Hilbert’s Franciscan mission guides the college’s renewal, reminding us that rebuilding is an act of hope rooted in service, community, and shared purpose. Through collaboration, personal connection, and a commitment to meaningful change, Hilbert is strengthening its future and preparing to serve generations to come.
How Hilbert’s Franciscan Mission Guides Our Future
There’s a line from St. Francis that I return to often: “Rebuild my church.”
He didn’t mean stones and mortar alone. He meant something deeper; to restore faith, connection, and trust where they had weakened. In many ways, Hilbert College has taken up that same call.
The last few years have tested higher education — declining demographics, shifting student expectations, new technologies, and new financial realities. At Hilbert, we’ve faced our own challenges head-on, asking hard questions about what we do, how we serve, and why we exist. The answer, always, is found in our mission.
Our Franciscan identity reminds us that rebuilding is not an act of desperation. It is an act of hope — of believing that the best chapters of our story are still ahead. We rebuild not because we are broken, but because we are called to be even stronger in service to others.
A Community Rooted in Service
When visitors walk our campus, they quickly sense that Hilbert is more than a college. It’s a living community — a network of students, faculty, staff, alumni, and friends who care about one another’s success. That caring is not sentimental; it’s strategic. It’s what allows us to transform the lives of students from every background to become people who positively impact their community.
In the Franciscan tradition, service is never separate from learning. When we rebuild Hilbert, we do so by deepening that integration — connecting classroom knowledge with real-world experience, reflection, and responsibility.
Renewal Through Collaboration
Rebuilding also means collaboration. No one person, office, or program can carry a college forward alone. Our recent planning sessions, open forums, and cross-campus working groups reflect a new culture of inclusion and shared ownership. Everyone’s voice matters — from our senior faculty to our newest students.
That spirit of collaboration mirrors St. Francis’s humility: to listen, to learn, and to work together for the common good. It’s what allows small institutions like ours to move quickly and adapt creatively — to turn challenges into opportunities.
Purpose, Not Size, Defines Strength
In national conversations about higher education, small colleges are often described as vulnerable. I see something else entirely. I see potential. I see the ability to stay personal, to act with agility, to know every student by name and story. That is not a weakness. It is our greatest strategic advantage.
When I talk with people about our strengths, I hear them describe professors who took the time to mentor them, staff who believed in them when they doubted themselves, and classmates who became family. Those stories are Hilbert’s strength — proof that transformation happens not only through curriculum, but through community.
Rebuilding with Faith in the Future
The work ahead is significant: stabilizing budgets, strengthening enrollment, expanding academic offerings, and cultivating new partnerships. But it is also joyful work, because it’s rooted in faith — faith in our people, in our mission, and in the enduring value of a Hilbert education.
Francis once said, “Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” That’s exactly how renewal happens — step by step, guided by purpose, grounded in love.
We will continue to make necessary changes. We will imagine new possibilities. And together, we will do what is necessary: strengthen Hilbert College so it stands even stronger for generations to come.
