis H. Holtschneider, C.M. President Source: President's Office email, June 13, 2016