At a recent social event an alum approached me with a story. He told me that just as he was getting ready to enroll at Saint John’s in the early 2000s there was a crisis in his family. The tech bubble was in the process of bursting and his father, who was an engineer, had just lost his job. The prospective student did not know what to do, as he suddenly pondered a very different future than the one he had imagined for himself. But before he had the chance to make new plans, he received a call from Saint John’s. Someone, he never learned who or how, had discovered that his dad had lost his job and the family’s economic circumstances had changed significantly. The Saint John’s financial aid office was sending him a new financial aid package with the hope that it would enable him to become a Johnnie in a few weeks when classes began. And that is what happened — to the delight, wonder and everlasting appreciation of this deeply loyal alum and his family.
The story was a variant of another story that I had heard at least half a dozen times from older alumni. The earlier versions were not quite as dramatic but equally poignant. The earlier versions all went something like this: a young man got excited about going to Saint John’s, often encouraged by a parish priest. He was typically a first generation student from a modest background. Mom and Dad were encouraging and could provide some support but naturally his parents had significant additional financial obligations, most often to their large Catholic families. The young man applied and got accepted and maybe even visited. Then the first semester’s bill came. The family decided that maybe education was not in the cards after all. Getting a job in town or working on the family farm was a perfectly acceptable alternative. The disappointed young man sent his regrets to Saint John’s. Then the phone call came. In this case the savior was typically Fr. Don LeMay. “Just come up. We will figure it out.” And the young man became a Johnnie, and Fr. Don figured it out.
In the latter case, the heroes that made the education possible were the monks of Saint John’s Abbey. They were the professors, administrators and staff that filled most of the positions at the University. For accounting purposes each was paid market-based compensation, but throughout those years, the Abbey typically gifted back to the University 80 cents on the dollar. The monks were a living endowment that provided the financial aid to educate generations of young men.
By the 21st century, of course, monastic demographics had changed rather dramatically. The University is staffed mostly with laymen and women, and the Abbey needs every penny of income from the handful of monks still working in the University to provide support for that earlier generation of monks that is now retired. But fortunately there are still heroes in the 21st century that provide access to a Saint John’s education for our young alumni. They are often quite modest and unsung, but every donor to the Student Fund, everyone who is building a named endowed scholarship and everyone who is helping us build our financial endowment for the future is a rightful heir of and partner with the monks who were the living endowment throughout most of our history.
Our last capital campaign was called “From One Generation to the Next,” and our current campaign — “Forward Ever Forward,“ emphasizes the long run health of Saint John’s. That will guarantee our ability to educate Johnnies for the world. The monks of Saint John’s carried that burden for decades, and now it is our turn.