Krista Newkirk, President, University of Redlands

Could you give us an introduction to the University of Redlands as it stands today?

The University of Redlands is a private nonprofit institution located in Southern California, about 70 miles east of Los Angeles, between Los Angeles and Palm Springs. It has been around since 1907 and is an institution with about 3,500 students, 2,000 undergraduate and about 1,500 graduate students. The university provides a well-rounded education with professional schools in education, and business and society. We also have a campus in Marin, just north of San Francisco. That’s where we have our San Francisco Theological Seminary and the Presidio Graduate School.

Why do you think students choose the University of Redlands?

I think the students choose the university because we have a strong focus on personalized education. They come to us to ensure that they are going to be highly engaged throughout their education in a smaller classroom setting, but also with faculty who focus on what students want when they graduate. So, they’re preparing them with practical experience, in addition to theoretical experience, so that they are ready to go into the workforce and be prepared for their next step once they graduate.

The University of Redlands has 21 men’s and women’s NCAA Division III athletic teams, which draw about 25% of our incoming students. So, we have a lot of students who participate in athletics. The university also has a strong study abroad program. Our students are able to go to our Salzburg Campus, which we’ve had for 60 years. We’ve had a program in Salzburg, Austria. And then we have a special May Term that’s built into the tuition costs. During the May Term, students travel all around the world. We’ve got trips to Palau, Guatemala, and Panama. You name it, they get to travel abroad. And so we’re really proud of how we prepare students to go into the world. In fact, we are one of the top

HSI Fulbright producers in California. We are one of only five here and a top Fulbright producer in the world since 2008. So, we’re really proud of how we engage our students on a global scale.

What are you doing besides those to prepare students for future career opportunities?

We’re doing a lot of things, including really thinking about how our students are prepared with practical skills. For example, we have our Fletcher Jones Innovation Center, where our students can work with 3D printers, laser cutters, and all kinds of other things. We also have a summer research program for undergraduates.

And so that’s really unusual. That means our undergraduate students oftentimes work with local medical schools or hospitals. They’re doing cancer research and environmental study research. We had students go to Alaska and take core samples from glaciers and study those to show how microplastics are dispersed throughout the environment. There’s just a real plethora of opportunities for students, particularly if they’re interested in graduate school or research and such. To do that at an undergraduate level is pretty unusual, particularly for large public institutions to offer that kind of access to opportunity.

My next question concerns programs and offerings. Are there any specific programs that you would like to highlight at this time?

There are several programs that the university offers that are pretty unusual. One is our Geographic Information Systems Program. So the largest and most well-known company for geographic information systems is Esri, which is located right here in Redlands, and we’ve had a strong relationship with them for decades.

We are now offering a Bachelor of Science in Geographic Information Systems. Our students can also add that as a minor to others. So, if they’re focusing on environmental studies or business, they can bring in a minor in GIS so that they can think about how to locate their business best or how to do research that shows them where their clientele may be and all kinds of opportunities there. We also offer a Master of Science in GIS and an Executive Master’s Degree for those who have now reached the C-suite level but want to learn how to bring GIS into their company to make it even more efficient.

I would also like to ask you about affordability. What is the University of Redlands doing to keep college as affordable as possible?

We’ve rolled out the Redlands Promise. It is a way for students who have a certain GPA level in California, if their family income is below a certain level, to attend the University of Redlands tuition-free. Students who have high ability, but if they can’t afford it, we make sure they can afford it. We also offer students that if their families earn more than that cut-off point, we have a guarantee that California students won’t pay more than they would pay a UC Institution, a University of California school. That means no more than 16,000 if they have a certain GPA level where we think they would be otherwise admitted to a University of California school. And for out-of-state students with a certain GPA level, we guarantee that they won’t pay more than 24,000 in the fall of 2024. 

So, we really are making it affordable. That’s very comparable and much more affordable than a lot of state institutions for students who are looking to go to a University of California institution from out of state. We also guarantee that they will graduate in four years. 

Now, they have to hold up their end of the bargain to do that. They have to take a certain number of classes. They can’t change majors in their junior or senior year, or whatever, but we make sure that they have the courses that they need when they need them to graduate on time.

We’re also offering a number of 4+1 programs, where students can get a Master’s in Business Administration with just one additional year or their Masters of Arts in teaching with just one additional year. We’re looking to expand that into additional programs going forward.

That’s quite unique. And I would like to ask you as well about what you would say are your competitive strengths.

I think our competitive strengths are our strong student outcomes. Many of our students go on to have strong jobs. Our alumni include an Emmy Award-winning producer and Angel Blue, a Grammy Award-winning opera singer. Congressman Pete Aguilar, the third-highest Democrat in the House, is an alumnus, and so is Richard West, a native American who founded the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. And then we even have two of our alumni, who are brothers who wrote the show Cheers back in the eighties, if you’ve ever heard of that program. So, we’re really proud of how our students are going out and making a real difference. 

One of our other competitive edges is our Johnston Center for Integrative Studies. Our students there can come up with their own degree programs. So they put together different independent studies and classes that we offer, and they’ll develop their own program. They don’t get grades. They actually develop a contract with their faculty of who they want to be and what they want to learn while they’re here. And then they’re evaluated on that contract every year. It’s really unusual, but it’s been around since 1969. Those students go on to graduate school or great careers, and they’ve really paved their own way.

Is there anything I haven’t asked you about that you would like to mention?

Well, a couple of things. We’ve added a kinesiology degree recently that really goes along with our student-athletes. A number of them are interested in studying kinesiology, and we’ve also added a Bachelor of Arts in Media and Communications for those who are interested in those career paths. 

We’ve also engaged in two recent mergers, which are pretty unusual in higher education. One is with the Presidio Graduate School, which is based in San Francisco. They have a really preeminent degree in sustainability, a master’s of business, speaking to how businesses engage in environmental consciousness and sustainability. And so we’re really proud of that coming into our school of business and society. 

We are in the middle of a merger with Woodbury University, located in LA, right by the studios in Burbank. They have a strong school of architecture, interior design, game design, filmmaking of all kinds of things, and animation. We’re really interested in bringing those into the University of Redlands. We added esports recently. So this was our first year competing in esports, and our students were competing with the University of Guam and Idaho for national championships and certain games. And that’s been really exciting.

So, we’re really trying to open up new avenues to engage our students and connect them to industries as we move forward. The other thing I would say is we are really good at engaging our students in forming a community. So, we have a strong Office for Inclusive Community, which works with students from all different backgrounds to make them feel connected and supported by their community. 

Our students are able to start any club that they want to. We have 70 clubs right now, covering everything from Dungeons and Dragons to anime to social media influencers. They get together in all kinds of ways. We think it’s about the fact that they’re not just here for an education, but they’re here to develop their character and become fully developed, well-rounded individuals. And so we’re really excited by that as well.

What is your final message about Redlands?

Again, we’re really focused on creating personalized education. To ensure our students’ success, we have a strong commitment to community service learning. Each of our students completes an internship within the community before they graduate. So, every student graduates with real-world practical experience in their community working with people. We find that to be just incredibly important for them as they go out into the world.

Our students are really bright, conscientious, and friendly. I think one of the most unusual things about our campus is how friendly people are here. We find it to be really important for those who come here to feel connected and to be successful to have that sense of community that really connects and supports them every step of the way.