By Cliff White 

Staff Writer

Dr. Joseph Lee’s job title at Saint Joseph’s College may contain the word “interim,” but he hopes to leave a permanent impression on the school in his time there, however long that may prove to be.

Lee, 63, came to the school in 2006 to work as vice president for Enrollment Management. A year-and-a-half later, following President David House’s departure from the college, Lee was asked to take over as president on an interim basis by the school’s board of trustees.

Lee accepted and has served as interim president at the college since May 2007. 

“This is my comfort level,” Lee says, sitting at a dark oak table in his office, which features a fireplace and a view overlooking nearby Sebago Lake. “I don’t think I could have taken this job if I didn’t agree totally with the mission. It’s hard work, it’s a lot of hours, and you can’t fake it.”

Saint Joseph’s began as a private, Catholic, all-women’s institution in 1912 on the shores of Sebago Lake in Standish, is a now co-educational liberal arts college located with an enrollment of 1,062 students.

Lee, who just moved into a new house in Standish, grew up in Bath and attended Cheverus High School and Morris High School. He earned a bachelor’s degree in French literature and a master’s in guidance and counseling from Saint Michael’s College in Burlington, Vt. Lee also received a doctorate in higher education administration from Boston College. He served as dean of admissions and financial aid at Merrimack College and vice president for student life at Manhattan College before serving as president of Thomas More College in Crestview Hills, Ky, his job previous to joining the administration of Saint Joseph’s. Lee says he took the job at Saint Joseph’s because it was a different challenge than anything he had previously faced. 

Making Saint Joseph’s unique is its status as the only Catholic college in the state. Lee makes the pun that the school is both “Catholic with a big ‘C’” and “catholic with a small ‘c’,” meaning it is both affiliated with its religious roots and embracing of a wide range of ideas, Lee says. 

“We don’t think those two attributes are incompatible,” Lee says.

Saint Joseph’s College finds itself in an interesting middle ground among institutes of higher learning in the state, Lee says, between top-tier Colby, Bates and Bowdoin and less expensive options such as the University of Maine system and Maine’s community colleges. 

“Instead of looking at what those schools have that we don’t, I look at it the other way around – at what we have that they don’t,” Lee says. “And I could talk about that for hours, but it’s really best explained just by walking around campus. I have spent most of my adult life on college campuses, and I’ve never been on a campus where the students seem so satisfied.”

Location has a great deal to do with that happiness, Lee says. The campus has frontage on Sebago Lake, is a 30-minute drive to Portland, a little more to the beach, and not far to the mountains. But a school is not made on location alone, the president says. 

“Sure, we put a picture of Sebago Lake right on the cover of our brochure, but there’s more to our students’ happiness than that,” Lee says. “The way we support our students here is unique. Students do not fall through the cracks here. Do we have students who don’t graduate? Yes, it happens, but not because we’re not aware of it.”

Lee describes the environment of the college as, “old fashioned,” and claims the relative isolation of campus in its rural setting creates a deeper sense of community than is felt at many other colleges. By and large, there is a harmony between the school’s various communities. Lee is unable to name any issues which have divided the campus during his tenure.

“I have many masters,” Lee says. “It is key for me to find a balance between the trustees, the alumni, the students and the faculty and staff. I have to listen to each constituency and balance the interests of each. My style is very open and collaborative, and that helps.”

Key to achieving that balance is having equal respect for all, Lee says.

“My office is where reality comes home to roost – the buck stops with the president,” Lee says. “But I hope and aim to have credibility with each group, so that when I say no, they understand there’s a reason why I’m doing it.”

Lee says managing the college’s budget is one of his primary responsibilities, and one he takes very seriously. Saint Joseph’s endowment is $10 million, a figure Lee wants to see doubled or tripled in his tenure; in 2007 financial disclosure reports, Bowdoin’s listed endowment was $827.7 million, Colby’s was $424.2 million, Bates’ was $275.7 million and the University of Maine’s endowment was listed as $188.9.

“Because of our relatively small endowment, we certainly have to watch our dollars very carefully,” Lee says. “We are very tuition dependent. We have to be smart about the way we develop.”

Still, Lee is overseeing a $30 million expansion of the campus. This summer, the college announced plans to build five new dormitories and science laboratory. The dorms will allow Saint Joseph’s to make room for 330 additional students on campus. Lee says growing enrollment was part of his larger vision for the future of the college.

“We want the school to have an enrollment of 1,200 to 1,500 students in 10 years,” Lee says. “That won’t radically change the campus, but it will help us to bring in additional resources, which will allow us to provide better facilities for students and perhaps improve the academic quality of the school. Ultimately, our goal is to create a better total experience for the students here.”

Tuition at Saint Joseph’s is $22,500 per year, plus $9,600 for room and board and $800 of general fees, for a total of $32,900. More than 90 percent of students receive some form of financial assistance, generally a combination of grants, scholarship, work opportunities and loans, according to the college admissions literature.

Growing the endowment will help make the college more affordable, Lee says.

“I don’t want to exclude anyone from attending based on their socio-economic background,” Lee says. “We try to be very generous in our financial aid. And part of that hope is that we begin to attract a wider diversity of people – people of color, people from outside the Northeast, people who are the first generation of their family to go to college.”

Lee feels a personal responsibility to increase the school’s financial capacity. After all, he says, he is the college’s chief fundraiser. Lee frequently mentions the words “marketing” and marketable” in his conversations about the college, and says it is his job to think about strategies on how to best “sell” the school.

“A big part of the job has been and will be fundraising,” Lee says. “I serve as the school’s figurehead, so to speak, in its fundraising efforts. But I don’t feel bad about asking for money to support the college. The days of colleges being humble are over. Now you’ve got to put yourself out there and flaunt your product. You have to say to yourself, ‘I’ve got a great product to sell,’ and when people discover this place, I know they’ll agree with me.”

A national search led by the Saint Joseph’s College Board of Directors is now underway to hire a candidate to take over permanent duties as president of the college. Lee says individual board members encouraged him to apply, and he did. They hope to make reach a decision in time for the new president to be situated in time for the next academic year, according to college spokesman Janet LaFlamme.

“When I took over, I wasn’t sure where I wanted to go,” Lee says. “But now I’m sure. This college has so much potential, and I think that I’m a part of it reaching that potential.”