HAMBURG, NY – Michael S. Brophy, Ph.D. will be formally installed as the fourth president of Hilbert College during installation ceremonies on Friday, October 11, 2019.
The mass and ceremony will be live streamed at the following link – https://boxcast.tv/view/installation-of-michael-s-brophy-phd-176423.
The installation ceremony is set to begin at 3:00 p.m. in William E. Swan Auditorium on the Hilbert campus. At 2:00 p.m., Hilbert will celebrate a Mass of Thanksgiving immediately preceding the installation ceremony. Delegates representing colleges and universities from across the country will take part in the ceremony. The ceremony and mass are free and open to the public, although seating is expected to be limited. An installation reception will follow the ceremony and will be hosted in a tent outside West Herr Atrium.
Hilbert will host various events during the week leading up to the installation, beginning on Thursday, October 3 with the college’s annual Peace Walk in celebration of the Feast of St. Francis of Assisi. For additional information on the festivities surrounding the installation and to RSVP, please visit http://www.hilbert.edu/installation.
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
2:00 – Mass (William E. Swan Auditorium)
3:00 – Installation Ceremony (William E. Swan Auditorium)
4:00 – Reception (Tent outside West Herr Atrium)
Brophy took office in January of this year. He has served the previous 12 years as president of two private, Catholic institutions.
He came to Hilbert from Benedictine University, where he served as president since 2015. Brophy served as president of Marymount California University for nine years (2006-15).
He became president of Marymount in 2006 when it was a small Catholic liberal arts college in Southern California. He led the transformation of the private two-year college to a multi-site university with undergraduate and graduate degree offerings, doubling enrollment, establishing athletic programs, leading successful fundraising campaigns, and spearheading facilities improvements that built new living and learning environments.
In 2015, Brophy was appointed president at Benedictine, and he led the University as it implemented its new strategic plan by increasing fundraising, opening a new college of business, implementing new academic programs, leading a program prioritization process, and growing its graduate, online, Arizona campus, and community college partnership enrollments.
Prior to his presidencies, Brophy served as a campus dean within the University of Wisconsin system and as an enrollment management leader at Long Island University (New York), the State University of New York at Canton, and The Sage Colleges (New York).
Brophy has a Ph.D. in educational leadership and policy analysis (2006) from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, a Master of Fine Arts in writing (2000) from Long Island University, a bachelor’s in music (1984) and a master’s in English (1990) from The College of Saint Rose.
A Fulbright recipient, Brophy has taught and conducted research in Europe and Cuba. He is also an accomplished filmmaker. Brophy has written, directed, and edited three films that screened at film festivals, theaters, museums, universities, and foundations throughout the United States, Cuba, and Europe. He has had screenplays selected to the Independent Feature Project Market in New York. As a musician, Brophy has accompanied gospel choirs and performed with students and faculty in classical, pop, and jazz settings.
He and his wife, Tara, have three children, Sullivan (a graduate student at Benedictine), Myles (an undergraduate student the University of Southern California), and Ella (a sophomore at East Aurora HS).
Hilbert College, located in suburban Hamburg, N.Y., south of Buffalo, is a private four-year college founded in 1957 in the Catholic Franciscan tradition. With nearly 800 students, Hilbert is a dynamic Western New York college that offers career-focused majors, including one of the top criminal justice programs in the region, and more than 50 minors and concentrations. The college’s engaging, student-centered campus community offers numerous leadership, internship, and service learning opportunities from which students launch successful careers while making positive changes in their communities. The Hilbert Blueprint promotes a well-rounded student experience over four years – starting with the Foundations Seminar in the freshman year, followed by Sophomore Service, Junior Symposium, and culminating with the Senior Capstone. Hilbert has expanded its academic offerings with the college’s first graduate programs in criminal justice administration and public administration, including a track in health administration.