Maryville University announced Wednesday that Dr. Daniel Shipp will assume the role as president of Maryville University in June, 2025. The St. Louis American had the opportunity to speak with former President, Dr. Mark Lombardi, Maryville University’s longest standing president, in recent months. Lombardi prides himself on the number of first-generation graduates who have graduated under his leadership. Over 30,000 students have graduated in the 18 years Lombardi has held the position.
Since 2015, 25 students who were St. Louis American Foundation scholarship awardees have received scholarships, totaling almost $2.5 million.
“That’s always the legacy,” Lombardi told the St. Louis American in his office.
“I’m not directly responsible for every one of those graduates, but part of a team of faculty and staff and alums and everyone that together help those students get there.”
On a day-to-day basis, inclusivity includes the spaces where students eat, live and socialize, Lombardi explained. This model serves as a reminder to students that their presence in academic spaces are not an afterthought. He said cultivating conversations centered around the history of diversity and inclusion in these spaces in addition to the classroom is what makes the difference between a campus that considers DE&I practices and actually implements them.
Students who pass their education on to their community and inspire others to do the same makes Lombardi happy.
“When you’re an educator, you have to have faith that the work that you do is going to empower people,” he said.
Lombardi, who works to increase DE&I at Maryville said he is inspired by conversations over his 42 years in higher education spaces. Some of his efforts include recruiting and retaining a diverse group of educators, as well as keeping tuition flat for six years.
“You can’t snap your fingers and make it so you have to push through the opposition,” he said. “You have to go out and recruit and hire and promote, and you have to do all of that work. And there’s always going to be both active and passive opposition to that, and you got to push through it.”
But the conversation around DE&I initiatives have changed over the decades Lombardi has been in higher education. Though so much progress has been made, Lombardi said, universities across the nation are facing backlash for deploying these initiatives.
“We’ve encountered what is what happens in every society, which is the cultural backlash of ignorance, which is what I call it,” Lombardi said. “We’re under attack, both from governmental agencies and state politicians and federal, to on the ground. In terms of the way people perceive these initiatives, and what we’ve tried to do.”
Lombardi said now, more than ever, the need to evolve and shift the public perception and the application of the initiatives is necessary to keep promoting access to education for diverse communities.
“You can’t give up on those values and those ideals,” he said. “You’ve got to be able to find different ways of making sure that you can keep those things that keep the forward momentum going.”
On a day-to-day basis, inclusivity includes the spaces where students eat, live and socialize, Lombardi explained. This model serves as a reminder to students that their presence in academic spaces are not an afterthought. He said cultivating conversations centered around the history of diversity and inclusion in these spaces in addition to the classroom is what makes the difference between a campus that considers DE&I practices and actually implements them.
“I think those conversations are not the only ones, but they’re absolutely essential to help young people understand where we’ve been and where we’re headed,” Lombardi said. “It helps, I think young people understand that these issues are not ancient issues. They are front and center, and they’re living them right now.”
“We’ve built something here over the last 18 years, we’ve built a culture and an approach on these issues that I think is very powerful and very strong with a lot of advocacy at all different levels,” Lombardi said.
Lombardi’s interest in DE&I stemmed from his experiences both at home and abroad, where he learned about different cultures and saw first-hand the struggles people of color face everyday. He said as a white man, he struggled to comprehend the barriers to access people of color face.
“My belief [is] that education is the great equalizer of everything, that education is an empowering tool, I think, even more powerful in the society than money. Hard to imagine, but I really do think it’s true,” he said.
Inspired by his experience in Africa, including Senegal and Nigeria, Lombardi created programs at Maryville that enabled students who could otherwise not afford it, to study at various cities in the United States.
“I’ve lived in Florida and New Mexico and all over the country, and there are all kinds of cultures and communities around that a lot of people aren’t aware of,” he said. “America has all these subcultures existing within it. So I’ve always been just real curious: how do other people see the experiences that I’m seeing?”
As funding for DE&I initiatives in universities across the country decline, Lombardi said the institution is a financially strong one. He said they’ve had multimillion dollar surpluses in operational funds. In endowment funds, he said the funds hover around $80 million. He said though the national trend in enrollment rates reflect a decline in enrollment in higher universities, Maryville’s rates have increased over the past few years. He attributes the growth to the university’s decision to implement the latest technology, including years ago when he implemented campus-wide wifi and a portal for students to submit their assignments.
And part of his commitment to DE&I practices included giving every student on campus an iPad to complete and submit their assignments.
“We invested four and a half million in basically a digital infrastructure network, wired and wireless, that would allow people to use these devices,” he said. “We basically invested so that every student had a digitally equitable platform from which to learn.”
Lombardi emphasized the importance of a space where students can have a dialogue amongst each other, without needing to get heated or protest. He said a lot of students who protest go to SLU or Wash U in order to experience the more widespread protests. In 2012, Lombardi and other staff involved in student life decided to create an event titled “diversity dialogues” in order to curb the need for protests on campus.
“We give people the opportunity, the students, the opportunity, to voice their feelings. And it works. I mean, it seems to help them, and it doesn’t change perspectives. It just helps them, because a lot of times people want to be heard. Anybody does, whether they’re students or my age or whatever, people want to be heard, and that’s an important element,” Lombardi said.
But as current federal DE&I initiatives decline and become obsolete, Lombardi said it is a dark time for those who hope to improve upon the policies he built. He said he does not know what to do with the impending and insidious opposition to the initiatives. It’s an uphill battle.
“We can have legitimate disagreements about strategy and tactics and all those things, but the values of what it means to live in a diverse and inclusive society where you value everyone and their contributions and their backgrounds, and that’s the struggle,” Lombardi said. “That’s the struggle that happens and that’s where the opposition is. nIt’s opposition in terms of basically arguing that these issues are not issues at all. Where do you go with that? I don’t know where you go with that.”