Dr. Van Brunt began her presidency at Spring Hill on January 1, 2023, as the first female president to serve in the top leadership role. Since being inaugurated, Dr. Van Brunt had a vision for her first 100 days in hopes of bettering the community.
Dr. Van Brunt’s goals for the first 100 days included: relationship building, diversity, equity and inclusion, increased enrollment, and increased campus safety. Dr. Van Brunt stated that her goal when she started was to provide a wonderful experience and a good education for students. “My goal and the cabinet’s goal is to do whatever we can to make it the best student experience for students while they’re here. We try to do things while we can, like enforce policies to make that experience as strong as possible.”
One of the initiatives met is the hiring of a Chief Diversity officer, Dr. Vannee Cao-Nguyen. “There was that racial incident on campus, and I really wanted to understand the culture and what we need. We talk a lot about our legacy and we were the first college to integrate,” stated Dr. Van Brunt. She continued, “We are building a strategic plan to make sure that diversity, equity, and inclusion is in there. We have started doing a lot, but we still have a lot more to focus on.”
Another need that Dr. Van Brunt has addressed is the issue of upgrading our facilities. “One of the things I heard when I first got here was about facilities and a very high level of dissatisfaction with work orders. We replaced our facilities vendor and moved it to Aramark. Overall, the grounds look much better and we are still focusing on good customer service. We also started the new buildings and grounds committee.”
Dr. Van Brunt stated that the college has started working on a strategic plan for the next 5-7 years. “We know we want to focus on enhancing our beautiful campus, we know we want to focus on academic excellence and new programs for our students and continue to lean into our Catholic, Jesuit education and our mission, which makes us.”
For any questions or concerns, you can email Dr. Van Brunt’s assistant, Laura Allsup, through her email, [email protected].
