SUMMER 2026  |  In May 2026, Schreiner celebrated its annual Recognition Banquet where we thank donors, friends, and volunteers for all the ways in which they have and are continuing to help us live into our mission.  Given so many successes that the Cornerstone Campaign accomplished, it was a night of much joy and celebration.

Here is an excerpt of my comments from that evening:

Not everything we hear around here are words of hope and encouragement.  There are plenty of people out there who like to tell us we can’t:  because we’re too rural; because we’re too small, and because we’re not recruiting students with 1400 SATs.

“You can’t do aviation.”  “You can’t do finance.”  “You can’t do engineering.”  “Well, you certainly can’t start programs allow adults to up-skill and re-skill and help local employers meet their workforce needs.”  “You tried football years ago.  You shouldn’t do that again.”

Go ahead; tell us we can’t.

• Be the first college in the state to lock-in tuition.
• The only college in the state to establish a Texas Center that is unafraid to preserve and promote the imperfect but beautiful and bold story of our state.
• Have one of the top nursing programs in the state, one of the top dyslexia programs in the nation, and the very best college residence halls in Texas for two years running.

Tell us we can’t.

“You can’t do another $50 million campaign and expect it to be successful.  It’s too soon after the pandemic.  You don’t have enough alumni yet.  Kerrville is too small and its citizens are pulled to support too many different deserving organizations.  It will never be successful.”

They like to tell us we can’t. 

• Graduate students from Ozona and Junction and Menard and Comfort who can compete with any graduate from any college around the country.
• Or earn the #2 spot in the national trap and skeet shooting competition this year.
• Or have a student present his original research at the American Chemical Society’s national meeting on a new way to efficiently synthesize Norneolambertellin, a promising natural compound that could lead to future anti-inflammatory drugs.

Go on – tell us we can’t.  Underestimating us doesn’t fuel our ambitions, but it makes the accomplishment of our vision that much sweeter.

But here at the close of our successful Cornerstone Campaign, let us ignore the voices saying we can’t.  Let us now listen to the voices of our friends in this room who have given us new messages off of which we might find sustenance. Words and phrases like: we might; we could; we can; and Schreiner must.

And in the months and years ahead we will push forward in achieving even more things that some will say we cannot do.  We will create excellence by design, for example.  So let other colleges and universities remain obsessed with recruiting only the most excellent of students so that they might claim institutional excellence through their process of selection.  Schreiner will take students at all levels of accomplishment who have grit and resilience and promise and potential, and we will design an educational environment that cultivates the capacity of these students, helping them claim the excellence that is already within them and only needs to be released.

And let other colleges and universities remain obsessed with having the nicest buildings and the most expensive piece of equipment while their students rack-up significant debt to pay for these institutional luxuries.  Schreiner will, as we continue to build off the success of this campaign, work towards a future in which no student is concerned about the affordability of their education or the debt they must assume to complete it.  We’ve already locked-in an all-inclusive tuition for a student’s four years so there are no surprises when their bill comes.  Your generosity in this campaign will enable us to provide even more funded scholarships to students, and one day we’ll position Schreiner to invite every student who is the “right fit” for this place to come without cost being a concern.  We’re not there yet, but I can see that day out on the horizon.

And let other colleges and universities constrain and cut and retrench.  We’re going to invest in the Schreiner University campus as a highly residential campus where our students come to live for four years and grow and develop both inside and outside the classrooms. Over the next few years, you will see our residence hall capacity expand as we accommodate the growing number of students who want to study here, and you will see the campus continue to be transformed as we provide our baseball and softball players new venues where they can grow and develop as athletes, as leaders, and as members of their teams.

And we will re-imagine our theater space so that actors and audiences alike can learn things like:

“All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women are merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
And one man or woman in their time will play many parts. . .”

These are the ideas that college should expose students too, and these are the experiences that our students will have.

And let other colleges and universities be precious about which programs they will and will not offer students.  Schreiner intends to continually shape its educational programs so that students have a timely and relevant education that makes them job-ready on day one of graduation.  The hallmarks of a Schreiner education will be the attainment of industry-certifications while students earn their degrees and exposure to all sorts of experiential learning that enables our students to bring value to the workplaces in which they’ll find themselves.  And Schreiner intends to continually shape its educational programs so that students have a timeless and transcendent education that enables them to flourish in a wildly unscripted future.  They will be able to think critically and reason analytically and communicate effectively and work collaboratively.  They will be curious and empathetic and use technology as a tool and not as a crutch.  They will be men and women of passion and purpose.

Let them tell us we can’t.  We will. 

Thanks to all of you for being among the chorus of people who remind Schreiner that IT CAN!

-Charlie McCormick, Ph.D.
President

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