Hospitality & Higher Ed

I work in higher education hospitality. That is, I oversee the admission office at Mount Marty University. Founders of higher education institutions did not have welcoming, bubbly sales offices on their campus blueprints, but here we are in 2025 when colleges and universities create amusement park-like amenities to attract students and their dollars. To be clear, amenities do not mean hospitality, but the two are related. The logic goes something like this: we need tuition revenue to create a better university. To get tuition revenue we need students. To get students we need their attention. To get their attention, we need ... a ski hill. Finally, once we have their attention, I suppose it makes sense to be welcoming and hospitable.

Benedict encourages us to take a different approach in the Rule. “Once a guest has been announced, the superior and the brothers are to meet him with all the courtesy of love” (52:3). When a visitor walks into Roncalli Student Center, the admission office, located on the first floor, is to act as the superior and brothers in the Rule. I encourage you to walk through Roncalli’s front doors during the week between 10am and 4pm, because a student ambassador will stand and greet you. This may be a surprise, but the act of standing and greeting is rooted in the Rule. “All humility should be shown in addressing a guest on arrival or departure. By a bow of the head or by a complete prostration of the body, Christ is to be adored because he is indeed welcomed in them” (52:6-7). We stand and greet to acknowledge that a child of Christ is walking onto our campus.

I gave tours in college, and I talked to students and parents about their impression of Boise State University, where I attended from 2008 to 2012 and earned a bachelor’s degree in economics. Thirteen years later, I understand more fully the decisions that people make to get to the point where they walk through the front doors of Roncalli for the first time. When a prospective student decides to visit our campus, they are, obviously, not visiting another campus at that time. This means they’re devoting precious resources that they could use at any other of the more than 3,600 non-profit, accredited public and private universities across the United States.

We tell our colleagues — and ourselves — that students and parents should be grateful that we are welcoming them to our growing, vibrant university and that they need to demonstrate their worthiness to attend our institution with good manners, insightful questions, and stellar grades. Instead, let us be grateful that they have decided to visit. Without hesitation, “all guests who present themselves are to be welcomed as Christ...” (52:1).