A Message From Our President

To my children, sixty years seems beyond comprehension. They often refer to anything before 2000 as “the old times,” which makes me laugh outwardly while I cringe inside. For them, 1961, the year of Villa Maria College’s founding, is antiquity, an era of funny hairdos, silly songs, and boring television shows.

Within the frequently glacial temporal landscape of academia, however, 1961 was not so long ago. In fact, sixty years makes Villa one of the youngest colleges around, still in its adolescence. For the last several decades, Villa, like most adolescents, has been in the process of reimagining itself, of maturing and embracing its identity. This process of evolution generally has served as a strength, allowing Villa to remain nimble, to innovate, and, most importantly, to be responsive to the changing needs of our students.

For example, this year we took the bold step of including books and supplies with the cost of tuition. Students did not have to buy books and supplies on top of their tuition costs. Instead, they showed up the first day of classes and were handed what they needed. Villa is the first and only college in Western New York to eliminate the exorbitant, unexpected out-of-pocket costs, as well as the logistical headaches, that books and supplies have presented for so many students for so many years, proving once again our commitment to making a private, Catholic education affordable and accessible.

The reason we were able to take this unprecedented step is because of the culture that has developed over the last sixty years, a culture of innovation, student-centeredness, and flexibility. It is a culture that the Felician Sisters created and nurtured, one in which faculty and staff members come together and do whatever it takes to serve our students and our community. It is a culture where everyone is inspired by, and accountable for, our core values. Simply put, it is the Villa Way.

The Felician Sisters serve wherever there is a need. That means their ministries keep changing along with our world. Villa is no different. We are constantly in the process of becoming, of evolving, of transforming. That is who we are and, if we remain true to our mission, that is who we will always be, for the next sixty years and well beyond.

Matthew Giordano, Ph.D. President, Villa Maria College