As Kimo Ah Yun begins his role as Marquette University’s new president, he is working to help plan the institution’s future.
In November, Marquette University named Ah Yun as its 25th president. He succeeds Michael Lovell, who led Marquette University from 2014 until his death on June 9, 2024 from sarcoma. Ah Yun assumed the role of acting president after Lovell’s death.
Ah Yun’s presidential inauguration will be held at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, April 29 inside Marquette’s Al McGuire Center.
In a conversation with BizTimes reporter Samantha Dietel, Ah Yun spoke about federal funding for research, Marquette’s affordability and his vision for the university. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
BizTimes: Universities across the state have experienced declining enrollment. Where do things stand on enrollment at Marquette?
Ah Yun: “Right now we’re in the middle of the cycle, so our first year students are just finishing up this semester. I believe it was our second largest class in Marquette history, 2,100-and-some-odd students. So, strong class.
“We are looking at our next class, so on May 1 is the deadline. The good thing is the predictor is the top of the funnel, and so it’s how many applications do you get? Our applications are at a high over the last, I think, decade. We’ve had more applications this year than we’ve had in the last decade. We are intentionally trying to increase the standards of admissions. Our target for this year was 1,950 new students. That puts it (at) 4,000 students, roughly, between the first and the second year. We balance that with how many beds that we have, because we have a two-year residency requirement. We right now do not anticipate any challenge getting to our 1,950 target. We’ve got a little room to be able to maybe adjust that a little bit, meaning we probably can go up to about 2,000 students. But we don’t have the capacity to go much more than that, because then we run out of beds.
“I would say, given that, where we are, we are looking good. It’s good to see that there still continues to be a high demand for a Marquette education. But we also know that things are shifting. We actually hit the apex this year. This year is the last year of the growing student population graduating. And then starting next year, we begin to see the decline. And so, would like to have a healthy class this year, because they stay with us for four years. That gives us a cushion for four years as we see what’s happening next.”
Do you foresee any plans to increase capacity?
“Right now we’re going through our master plan, and in our master plan, one of the things that we’ve talked about before is that we need to think about our housing solutions. Some of that would be upper class housing, apartments — but also, I think we have to ask the question about whether or not we need a new residence hall. It’s been maybe five years since we opened The Commons. There are some residence halls we might ask the question, has it outlived its usefulness? And so I anticipate when we do the master plan, that will be one of two things that definitely come up on the list. No doubt that that’s a question. And when you think about what students are looking for, nice living accommodations is one of the things that attracts students to be able to come to a particular university. We resolved one of the solutions. One of the challenges was around the wellness and recreation Center. We have a beautiful new recreation space that’s getting tremendous use, and so we do need to consider other investments that are key to continue to drive enrollment.”
What’s the plan for future capital projects?
“We’re working on the master plan, and so that will reveal it. But the two things that we kind of know would be housing. The second piece is, in the last master plan, we were able to achieve everything except what we called ‘bio discovery,’ which is a science district. I think we need to identify what’s (the) solution for our science district. We need to upgrade our teaching labs, wet labs. We need to have probably some additional, upgraded teaching spaces for our science students long term. Think about labs for our research faculty as well. I suspect the new kind of project would be somewhere in the science space. But what that looks like, I don’t know. We’re at the front end of that, but we do know that’s something that we’ve talked about for a while, and we need to get to it.”
Since the “Time to Rise” campaign ended last year, what’s the next step for fundraising?
“‘Time to Rise’ closed at the end of June last year. We never stopped fundraising, so we’re still fundraising now. We’re doing well, continue to maintain the pace that we’ve had for the last eight, nine years. In fact, we anticipate this year will be even better than it was last year, year-to-year.
“What universities do is they go through a process of bringing in an external consultant to be able to kind of review, look at staffing, look at the next campaign, give you some insight of where they think capacity is. Give you a target, talk about whether or not you have enough staff, so we expect to have that information. We’ve already begun that process of getting someone to be able to do that work for us, and we’re narrowing it down so that someone can be selected. And then (during) that process, when they go through and talk to alums, donors, community members, people on our campus, they give it to us. And then we create the beginning of the campaign. I suspect that’s going to be done within a year, and then we will, once we identify our target — and I always say that the target has to be grounded in the science of what we know. But I would say, we just finished a $800 million campaign, so one would think the next campaign has to be larger than that. The question is, does that next campaign start with a ‘b,’ and if so, what are the number of years of which that campaign will take?
“We think about some capital projects that we need to do, but our need is, first and foremost, I say, about insurance that we continue to have an accessible university. We raised over $330 million in scholarships in the last campaign. I am hoping that that number is larger than that (in the next campaign). I’m hoping we’re able to raise more than $330 million. Now, what that total amount is, I do not know yet, but it makes sense that the next campaign has an emphasis on that and that we were founded to provide access to students. We want to continue to be able to do that.”
How do you plan to grow or expand partnerships within the business community?
“It’s about being active and being present. I serve on the Greater Milwaukee Committee, so working with other people. I am working with other university presidents in southeast Wisconsin to develop AI programs, AI pipeline, AI talent. So obviously working with businesses to be able to say, what are your needs and how might they want to walk with us on that journey. We have, for a long time, worked on the Northwestern Mutual Data Science Institute, where we’re doing that in collaboration with Northwestern Mutual, but also with the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Again, talking with our partners in the community to talk about, how do we promote data science to be able to develop and retain talent that is able to do that work? As opresident, one of my jobs is to work on external relationships, and it’s being active, being around, listening to people and getting people to walk with us.”
Considering the university’s latest tuition increase and the broader issue of affordability in higher education, what’s your vision for trying to make Marquette more affordable?
“I would say a couple of things. Obviously, we had a tuition increase, but we’re very proud to say in the top 100 institutions, Marquette is in the top 100. There are 54 private universities (and) Marquette tuition is the second lowest of those other 54 on that list. With that being said, tuition is still expensive. It’s still a lot of money, and our goal is to keep it as cheap as possible.
“Two strategies. The first is we raise scholarships, because as we raise scholarships, although we have a sticker price, the support from our donors allows us to come well below the sticker price because we’re giving support. The second thing is, on campus, we have something called ‘Marquette 2031: Securing Our Future.’ It’s all of the actions that we need to take when we know that our primary revenue is tuition dollars for students, and we do not want to continue to increase that. What we need to do is find ways to ensure we achieve all of the objectives in our mission, but control costs as much as possible. It’s a balance.
“We’re going to have to think about, how do we do things differently? How do we think about which of the programs maybe that don’t have as much demand as needed, and say, do we still need to continue those? Because if we keep programs that have low demand and that the tuition in those programs don’t cover itself, then we have to take tuition from a student not in that area to be able to support it. So it’s constantly looking at how can we be best controlling costs while remaining true to our mission? And it’s going to mean we’re going to make some difficult choices. But I think that’s good business. It’s what we’re meant to do as a private institution.”
Are there any specific programs in mind that are maybe not in as high demand as they used to be?
“They’re working on this process right now. What we said is, there’s two things that — not that we would necessarily do something about them, but we would have to take a deep look at it. This past summer, we had a committee that was composed largely of faculty, and they came up with a standard of is, any program has 10 or fewer majors, or has 20 or fewer majors and is declining enrollment, that we would circle them, and then we would go through a process to be able to ask whether or not that continues to be needed. You think about 10, that means it’s only bringing in two to three new students a year, right? Two, one year, three the next year, because you’re talking 10 over a four-year period. There is a list of those that’s going. We have a shared governance process. They’re going through that shared governance process to be able to look, because there might be an instance where people might say, well, it’s a new program, and that program, we see on the horizon it’s going to increase. Or we might have a different solution. It’s not maybe a major, or it should be a minor, or maybe it should be two majors combined together. They’re going through all of that process right now. Nothing’s been identified as definitely, but given those parameters, everything’s being looked at.”
The Trump administration has proposed a 15% cap on the indirect cost reimbursement rate for National Institutes of Health grants. How would that affect research at Marquette?
“Obviously, when you reduce from 30-some-odd percent to 15%, it’s going to reduce the amount of available money to be able to do that research. There’s no doubt it (would) slow research on campus and close some research programs, and that it would not allow us to do (research) at the same level we are doing now. And then we balance — if there’s a gap, if that 15% in a particular study isn’t enough to pay for the research, we ask the question, well, do we draw from tuition dollars to pay for that? I would say that’s going to have to be a pretty high bar, that research has to have an immediate impact on society for us to be able to take tuition dollars to be able to support it. We will adjust to however it’s needed. But I think the big thing is it will decrease the amount of research that we’re able to do.”
What have you been doing to advocate for federal funding for research?
“It’s good that we have a really strong team here. Maybe three weeks ago, I was able to go to Washington, D.C., and I was able to meet with many of the Wisconsin delegates to be able to tell our story. Fortunate that Marquette is large enough and has a good enough reputation that they took my meeting. Many of them took my meeting, where I met with them one-on-one. And there are two things that I wanted to talk about.
“The first is there are questions about whether or not the federal government would discontinue loans like the PLUS loans. And I advocated that the PLUS loans are what allows us to be able to drive the Wisconsin economy. Think about our law students. Think about our dental students. Think about our nursing students. It’s a way for them to be able to complete their education. And I said that the challenges of loans, where people think that they might not be appropriate or not for a place like Marquette, Marquette has a tremendously high retention rate. Our students graduate. We’re sixth in the country getting jobs. Anything that hinders the ability for our students to be able to come to Marquette because they cannot get loans, is just going to impact the workforce in the state of Wisconsin.
“The second piece of that, in addition to talking about loans, I talked about research. I talked about how our research directly makes the world a better place. I talked about our research around ensuring that we have clean water, about giving people with traumatic injuries the ability to regain their mobility. The research around cancer and being able to detect it earlier. We need to be mindful that any change in that might — it’s not linear. So if the lab closes, it’s not as though next year you give back that money and the lab’s back open. A lab takes a while to ramp up. I really tried to tell the story about the value of the research to Wisconsin and the explanation of the immediate impact it would have for many years if the funding were to decline.”
The Trump administration has also been working to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education. You mentioned the PLUS loans, but are there any other thoughts or concerns that you have regarding potential disruptions to education as a result?
“As they begin to move steps towards closing it, if that’s what eventually ends up happening, there are just certain things that I suspect are not going to go away. There still will be federal loans. Which federal loans? There will still be EOP. Where would that sit? One of the things that I asked about is, how would we do our work? Because the Department of Education became the housing of many of those programs. So, my concern would be, if you move from one area to another area, they might not have the expertise or the history of how to run that program. Now, if they support the people running the programs over, maybe it can continue there. We’re just unsure of what the effects will be.”
What do you expect will be your greatest challenge as you continue leading the university?
“I think our greatest challenge is … the demographic shift happens next cycle. And that, coupled with our need to ensure that we keep tuition as a lower cost as possible. We’re unsure what the market will do, what all the other universities will do. There will be some universities, as they begin to lose the top of the funnel (and have a) fewer number of applications, well, what will they do? They might try to make it up in volume, meaning they might have discount, bargain-based prices to be able to attract students. That’s an instance where it will impact us, because if people discount it so much, at some point it makes sense for someone to consider a university that (is) not as high a quality. If the reduction is far enough to where they would say I would prefer to take the less prestigious university, because I can get it at a particular price, a much lower price. I think those are factors that are outside of our control. That’s my worry. (It) does not matter how good you are, we are impacted by what everything everyone else is doing around us, to some degree. But we know who we are. We’re going to lean into our mission. We believe strongly in the Catholic Jesuit values. We believe we’re called to serve God. We know that there are students who want that experience, and we’ll continue to provide that education here.”
Is there anything else you’d like to share regarding your vision for Marquette going forward?
“We have a new strategic plan, and our new strategic plan kind of rests on three pillars. Thriving students. We want to do everything we can to ensure that our students are successful. Healthy campus. We want to pay people well, but we also want to make those smart choices to ensure that the university is fiscally healthy so it can survive for the next 150 years. We’ll have our 150th anniversary in 2031. The last is care for the world. We are first in student service to the community. We have to continue to find ways of, how do we work with our community to help lift up others, working together. That’s part of who we are. We’ll continue to do that, so we’re excited about our new strategic plan.”
More articles about Marquette University:
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- Marquette University alumnus commits $3 million to endowed scholarships and tennis complex
- Marquette University names Provost Kimo Ah Yun its next president
