. . >> pat mcguire, what's it like running trinity washington university? >> it's the best job anybody could ever have. it's new and exciting every single day. i chose to work in education because i love seeing students blossom in the care of great teachers like the faculty we have at trinity. it's a challenge every day, but it is the best possible kind of work because we literally change lives. >> how long have you been doing it? >> i've been at it for -- i'm in my 21st year. i started in 1989, and yet i still feel new and fresh every day. so the length of time has not diminished my enthusiasm one bit. >> why do you do it? >> i do it because i think education is one of the best ways to change our society, to help people improve their lives, to help improve the fate of the children, of the young women and older women who come to us. you know there's a saying if you educate the mothers, you'll educate the children and the families of the world. and that's what trinity's been doing for 112 years. and i just am happy to be a little part of that. >> how do you do it? >> how do we do it? well, that's always the question i get. trinity was founded by religious women, the sisters of notre dame. and like many catholic women's colleges in this country, they didn't have much money -- and we still don't have much money. we do it with a lot of commitment on the part of the faculty and staff, the alums, our graduates, the trustees. people devote an enormous amount of time, far more than what we can pay them to do. we do it with a great deal of talent, in our faculty in particular. you know it's the faculty who teach and make the education happen. the students also have to invest themselves. the students love this school and they want to have this great education. they know that great women have graduated from trinity and they want to become just like them. so it's the combination of desire, talent, and occasionally some nice charitable gifts that help us along the way. >> former congressman barbara kennelly, current speaker of the house nancy pelosi, former governor of kansas and hhs secretary -- >> kathleen sebelius. yes. >> -- and it goes on. >> yes. >> and cathie black who runs hearst. >> hearst magazines. we have such a wonderful roster of distinguished alums both from those eras. barbara kennelly was class of 1958 and is a dear friend and was one of our first great superstars in congress. and of course speaker of the house nancy pelosi, class of 1962, her class loves to come to reunions and talk about their days at trinity. we've also had maggie williams, class of 1977, was hillary clinton's chief of staff when mrs. clinton was in the white house. and maggie was the highest ranking african-american in the clinton white house in her time, class of 1977. but even today from the classes of the '90s and the aughts, if you will -- the 2000-plus -- we have younger graduates now who are beginning to set the stage for their great careers also. >> i want to thank daniel devise -- i'm not sure, is that the way he pronounces it? >> devise. dan devise. >> oh. thank you for helping. for this, which we wouldn't know you without this cover story and washington post magazine a couple weeks ago, the soul of trinity. >> well, yes. >> what led to that because this is -- i suspect you'd kind of like this. >> oh, it's a wonderful story. and dan did a terrific job. and of course you know most of us who are the subject of newspapers articles are a little sheepish. we might you know say well what's that going to be like? he did a great story. and what i love about the story is that he brought in our students, our faculty and our alums. so it's not just about me. it's about the entire institution and the way we grew. it was the occasion of my you know now 21st year at trinity. most college presidents serve maybe six or eight years so i've sort of been at this for a much longer period of time. but he interviewed scores of people, alums, trustees, students and faculty, and really put together i think a very accurate and lovely story about how trinity has grown and changed over the years. >> what's the -- the school -- and you can correct my language -- was in the dumper. >> well -- >> probably a lot of people won't want to hear that but they were -- when you went there, they were in trouble, weren't they? and you were 36 years old. >> -- i was 36 years old. i didn't know anything about being a college president. i was a graduate of georgetown law school. i had run a clinical program, the street law clinic of georgetown. i was devoted to keeping kids in d.c. out of trouble. and then i went from running that program to running the development office at the law school and helping to raise money to build the edward bennett williams law library. it was great. and at age 36, alma mater tapped me on the shoulder and asked me if i wanted to be president. and i thought, wow, this is a great opportunity for a school that i love and for a kind of job that is intellectually extraordinarily fascinating. trinity did have a hard time, and it was not unlike most other women's colleges and catholic women's colleges. you know back in the day before co-education became popular in the '60s and '70s in this country, there were about 300 women's college and about 190 of them were catholic. and today there's about 50 women's colleges still operating and about 16 are catholic. and the change was because of title ix, equalizing women's opportunities at the big university. for the catholics the change was also about the nuns had worked for free and it was easy to sustain institutions on the free labor of women. but the nuns went into other ministries or left the convent after the second vatican council for catholics. and so the whole basis of operating these kinds of institutions changed. and we had to decide in 1989 and 1990 if we wanted to continue, if there was a way for trinity to continue. and that was part of the challenge i had when i took office. >> how many students do you educate every year? >> this year we're educating 2,000 students in four different academic units. our traditional women's college -- the original historic trinity college -- has more than 800 students this year, and we're very proud of that because it had just about 300 when i started. so we've grown. in addition to that, we have students in our school of education, teachers and principals getting their master's degrees. we have a school of professional studies for adult working men and women. we are co-educational in the school of professional studies and school of education. and we're just starting a school of nursing and health professions, and that's very popular. the regional healthcare community loves the fact that trinity is getting into nursing and we hope soon to get into allied health professions. >> what's the tuition? >> tuition this year is $19,360. we're going to increase it by about 2 percent for next year so it'll be about $19,700. that is still significantly less than any other private college or university in this region, and it's about $6,000 less than the national average for private colleges. i should also mention that we give substantial financial aid. we give trinity grants that are equal to about 40 percent of that tuition price. many of our students also are eligible for pell grants, which are federal grants or local grants from the district of columbia or their states. >> i read in mr. devise's article that 67 percent of your students are african-american. >> that's right. >> and is that a change? >> that is a huge change for trinity. back when i was a trinity student and historically, trinity served predominantly catholic women from the east coast and from a few other catholic enclaves, chicago, some from the west coast, predominantly irish catholics you know the ethnic catholics. and as our population declined in the 1970s and 1980s because those women who historically had come to trinity went off to the big men's co-ed universities. we had to decide where was our future? should we go co-ed? we asked ourselves that question, should we go co-ed? and it was the sisters of notre dame who founded trinity and sustained us all those years who said look right out at your doorstep. look at the educational needs of the women of the district of columbia, closely in prince george's county and montgomery county. there are women right here in the washington region who can benefit from this education so very much. they don't look like us. they will be predominantly african-american, latina. they will probably be women, in many cases, from low-income households but they have the desire to learn. back to that thing about educating the mothers changes the families. >> twenty-one percent hispanic, 6 percent white. >> right. exactly. >> march 1, newsweek magazine, article by evan thomas and pat wingert, just want to read it. it's called minority report. >> ok. >> the picture of diversity -- black, white and brown students cavorting or studying together out on the quad -- is a stock shot in college catalogs. the picture on graduation day is a good deal more monochromatic. quote, "if you look at who enters college, it " looks like america," says hillary pennington, director of postsecondary programs for the bill and melinda gates foundation which has closely studied enrollment patterns in our education. "but if you look at who walks across the stage for a diploma, it's still largely the white upper income population." >> well, that in fact is true for most large state universities and for many private universities as well. in fact, the recent data about college completion rates shows that it's not about race, it is about social class and income levels. and in fact it is true that the lower the income level of the student, the more likely it is that the student is probably from a family that is african- american or hispanic or a mixed race or some other factor. but the fact is that students who have to pay for college themselves, who have to work while they're in school, whose families cannot afford to pay those tuition bills, take a lot longer to complete college. now i happen to believe that many of those students actually do complete college eventually but not in the four to six year timetable that we know as the traditional completion timetable. the problem is the way that the federal government tracks graduation rates means that students who take a little longer to complete, who maybe switched from full time to part time status and finished 10 or 12 years later, they're considered dropouts. they don't get counted in these graduation rates. so one of the things that has to happen is a new formula, a new way of tracking student progress through college to be able to capture those students who have stopped out for many reasons. the stop outs occur -- we track this at trinity very carefully -- a student will stop out of her college education because she's had a baby, because she's caring for a sick parent or maybe caring for siblings, or maybe she's supporting a husband who's trying to complete his education. it is not always the case by any stretch, that the students just can't do the work or -- and decide not to go to college anymore, their educations have been interrupted for many reasons. and often they will come back later on in life and complete the degrees. >> in the middle of your campus -- and i counted what, seven buildings, eight buildings? >> yes. eight buildings now. >> eight buildings. there's this $23 million sports facility, brand new. what year did you build it? >> we started -- we broke ground in the year 2000. it opened in 2003, and it's been a magnificent experience for trinity. prior to having the trinity center for women and girls in sports, we called it, we had never really had a place where we could convene many thousands of people in large number. we didn't have indoor sports facilities of any serious kind for modern athletics. and as a result of creating the center, we now have more than 30,000 visitors come to our campus to participate in programs at the trinity center. we also have improved all of our athletic teams. and now we're able to support teams like volleyball and lacrosse and soccer and other teams that we didn't -- weren't able to have before. so that helps us with recruiting. >> where'd you get the money? >> oh, we had a wonderful, wonderful outpouring of support from not only our alums -- who were quite generous -- but also from the local corporate and foundation community. we received gifts in the capital campaign that supports the trinity center from sources we had never ever seen before. and part of the genius of the trinity center, which many in our local regions like many of the many of the corporate and foundation sources, not only did it support trinity's needs and athletic programs, it also was specifically designed to be a center for our community to enjoy. and we conduct many different programs through the center, for children in the community, for senior citizens and others. everybody loves it in the community. >> now, one of the things i noticed when i was there is that the washington hospital center brings people over there who have cardiac problems and they have -- you have a walk track there and a facility where they can be checked. >> right. >> now, how much of that -- is this something that you've seen in other schools? or how much -- where did you get this idea? >> well, partnership is one of the ideas that we've really enacted at trinity for the last 20 years. when i started as president, we didn't have too many partners in the community. we were pretty isolated. and one of the things i realized as i went out to work with the business community and talk about trinity was that there were many different kinds of organizations who really were eager to partner with a private university like trinity. but we had not really extended ourselves that way. one of those was the washington hospital center and the medstar group, which also includes the national rehab hospital as well and georgetown hospital here. and as we started constructing the sports center, they began to ask me whether there were ways that they could work with us. and along the way we developed this concept for the cardio rehabilitation unit because the docs said they really would prefer that their patients needing to get their post- procedure therapy come to a beautiful place like trinity where it was not only convenient but also safe and restful for the patients to work on their recovery. for us it's a great partnership because it not only brings the patients into the trinity center who ultimately wind up joining our health club at the trinity center, too. it also is a future opportunity for us as we expand our academic programs into allied health professions to add clinical opportunities right there. we also partner with the girl scouts -- they use that center quite a lot -- and with many area amateur athletic organizations. just the other night we hosted the gonzaga dematha boys' basketball game in the gym and it was quite popular. now the building wasn't designed for a lot of men's sports, but in fact we do have men's sports there and it's quite popular for many in the community. so we host many different kinds of events. >> we'll get back to some of the school, but talk about -- i've got stacks of your blogs. >> oh dear. ok. >> when did you start blogging and where can people read your blogs? >> well, people can read my blog right on trinity's web site on the front page. it's www.trinitydc.edu. i started blogging -- i think my oldest blog might be around 2005. and i thought i would explore blogging as a way to put trinity out there in a different way. you know everybody expects the college president to sell the school and talk about how great the school is. and that's what i do and i love doing that. but i also believe that behind selling the school, if you will, we have to have ideas. we have to stand for something. we have to help people understand the great issues of our day. i also believe deeply in freedom of speech, and i like to model freedom of speech. as an academic institution, everybody on our campus should be free to speak and say what they you know believe and want to tell the world. and i feel it's the same for me as others. so i used the blog to talk about higher education. i talk a little bit about trinity. i also talk about contemporary issues in a way that i hope says that trinity is a place that is thoughtful, we identify issues we care about, we want to have debates about them, and invite comments on the blog. and i hope people will always feel free to differ from my opinion whenever something is on there. >> is it also published in the washington post? >> i have a different blog in the washington post. i was invited to be one of the guest panelists on a blog called on success, which is part of the washington post online. and there's a group of maybe about 10 of us who are different kind of civic and business leaders here in the washington region. and we write about topics on success twice a week. so the current on success blog that's posted asks the question can toyota recover its reputation? the one we are going to be posting i think today or tomorrow is about will jay leno bounce back? how do you recover what was once a successful show? anything having to do with how do people get back on their feet or to become successful -- we had a lot of blogs around tiger woods, can he ever regain his success? so i was very pleased to be invited and i enjoy writing. so that's twice a week in the washington post online. >> here's from your own blog from january 24, 2010. my democratic friends are saying i've lost my mind. my republican friends -- yes, i have one or two -- are wondering what i'm up to. for one thing, senator-elect brown's chevy truck with 200,000 miles on it sparks new hope for the possibility of my own senate seat some day. my truck has 165,000 miles on it. ok, it's a honda crv, which is barely classified as a truck -- and you go on. but you then get serious and you say, first, the filibuster- proof senate was a bad idea all along. >> yes. >> first thing, though, you tell us on many occasions that you're a democrat. >> well, i am well known for liberal views. and while i don't try to be overly political -- in fact, yes, i am. >> and is that often the case for an administrator of a college or university? >> oh no. i know many college presidents who are republicans and independents. i think our political views are all over the map. i don't think it's true, the stereotype that we're all a bunch of liberals is not true. >> i didn't mean that so much as how many of them are on a regular basis are outspoken about their own particular views? >> oh, i think many college presidents are much more guarded because in some institutions actually they're not allowed to say things for fear that donors or trustees would be upset about that. i don't think that's healthy. i think that when you're the leader of an academic institution, you need to model the idea that you should be able to speak freely, certainly responsibly. i mean, i -- among other things -- try to emphasize -- as i did at the beginning of that article -- that we have to look at both sides of these issues. and in that particular blog, i was saying you know the democrats should not be in such a fit about using their filibuster proof majority in the senate. in fact, the most important thing is not which party you are but do we have a healthy democratic process going on? are we able to engage this debate with a sense of integrity, with a sense of intellectual class? and nobody should feel afraid to express their point of view, including me as a college president. but we should honor the idea of robust debate. and i fear that's been lost in congress entirely where everyone is expe