Bryan Cain, Ph.D.
September 1, 2026
Good afternoon, Endicott!
And welcome home to the incoming Class of 2030, and welcome back to the Classes of 2029, 2028, and the senior Class of 2027.
To our Trustees, our faculty, our exceptional staff, our alumni, friends, neighbors, and many guests today, I am humbled, incredibly proud, and even more thankful to be standing before you.
Truth be told, when this inauguration was first suggested, my instinct was to keep things simple. Those who know me know I'd much rather spend my time talking about our students, our faculty, and where we’re headed as a community than talking about myself. So this is about as close to an informal inauguration as Endicott, our Trustees, and the Cabinet were willing to allow.
But I recognize that ceremonies like this matter because they give us the opportunity to pause and recognize a beginning.
To the Class of 2030, Convocation marks your arrival.
And though I’ve served as Interim President and President for nearly two years now, today feels like my arrival, too.
Just as the Class of 2030 begins its journey, so do we—as one community, looking toward what comes next.
You know, every time I sit down to write one of these speeches, my mind goes to famed college basketball coach Jim Valvano and his historic speech at the 1993 ESPY Awards. He was dying of cancer at the time, and he noted how important it was in life to understand: “where you started, where you are, and where you're going to be.”
I’ve thought about his speech since I watched it in Professor Langham’s class as a young communications major back in college. Those words have been a guidepost for me over many years and especially over the past several months. Because they’re not just about one person’s life.
They’re meaningful for institutions, too.
Where we came from.
Where we are.
Where we’re going.
You likely know that Endicott was founded in 1939 by Dr. Eleanor Tupper as a two-year college to provide opportunities for young women to achieve vocational and educational independence.
But here’s what I love most about this story: Eleanor Tupper looked at a changing world and didn’t ask what college already existed. She asked what college needed to exist.
That’s entrepreneurship; that’s innovation.
And I have no doubt there were people who told Dr. Tupper it couldn’t be done. That she was crazy.
That a women’s college wouldn’t last.
There wasn’t a need.
No one would come.
Fortunately, she wasn’t interested in what was easy.
She was interested in what was necessary.
We graduated just 11 women in the Class of 1941. Today, with more than 6,000 undergraduate and graduate students, look where we are.
Little did Eleanor Tupper know—or, you know what, maybe she did know—that experiential learning would become the defining hallmark of an Endicott education.
Of course, some things looked a little different in 1941.
I’ve heard stories of the men by the busful coming from Yale and Harvard for dances and tea parties.
Admissions looked a little different back then.
But what hasn’t changed is that our graduates were preparing for something much bigger than the next party. They were preparing to change the world.
And as the decades passed, our world changed too.
Civil Rights. Women’s Rights. Vietnam.
I won’t walk you through every chapter of American history—you’ve all taken, or are about to take an American history course.
But what didn’t make it into the history books was that in 1993—the same year as Valvano’s speech—Endicott became a co-ed institution.
My point is that we have always been evolving with the times. We’ve always looked honestly at the world around us and asked: What must change? What must remain? And what must we build next?
And where did we go?
Four-year degrees. Then co-ed. Athletics. Graduate education. Innovation.
Every one of those decisions was controversial and asked this community to imagine an Endicott that did not yet exist.
Every one of those decisions required courage.
And because of that, we stand here today as one of the nation’s leading experiential colleges.
Endicott became stronger because leaders chose courage over comfort.
Today, we’re being asked the same question Eleanor Tupper asked nearly 90 years ago.
Not “How do we preserve the college that exists?”
But “What kind of college does the next generation need us to become?”
We are entering one of the most consequential moments in the history of American higher education.
Families are asking harder questions.
Technology is changing every profession.
Artificial intelligence is reshaping work.
Demographics are shifting.
Public confidence has changed.
But waiting for higher education to go back to the way it used to be is not a viable strategy.
Every student who walks onto this campus is trusting us with their future. That requires us to address today’s challenges while preparing for tomorrow’s realities.
And we get there by doing the work in front of us day by day and looking ahead.
Moments like this invite us to look back with pride. But they also challenge us to look ahead with purpose.
Because Endicott isn’t simply responding to change—we’re helping define what comes next.
And, more than ever, it’s our turn.
I say “our” because Endicott has never belonged to any one president. There isn’t some wizard behind a curtain making all the decisions. At least not that I’ve met.
Endicott belongs to all of us, and this is our campus.
Sure, we claim it, but the truth is, we simply borrow it for a little while.
We inherit it from those who came before us.
And we are responsible for leaving it stronger, more relevant, and better prepared for those who come next.
So, here is the future I see for Endicott:
Endicott has the opportunity to become one of the nation’s defining modern comprehensive institutions.
We do that by being exceptionally good at integrating the liberal arts, professional education, experiential learning, technology, graduate education, and community partnerships into a coherent student experience.
A modern comprehensive college isn’t measured by how many majors it offers.
Instead, it is measured by whether it can prepare students for a world that refuses to stay still.
It means educating engineers who communicate.
Business leaders who understand ethics.
Artists who embrace technology.
Scientists who think entrepreneurially.
Nurses who treat patients, not just conditions.
Behavior analysts who use evidence to improve lives.
Communicators who build trust through truth.
Educators who cultivate curiosity for a lifetime.
Graduates who know how to lead across disciplines rather than inside silos.
Because the problems our students will solve won’t arrive neatly organized into academic departments.
Artificial intelligence will change how we work. It already is. We will embrace AI, but we will never confuse it with judgment.
It cannot replace ethical reasoning. It cannot replace curiosity, empathy, communication, or the ability to lead other people.
Those are the qualities that define great graduates and leaders. And they’re the qualities a liberal arts education has cultivated for generations, which is why, when paired with our experiential learning model, AI makes a liberal arts foundation more valuable, not less.
Our responsibility is to graduate students who can harness emerging technologies while asking better questions, making wiser decisions, and leading with integrity.
And we’ll continue to do that as Endicott always has: through experience.
The Endicott Experiential Edge is one of the greatest engines of economic mobility in higher education.
Careers shouldn’t begin after graduation.
They should begin during college.
Experience accelerates opportunity and helps graduates enter the workforce sooner, earn sooner, build wealth sooner, and change the trajectory of their lives.
In a world where knowledge is increasingly free, Endicott’s value is helping students become the kind of people employers seek, communities trust, and families are proud to call graduates.
Endicott will be more than a college on the North Shore of Boston.
We are already one of the institutions that help shape the region.
A workforce partner.
A research partner.
A civic convener.
A place where difficult conversations happen with respect.
And together we will continue to expand where students and society need us most.
In 2027, we will break ground on a new Innovation Complex that brings together technology, the sciences, and business under one roof as a hub of innovation and a symbol of how education itself is changing.
We will continue to be a central spoke in the economic, civic, and political hub of the region.
As a college that falls into the top 25 largest institutions of higher education in Massachusetts, we have a massive economic footprint. Every semester, we deploy thousands of students into the workforce as both graduates and interns. In 2025, our students worked more than 160,000 hours in businesses and hospitals around the globe.
Through the Endicott Center for Civic Participation, we will continue to bridge the gap between journalism, civics, and community dialogue by hosting non-partisan regional forums, events, and media roundtables.
We will continue investing in auxiliary enterprises such as the Misselwood Estate and the Wylie Inn & Tupper Manor, creating diversified revenue streams that support the institution’s long-term strength.
But remember, stewardship also means planning beyond ourselves.
We live in a time when executive tenures are shorter than ever, leadership transitions happen faster, and institutions can lose momentum in a matter of months.
That’s why succession planning is beyond a governance exercise—it is an act of responsibility.
We are temporary stewards of an institution that will outlive every one of us.
The measure of leadership isn’t whether an institution depends on you, but whether it grows stronger after you’re gone.
It should help prepare Endicott for the next generation of leaders who will inherit this place.
We are and will remain an institution that is unapologetically experiential, fiercely student-centered, financially disciplined, nationally recognized for preparing graduates who combine technical expertise with human judgment—a college that adapts before it has to, earns trust through results, and refuses to choose between innovation and the liberal arts because it understands that the future requires both.
That is the modern comprehensive institution Endicott will become.
Over the coming year, we will begin writing a new chapter at the Nest, beginning with Endicott’s next strategic plan.
As president, I will lead that process transparently and collaboratively, and that’s why our next strategic plan will not be written in conference rooms by a handful of administrators.
It will be written by this community.
Faculty.
Students.
Staff.
Trustees.
Alumni.
Because the future of Endicott belongs to all of us.
I know we’ll ask some difficult questions of each other.
What should Endicott look like five years from now? Ten years from now? Twenty years from now?
What programs should we create? Which disciplines should we strengthen? How do we prepare students for careers that don’t even exist yet?
And perhaps most importantly: How do we remain unmistakably Endicott while continuing to evolve?
We’ll figure it out all together.
But I do want to be clear about one thing. Growth, by itself, is never the goal.
Intentional growth is.
We will invest where students need us first. Always.
We will grow where the world demands it. And we will strengthen the areas that position our graduates—and this institution—for long-term success.
That doesn’t mean every department grows at the same pace or in the same way. But it does mean every discipline has an important role to play in shaping Endicott’s future.
There will be moments when we won’t all agree.
That’s healthy. In fact, that’s called family.
And like any family, we challenge each other, debate ideas, ask hard questions, but we never lose sight of one another.
So as we begin this next chapter together, I ask something of every member of this community.
Bring your ideas.
Bring your expertise.
Bring your curiosity.
Bring your willingness to challenge assumptions.
Above all, bring your belief that this institution is worth building together.
Because that’s what this next strategic plan will ultimately become.
Not simply a document or list of priorities—a promise. A promise that Endicott will continue to evolve with courage, without losing sight of our values, and that we will leave this institution stronger than we found it.
Today, we know where we started.
Today, we understand where we are.
Now comes the exciting part.
Together, we get to decide where we’re going.
Nearly 90 years ago, our founder saw a changing world and asked a simple but consequential question: What kind of college does this moment require?
Today, we’re being asked that same question once again.
I have every confidence that this community will answer it with the same imagination, inspiration, and willingness to build something even greater than ourselves.
Because that’s what Endicott has always done.
Thank you, congratulations to the Class of 2030, and here’s to the next great chapter in the story of Endicott College.And I can firmly attest with everything I have that our very best days are still ahead of us.