cath o l i c e d u cati o n
New university presidents take office at Rockhurst and Avila Universities
AVILA UNIVERSITY WELCOMED DR. JAMES BURKEE JULY 1
By Marty Denzer
K
Photo by Megan Marley
ansas City’s two Catholic universities, Rockhurst and Avila, welcomed new
presidents July 1. Avila’s new president, Dr. James Burkee, and Rockhurst’s new president, Dr. Sandra Cassady, have many attributes in common. • Both Burkee and Cassady grew up in Middle America. •B oth are the first in their family to graduate from college and obtain master’s and doctoral degrees. • Both became the 15th president of their respective universities. •B oth served as Vice President for Strategic Initiatives at their previous colleges. In that role, they both succeeded in increasing enrollment in health care programs, and they are interested in replicating those successes at their new universities.
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r. James Burkee officially became the 15th President of Avila University July 1. He was
selected from 40 applicants to succeed Ronald Slepitza, Ph.D., CSJA, when he retired.
Burkee was born and raised in West Allis, Wisconsin, a city named for a founder of AllisChalmers agricultural and industrial equipment manufacturer and now a Milwaukee suburb. He was the first in his family to attend college. “We were a manufacturing family,” he recalled. “My father was a Vietnam vet who went to work right after coming home. Neither parent went to college. I grew up thinking I would follow in Dad’s footsteps, serve in the military, work in the same company and so on. But Dad died while I was a boy and Mom began encouraging me to go to college. She hounded me non-stop actually,” he added with a smile. Considering her son to be a gifted writer and good in history, she urged him to major in business or history. He chose both. “The trajectory of my life changed,” Burkee said. He earned a BA in History and a BA in Business Marketing from Concordia University in Mequon, Wisconsin. He received a fellowship from Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, to study American History, which he considers “one of the greatest gifts of my life.”
Catholic Key • August/September 2022 • catholickey.org
He received his Teacher Colloquy from Concordia College in New York, and his MA and later a Ph.D. from Northwestern. While serving as a history professor at Concordia College, he also stimulated an enrollment growth of 1,000 students through securing domestic and international partnerships that generated more than $20 million in revenue for the college. For 25 years, Burkee has worked in higher education, except for a two-year hiatus in 2011 to serve as a managing partner and Chief Operating Officer of his family’s business. In 2013, he returned to academia and, in 2019, joined Sisters of Charity-run Mount Saint Vincent College in the Bronx, New York. He served as Vice President for Strategic Initiatives, where he reached into non-traditional areas of business and recruitment, adding off-campus, online and graduate programs that stimulated a rapid growth in student enrollments — from 1,700 students to 3,000 in one year. He intends to replicate those successes at Avila. Dr. Burkee and his wife Hanen, who collaborates in his endeavors, are busy getting to know the Avila campus, its faculty and staff and reaching out to students, especially international, immigrant and first-generation students, in which Hanen, a Tunisian immigrant, is especially engaged. The couple said they plan to invite every registered freshman to their home for dinner this fall. Aware of the “dramatic need for nurses,” they plan to work to interest more students in
