A vision of growth and access: President Burkee outlines his plans for Saint Leo

By Sophie Sullivan, Editor-in-Chief

In between busy days filled with important meetings, emails, and his daily duties, Dr. Jim Burkee, the new president of Saint Leo University, makes it a priority twice a day, nearly everyday to step out of his office to meet potential students. When the campus tours pass by his office in St. Francis, Burkee and his wife make it their mission to personally greet these potential students.

This small gesture shows what Burkee believes Saint Leo should be: a welcoming place deeply rooted in its values and dedicated to opportunity and growth.

Now in his first year as university president, Burkee is leading with a vision of ambition at Saint Leo, centered on enrollment growth, student retention, and expanded access across its traditional campus, online programs, and international reach. As a first-generation college student and former professor, Burkee said the university must not only focus on attracting new students, but also on strengthening student experience and recommitting to its radical hospitality mission.

Hailing from a working-class family in Wisconsin, Burkee understands the impact that going to a college like Saint Leo can have on a young person’s life trajectory.

“Higher education serves a social purpose in creating access and opportunity and upward mobility, and it’s probably the only significant lever left in our world today that can, within a lifespan, lift families out of certain socio-economic categories,” said Burkee. “It changes the trajectory of families and communities and … it means that our eyes have to be on creating access.”

That vision, Burkee says, is rooted in his own experience with higher education. Before working in administration, Burkee worked as a college professor. With degrees in history and much time spent in the classroom working with students, he is able to have a unique view of the world of higher education, and those experiences continue to influence his views on leadership, strategy, and the role of universities in students’ lives.

“We’re in a time right now, politically, of a pretty wide pendulum swing. And I think it’s going to mean that it’s going to swing way back in another direction, because it always has,” said Burkee. “And, so, for me, it means strategic planning and thinking about where that pendulum is going to swing, and I’ve got a pretty good idea of where it’s going to go.” His training as a historian provides him with foresight and a sense of perspective during times of instability.

That perspective ultimately shaped Burkee’s decision to pursue the presidency at Saint Leo.

The process of getting this job looked a little unconventional for Burkee. After working to stabilize his previous institution, Avila University, he and his wife purchased a new home in Kansas City. The day they were moving in, Burkee received the call offering him the job as Saint Leo University’s twelfth president.

Burkee said that he and his wife had thought about moving to Florida before the presidency at Saint Leo had become a possibility. Having vacationed throughout the state over the years, the couple had considered Florida a place they could eventually settle down and retire.

Aside from the allure of living in warm, sunny Florida, Burkee emphasized that lifestyle alone was not the only thing to draw him to Saint Leo. He felt strongly that his personal values and beliefs aligned with Saint Leo’s mission.

“Saint Leo is my dream institution,” he said. “I’ve long believed that the world needs an institution like Saint Leo in the Catholic space.”

Burkee noted that Saint Leo is already poised to function as a “university of access,” with all that it offers internationally, online, and on its main campus in Saint Leo, Florida. Strongly inspired by the precedents and thoughts of one of Saint Leo’s previous presidents, Dr. Arthur Kirk, Jr., Burkee has big plans for Saint Leo.

“I think that Saint Leo should be the largest Catholic University in the United States, maybe the world,” said Burkee. “It’s not a stretch. We were almost there 10 years ago, and this place is made for it.”

Not only does Burkee have a vision for the university, but he has begun implementing initiatives to advance it. His administration is focusing on strengthening enrollment and student retention, areas that have been persistent concerns for Saint Leo.

“We’re going to increase enrollment by simply strengthening the student experience and keeping the students who are here,” said Burkee.

One of the ways Burkee is beginning to advance this student-focused vision is by welcoming students into his own home for dinners and socialization. He is also encouraging and offering incentives for professors to do the same with their students, whether it be taking them out to dinner or hosting students in their own homes.

Beyond these personal efforts, Burkee said the university is pursuing broader, structural strategies to strengthen enrollment.

Burkee shared his plans for introducing partnerships to the university to assist with the low rates of enrollment. Saint Leo will be partnering with an “international recruiting company” to expand Saint Leo’s reach globally, along with a partnership to improve the experience of the university’s education centers and to even construct new centers.

“So, I’m a big believer in partnerships,” he said. “As stable as Saint Leo is, our resources are still fairly limited, and, so, when you partner with another organization, it means you multiply exponentially, in some cases, your marketing resources and your reach.”

Another area Burkee has pinpointed is the virtue of radical hospitality, which is something previous president, Dr. Edward Dadez championed. It refers to a commitment to creating a welcoming campus culture where faculty, staff, and students share the responsibility for making one another feel supported, included, and connected.

“We boast radical hospitality here, and we have to live it, and when we live it, when we really are what we say we are, people are going to stay,” said Burkee.

Burkee is also passionate about investing in Student Activities to improve campus life and the sense of community on campus. This includes extending the hours of places like Benedict’s Coffee House to allow students to gather in the evenings and on the weekends and remain on campus.

These efforts are unfolding against the backdrop of several difficult years for the university. Saint Leo has faced years of financial constraints and declining enrollment, leading to program eliminations, leadership changes, and budget reductions that students, staff, and faculty have felt across campus. Burkee, however, expressed his commitment to restoring institutional stability and positioning Saint Leo for long-term health and growth.

“There will always be in a healthy institution a churn of programs that become obsolete and those … new programs on the horizon,” said Burkee.

In addition to programs, Burkee explained that it is vital for a stable university to have the correct people on its team to help it grow and thrive.

“I would suggest to students and faculty and staff … if there were not fairly significant, visible changes, that would worry me,” he said. “I would be worried were there not changes.”

According to Burkee, part of that process involves ensuring that the university has the correct leadership to help it move forward.

“We’ve come in with some fairly ambitious and aggressive plans to grow Saint Leo, and one would expect that not everyone’s going to be on board with that vision, and so it’s important for an institution to not shudder at the notion that some people are going to step off the bus or be helped off the bus,” said Burkee.

He emphasized that these changes should not be seen as a cause of concern, but as a step in the right direction for a healthy, thriving university. He noted that Saint Leo has undergone personnel change in even worse circumstances, and that current changes are not large-scale cuts, but focused on recovery.

Burkee tied those decisions to the university’s financial realities and to lessons he said were modeled by former president Dr. Arthur Kirk. Reflecting on Saint Leo’s earlier years, Burkee talked about photographs of the campus during Kirk’s tenure as a reminder of how investment shaped the university’s growth.

“Dr. Kirk … was fond of reminding people that nonprofit did not mean that we don’t make a profit. We need to make a profit,” Burkee said.

He emphasized that those profits were never intended for shareholders but were reinvested back into the institution for funding campus improvements, academic programs, and student life. Burkee said the contrast between the campus today and images from its earlier years illustrateswhat sustained reinvestment can accomplish.

And, after years of leadership turnover, Burkee is focused and ready to work on his long-term commitment to Saint Leo.

“It’s my prayer that we’ll have a nice, long decade plus life here at Saint Leo, where we can build something exceptional,” said Burkee. “It only happens when somebody stays.”