By ERIC SEO and EZEKIEL KINGSBURY

We encourage you to read the full transcript of the interview here. 

Dr. Eric Boynton stepped into the Beloit presidency at a crossroads. With enrollment down, financial pressures mounting, and a campus divided over the future, Boynton’s leadership must either revive or redefine the institution he now leads. In the face of this strife, Boynton affirms that “we’re doing fine,” leveraging “being financially clever and responsible” and a mission that “prepar[es] students to successfully navigate the world” to revitalize Beloit College.

Boynton, a Fulbright Scholar with a Ph.D in the philosophy of religion from Rice University, was inaugurated as Beloit College’s twelfth president in November last year, following former president Scott Bierman’s retirement after 14 years of service. Bierman’s tenure was marked by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic and the oversight of the construction of the Powerhouse, the College’s new (perhaps controversial) student center. And despite his accomplishments, Bierman left behind an institution facing critical challenges, especially in enrollment.

Higher education is experiencing a national enrollment decline, partially due to economic crises and shifting attitudes toward the value of a college degree, and Beloit is feeling it. In response to these pressures, Boynton is playing a central role in focusing the college’s mission on career pathways. Initiatives like Impact Beloit and the new “Schools” framework, which aim to integrate career readiness into the curriculum, have been introduced to entice prospective students. In his inaugural address, Boynton acknowledged the College’s reduced enrollment —  down 25% in the last decade — and declared that “We [must] roll up our sleeves to meet the current challenge.” Since then, Beloit has introduced four new schools that integrate majors into career readiness programs: Health Sciences, Business, Media and the Arts, and Environment and Sustainability. These changes, however, come with their own set of philosophical issues. 

On Friday, October 11, President Eric Boynton sat down with the Round Table in our office in Pearsons. The conversation quickly revealed the balancing act the new president must maintain: achieving financial and enrollment sustainability without undermining Beloit’s identity as a liberal arts institution, to pursue a grand plan for the College without ignoring immediate student needs. “The North Star is student experience,” Boynton began, referencing both campus renovations — from Whitney to Pearsons to the library — and a broader strategy of providing students with a “breadth of training.”

However, this increase in breadth of training and emphasis on career-oriented skills may seem counterproductive to Beloit’s liberal arts identity. But, Boynton argues, “[These changes are] actually doubling down on the mission of the place as a small liberal arts institution.” Boynton explained, in an academic tone, that “The liberal in liberal arts is the Latin term for free… the ability to freely navigate the world.” This ability to be free, he argues, requires preparing students for the job market. However, his words suggest a tension between an education for “lifelong learning” and one that is more pragmatically job-focused.

This philosophical stance towards “lifelong learning” has not been reflected in Beloit’s enrollment trends, where interest in humanities majors has steadily declined, while more pragmatic fields — business, management, and marketing — have experienced growth. Boynton appears to accept this reality, choosing to emphasize more immediate career applications in College programming. He doesn’t see this as a threat to the liberal arts, citing the fact that “liberal arts has adapted and changed over millennia.”

Using Beloit’s recent partnership with Edgewood College’s nursing program as an example, Boynton argued, “Liberal arts should not cede ground to other universities or colleges… Nurses should have access and should be trained in liberal arts environments in order to make them better, more complete nurses,” he said, suggesting that training nurses in a liberal arts environment will make them more well-rounded professionals. He referenced the Beloit Plan of the 1960s and 70s, which required students to go off-campus and bring practical experiences back into the classroom. To him, the integration of career skills is not a departure from the liberal arts — it’s an evolution of it.

Still, does a focus on career skills undermine the broader liberal arts ethos that Beloit has cultivated? Boynton is adamant that it does not. “I see the professional skills and liberal arts skills as not being mutually exclusive,” he said. “They’re actually one and the same.”

When asked about Beloit’s financial situation, Boynton initially spoke to the enrollment issue surrounding higher education, saying the college needs to “remain relevant to the current situation so the parents and students see this place as valuable.” When again prompted on school finances, Boynton’s tone remained confident; “You know, we’re doing fine. We have an endowment of $90 million, and we have a four-year plan that takes us to financial equilibrium. We’re doing fine.” Boynton claimed this even as he admitted that “the college needs to be doing better than it is,” and to be “above 300 students [in each] entering class,” upon further questioning. When asked for commentary, a tenure track Beloit professor said that “there is a lack of transparency and so many other variables going on… He may have a plan, but that plan is not very transparent… there is significantly more that we desire to see,” referring specifically to student and faculty retention instead of just recruitment.

Enrollment, hovering just beneath 1,000 total students, is below what Beloit College requires to thrive. Boynton added that “we’re engaged in these changes because [we] want to find a different situation for ourselves.” He asserts that the future of Beloit College is secure because of campus changes: “We’re understanding that there has to be change in the institutions like Beloit in order to map on the change out there in the world, and that’s what we’re doing.”

Due to the drop in student enrollment, these financial pressures have led to other changes. The Neese Theater, for instance, was shut down indefinitely last year as the performing arts majors were rolled into one. Boynton shifted attention from the apparent decline of the performing arts, saying that “the building becomes 50 years old this November, which opens up all possibilities we wouldn’t have otherwise if we started [renovations] now,” like tax credits. But these possibilities are distant for current students. In the meantime, he suggests students focus on the Hendricks Center, which, the Round Table feels necessary to add, does not have a stage proper for many performances, nor a scene shop necessary for set construction. The Hendricks Center lacks much of what is needed for students who may depend on such spaces. Potential renovations for the Neese, says Alicia Bailey, technical director for Beloit College’s new Performing and Applied Arts Department, could take a decade to complete. 

“A lot of these plans around construction,” Boynton said about the theater and the change in the dining hall location, “are consultative of student groups, through canvassing, BSG, etc.” [Boynton later explicitly referenced consulting the Food Oversight Committee, which as a member of in the last academic year, Ezekiel Kingsbury’25 denies having occurred.] “What’s going on in Commons right now is that the kitchens needed an overhaul, larger than it would take to move the food to the Powerhouse. It is both financially clever and responsible,” Boynton said of the change in dining hall location. 

Student frustrations over feelings of not being heard extend to such issues as Title IX. Many students feel that the administration’s historic handling of Title IX cases has been lackluster. The Title IX flyers in the bathrooms around campus even have a contact who has not worked at Beloit College since 2022. Boynton’s response? “It’s a federally mandated regulation. Those regulations are completely out of our hands, and we have to comply with them to a tee.” 

However, he did express an understanding of the frustration that accompanies confidentiality. These frustrations also mounted with a seeming lack of response by administrators last Spring to confront the issue of a leaked video with homophobic sentiments. He said, “While I can’t go into it, we actively engage in the process of investigation. These things are not just walked away from. If we don’t pay attention to it, woe to us, and not just [to] the administration, but to the campus.” At the broader issue of students feeling overlooked (by the signage issue, for instance), Boynton said “Thank you for telling me that. That’s something we can do.”

Boynton’s understandable hesitancy highlights a broader issue: a perceived lack of transparency between the administration and the student body. From financial sustainability to student safety, frustrations are growing and exacerbated by (perhaps necessarily) poor communication. Boynton’s big-picture approach — what he describes as his “30,000 foot” vision — may be proper for long-term planning, but it risks alienating students who are dealing with practical problems like incomplete renovations, lack of air conditioning, safety concerns, and frequent water shut-offs. To these issues, Boynton asks students to follow up with other administrators, like Dean of Students Cecil Youngblood or Associate Provost Ron Watson, but still adds that students can email him directly. (Additionally, he added that the holes in the ground should be gone by the end of October.)

Boynton has been trained to see things through the big picture. He reflects how his background in the philosophy of religion has influenced his approach to leadership. “I can remember as a 7-year-old trying to get ahold of the infinite,” he said, describing his unconventional path to the presidency. Philosophy is all about “big questions,” and to Boynton, adapting Beloit College to the current world seems to be a perfect culmination of all those big questions. But perhaps Boynton’s abstract approach is distant from the day-to-day issues that affect student life. 

Wrapping up the interview, Boynton said that, unlike the board of trustees, “I eat Beloit College for breakfast — I don’t eat lunch because I don’t have time — and [I eat Beloit College] for dinner.” He is consumed by this job and is fully committed to it. “I’ve given up on this idea that there is any outside,” he added. 

“I’m not saying ‘Look. We’re fine. We’re gonna stay exactly the same,’” Boynton said. He asserts that his changes will bring Beloit past this turbulence and into the future. Whether Boynton’s vision for Beloit will succeed — one that integrates career readiness with a liberal arts education — remains to be seen. His philosophical ideals are clear, but as Beloit College faces real-world challenges, the effectiveness of those ideals will be tested. Boynton’s presidency will be ultimately defined by how well he can bridge the gap between his grand vision and the practical, immediate needs of the students he serves, and how well he can retain the liberal arts philosophy of Beloit College.

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