| In
Fall 1974, St. Edward’s welcomed seven new students to campus
as part of New College, an experimental one-on-one degree program
for adult students whose access to higher education was limited
by family, work and community demands. The university will celebrate
the success of New College at an anniversary party on Saturday,
April 2, for all New College faculty, staff, alumni and current
students. The evening begins with a roaming reception followed by
a dinner featuring a keynote address from New College alumna Luci
Baines Johnson, ’97. Event tickets are $25 per person for
alumni and guests and $20 per person for current students and guests.
New
College has been recognized by higher education expert William Maehl
as one of the best adult education programs in the United States
in his book, “Lifelong Learning at Its Best.” The first
program of its kind in Texas and among the first in nation, New
College embraced an educational philosophy 30 years ago that has
since grown into a nationwide trend. According to the Aslanian Group
— a consulting and research firm specializing in adult education
— 73 percent of current undergraduate students are nontraditional
in some way. The majority of today’s college students are
over 25 years old, work, have kids, are financially independent
from their parents and did not attend college straight out of high
school.
Unlike traditional
undergraduate programs geared toward full-time students aged 18-24
who possess little real-world experience, New College is designed
to meet the needs of working adults. A portfolio program allows
students to earn credit for college-level learning gained through
life experiences, and four accelerated degree programs enable students
to complete entire courses in seven weeks versus the standard semester
system. And like all educational offerings at St. Edward’s,
New College expresses the university’s mission through teaching
excellence and an emphasis on the liberal arts, critical thinking
skills, moral reasoning and values analysis, and an international
perspective.
New
College now has more than 3,100 alumni who hold jobs in just about
every imaginable field. Notable New College alumni include:
• Toby Futrell, ’88, Austin city manager.
• Bruce Mills, ’90, chief of public safety for Austin-Bergstrom
International Airport.
• Margaret Gomez, ’91, Travis County’s Precinct
4 commissioner and graduate of the university’s Master of
Liberal Arts program.
• Cheryl King Fries, ’92, who has won film festival
awards and a spot in a Smithsonian exhibit for her documentary In
the Shadow of the Blade, which recounts stories from Vietnam veterans.
• Luci Baines Johnson, ’97, chair of the board of LBJ
Asset Management Partners and vice president of BusinesSuites.
• Cindy Kozmetsky, ’95, a well-known philanthropist
who serves on the Board of Trustees for the RGK Foundation. (Along
with her husband Greg, also an alumnus of St. Edward’s, she
serves ashonorary chair of the largest comprehensive fundraising
campaign in St. Edward’s University history.
• Michael McDonald, ’95, assistant chief at the Austin
Police Department, acting assistant city manager for the city of
Austin, and graduate of the univesity’s Master of Science
in Organizational Leadership and Ethics program.
• Rob Rose, ’00, who is currently pursuing an MBA at
Cornell University’s Johnson School through a $60,000 fellowship.
• Beverly Seffel, ’02, who oversees United Charities
— the Lower Colorado River Authority’s (LCRA) in-house
charitable foundation.
Founded by the Congregation of Holy Cross, St. Edward’s University
has been named as one of America’s Best Colleges for 2005
by U.S. News & World Report and was selected by The
Princeton Review for inclusion in the guide Colleges with a
Conscience. St. Edward’s is a private, Catholic, liberal
arts university of approximately 4,650 students located in Austin,
Texas.
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