With four years under her belt as president of Trinity University, Vanessa Beasley is on a mission to continue building a liberal arts program that fully prepares graduates for the careers of the future.
In order to achieve this, she is betting on the university’s ability to help students gain critical thinking skills, listening skills, and conversational skills. Developing well-rounded students is a point of pride for Beasley, as she reflects on where the university is at now and her hopes for the future.
At the beginning of 2025, the university launched Our Time: The Campaign for Trinity University, seeking to raise $300 million, along with a new strategic plan titled Ready. Set. Rise. At the time the university announced having reached 80% of its goal, and this fall officials announced a $25 million gift by the Carlos Alvarez family to name the School of Arts and Humanities.
This year, U.S. News and World Report Best Colleges ranking placed Trinity University as number 37 among 207 national liberal arts universities ranked.
Financial support and rankings are important metrics that determine forward momentum, Beasley said. But she also points to feedback from current and former alumni on the impact of their time at Trinity as an important indicator.
The San Antonio institution is well positioned financially for the future with a $1.9 billion endowment and about $328 million dedicated to student scholarships — a budget that exceeds $77 million for institutional financial aid annually.
We talked to Beasley about what this means for Trinity and for her vision of where she wants to take the more than 150-year-old institution.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
Four years into your tenure, where is Trinity University today?
When I first got here, Trinity was categorized as a regional school by U.S. News and World Report. And before I got here the decision was made to move it to the national category. So at the time we started as number 55, out of just over 200 national liberal arts universities, and this year we ranked at 37. That is a sign that people around the United States are noticing that what we are doing at Trinity is something of high value, something that people want.
What do you think resonates the most with people about the way Trinity teaches liberal arts?
I think that there are two things that we often talk about. First is about Trinity being a small college, but with big university resources; We do have opportunities for a school our size that you would not get as an undergraduate unless you were in a graduate program at a large research university. For example, two years ago we received a [$26.5 million] gift from the Semmes Foundation. That donation allows for any student who’s studying science who wants to do bench science, can actually be in the lab making discoveries alongside a faculty member, or with faculty member guidance.
But the second thing is that we are still a college where every single one of our students is known by their name. We are a place where you walk across campus and people smile. Students tell me we are small enough that you have friends from day one, but large enough that you are still making friends as you go on.
This fall you reported an enrollment of nearly 2,600 students, that’s very close to your 2024 enrollment rate. Are you seeking more students or is this a sweet spot for Trinity?
We are not interested in expanding the number of students that we have. Our growth model is not about more students, our growth model is about becoming even more excellent at the things we already excel at. It’s about raising the bar and making sure the quality of the education we offer continues to increase and to keep pace with the demands of a rapidly changing world.
Considering you are sharing a city and region with six other major college systems and universities; how do you keep students interested in pursuing a higher education degree at Trinity?
I am a big believer that there is no one-size-fits-all in higher education. There are different models of higher education and I can’t tell you which is the best one for you. I’m a child of a mother who didn’t go to college until she went to community college. And that was life changing for my family. So, I always say that there’s no best model. It’s just what works for you and your family.
So, I have to remind people sometimes that we are not all the same. Particularly in San Antonio, we’re pretty collaborative and we know that the model of education we have here has some very specific components that we hope are attractive to the people who want this kind of education.
What are some of the opportunities and challenges of being positioned as a smaller private institution with a long history in this region?
The opportunities are obvious when you think about the amount of support we’ve gotten from our donors. We recently had two pretty significant transformational gifts; the Semmes Foundation gift for the Doctor Semmes School of Science and a $25 million gift from the Carlos Alvarez family for the Carlos Alvarez School of Arts and Humanities.
And I think there’s an opportunity for a liberal arts education with that broad foundation that focuses on humanity and human interaction to be ever more important in an age of AI. The irony is that as AI and technology become more significant in our everyday lives, we cannot lose those human to human skills. And that’s as true in science as it is in the humanities.
And one of the challenges is that higher education gets painted with a really broad brush. So the challenge is talking about the nuances and differences among our sectors. The other challenge, I know that you’ve heard this is the perception that there’s a question about the value of the degree. At Trinity we’re doing our best to adapt and make sure we’re providing the best possible education to prepare students for the future. And we continue to be very self-reflective and offer ourselves criticism.
What is a piece of criticism that you’ve taken to heart, or made it a point to tackle during your tenure so far at Trinity?
So one of the criticisms that existed before I came to Trinity, which is not new, but it’s been perhaps louder in the last few years, is that higher education does not always provide the opportunity, or the environment, for everyone to get to share their opinion.
This idea that once we get into an environment where we’re living among people who are different from us for the first time, getting to have those great conversations where we disagree. And frankly, that’s in our brochure. We want you to disagree. We want you to have that opportunity.
The criticisms of higher education having in some cases too much potential to be an echo chamber. I take that really seriously. We need to be a place where all ideas can be heard.
As a college, how do you tackle an issue that seems to be so embedded in how our current society operates?
We need to provide some scaffolding and some teaching for how to do that because our society’s not great at telling us how to listen to people with different opinions. That is one of the reasons we created a formalized program outside of the classroom called The Conversation.
So, about two and a half years ago. As the world was getting really complex and global politics were becoming more complex. A student said to me, “There’s a lot going on in the world. I just wish we could have a conversation. I have questions. I don’t understand it.”
And so we started talking among the leadership team about, you know, where are our students learning how to have a conversation with someone they might disagree with? Because the larger problem is sometimes we self-select and we only talk to people we think we’re going to agree with.
What are some of your goals moving forward for Trinity and for your own leadership here?
I feel like it is such an honor to be in a position of leadership and higher education right now because we do have an opportunity to be responsive to some of the critiques. We have an opportunity to adapt to the changing needs in society.
One of my goals for my tenure here is thinking about Trinity as an active member of this community. And yes, we have a core mission and the obligation to educate our students. But being in San Antonio should be part of their education.
The San Antonio Report partners with Open Campus on higher education coverage.
