DR JOHN HURLEY, PRESIDENT OF CANISIUS COLLEGE

Posted by Lee Broad 
on May 12, 2014
 

 This week’s speaker was John J. Hurley, president of Canisius College. Mr. Hurley became president of Canisius College on July 1, 2010. He is the first lay president in the Jesuit College’s 142-year history.

A 1978 alumnus of Canisius, President Hurley served from 1997-2010 as executive vice president of the college and vice president for college relations. In these positions, he oversaw the college’s advancement operations, which included development, public relations, alumni relations, government relations and community relations. He also managed institutional strategic planning, integrated marketing, and legal and compliance issues. In addition, he served as secretary to the Canisius College Board of Trustees.

President Hurley played a significant leadership role in the college’s $142 million capital investment in the campus and also negotiated the college’s acquisition of the Health-Now building on Main Street, which has been converted into the newly opened Science Hall.  He is the architect of the college’s innovative Employer Assisted Housing program, which offers employees grants in the form of forgivable loans to assist them with the purchase of homes near the college’s central Buffalo campus.

A native of Buffalo, President Hurley is a graduate of St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute in Kenmore; Canisius College (BA 1978 summa cum laude, English/history); and the University of Notre Dame Law School (JD 1981) on full scholarship.  He practiced law for 16 years, including 13 years at the Buffalo firm of Phillips, Lytle, Hitchcock, Blaine & Huber, where he concentrated his practice in the areas of secured lending, bankruptcy and insolvency, creditors’ rights and acquisitions of troubled companies.  He was an associate in a Chicago law firm from 1981-1984 before returning to Buffalo to take a position as an associate (1984-88) and then partner at Phillips Lytle, et. al. from 1989-97.

Bishop Edward U. Kmiec appointed President Hurley to serve on the Fidelis Care New York Board of Directors, a health maintenance organization that serves the poor in New York State. He and his wife, Maureen, are chairs of the Bishop’s Council of the Laity for the Diocese of Buffalo. President Hurley is also a member of the Buffalo Philharmonic Board of Trustees, and past national chair of the Jesuit Advancement Administrators, a professional association of advancement professionals serving Jesuit higher education in the United States. He served on the city of Buffalo’s Charter Revision Commission and is past president of the St. Joseph’s Collegiate Institute Board of Trustees.

Highlights of his presentation included:

  • Lay president searches for Catholic colleges and universities began in the 1970’s
  • Larger picture for colleges:
    • Uncertainty over government funding because of the federal attempt to implement accountability with a one-size-fits-all scorecard
    • Concerns of the public over the increasing cost of higher education
    • $1,000,000,000,000 in student loan debt currently outstanding now exceeds all other consumer debt except mortgages
    • The number of high school graduates has declined 16% in New York State.
  • Need to balance good fundamentals of higher education with the need to show “value” to students and parents
  • Canisius needs to focus in an area of strength:
    • Concentrate less on content and more on how to assess and deal with content
    • This means knowing how to think critically and what constitutes wisdom