Official Workbook PDF page source text

LCMS 2026 Convention Workbook: Reports and Overtures, PDF page 122

2026 Convention Workbook
87
OFFICER, BOARD, AND COMMISSION REPORTS
•	 Started La Mesa Ministries to reach out to CUC’s Latino stu-
dents; engage them in meaningful conversations, prayer, and 
Bible studies; foster collaborations between the Latino Stu-
dent Union and the student-led campus ministry (Spiritual 
Life); and promote bilingual chapel services. 
•	 Implemented a Faith Delegates program to connect residen-
tial students more effectively to campus ministry events and 
worship.
•	 Initiated a program of pre-game prayers, allowing Spiritual 
Life to improve and build relationships with the athletics de-
partment and student athletes.
C.2. Increase fiscal strength and agility
Through data-informed decision-making, a commitment to en-
rollment management best practices, the development of new pro-
grams, and fiscal discipline, CUC worked to ensure student com-
pletion and our university’s future by:
•	 Reducing long-term debt by 45 percent over the last two 
convention cycles (12/31/2019 to 12/31/2025).
•	 Utilizing a $7.7 million state capital grant to improve and 
maintain our historic campus.
•	 Investing in facilities and staffing for a new nursing pro-
gram, which resulted in increased enrollment while further -
ing our mission.
•	 Adopting a customer relationship management tool, which 
has led to cost savings while enabling graduate and online 
undergraduate admissions to bring more communication in 
house.
•	 Increasing retention of first-year, full-time freshmen from 
fall-to-fall by 9 percentage points from 2021–24.
C.3. Foster partners for mission and excellence
We established new partnerships and strengthened existing ones 
to benefit our partners, university, and the common good.
•	 The new Office of Church Relations and Mission (OCRM) 
builds relationships with LCMS districts, congregations, 
schools, and their people.
•	 The Advance with Purpose tuition discount launched in 2025 
to provide a 50 percent tuition discount on any of CUC’s 
graduate programs for full-time employees of the LCMS, its 
entities, and its recognized service organizations.
•	 The university’s Centers of Excellence work to bring our Lu-
theran identity and Christian ethos to outside communities 
and partners. These centers serve God and neighbor for the 
common good and include the following:
o
 College of 
Health, Science, & Technology’s Center 
for Gerontology
o College of 
Education’s Center for Christian Educa-
tion
o College of Business’s Free Enterprise Center
o College of 
Theology, Arts, & Humanities’ Center for 
Church Music
C.4. Develop our vibrant, unified community
Together, we developed, lived, and shared a common vision for 
our work.
grow its national visibility by increasing faculty and student fea-
tures in media, highlighting alumni achievements, and consistently 
delivering Christ-centered messaging across platforms.
B.2. Strengthen financial health through 
increases in enrollment, retention, and 
auxiliary services
Central to ensuring stability, sustainability, and reinvestment 
capacity, CUC aims to increase annual revenue through a balanced 
portfolio of tuition, room and board, the Early Childhood Educa -
tion Center, auxiliary services (conferences, camps, events), grants, 
and philanthropic support. Our strategic plan sets goals for oper -
ating surplus, cash flow, and reduction of long-term debt. These 
financial outcomes are supported by robust enrollment strategies: 
growing traditional undergraduate enrollment, expanding online 
undergraduate programs, increasing graduate enrollment, and rais-
ing residential participation through enhanced co-curricular, athlet-
ic, and faith-based engagement.
 
B.3. Growing philanthropy
To ensure CUC can sustain scholarships, reduce tuition depen-
dence, and invest in facilities, we will continue strengthening donor 
relationships, expanding alumni-donor engagement, and increasing 
unrestricted annual support to underwrite university operations 
and programs. Advancement operations will be enhanced with im-
proved customer relationship management tools and donor analyt -
ics to personalize engagement.
C. Performance Analysis
While the goals shared in section B of our report outline the 
objectives of our newest strategic plan, they build upon the themes 
of our prior plan, F
2: Focusing Our Future 2025. Because that plan 
brought us to the end of 2025, we are sharing select updates on our 
university’s performance relative to Synod’s constitutional objec -
tives, bylaw purpose, and triennial priorities, organized according 
to our F
2 themes.
C.1. Provide a formative student experience 
CUC promotes academics, co-curricular activities, and pre-pro-
fessional experiences that emphasize truth, freedom, and vocation 
in forming students for lives of influence and service. Over the last 
triennium, we:
•	 Crafted new University Essential Learning Outcomes that 
provide direction to our curricula for undergraduate and 
graduate students. Curricula must seek learning outcomes 
based on our pillars of truth, freedom, and vocation  in the 
pursuit of lives of faithfulness to God and service to neigh-
bors. 
•	 Initiated the Classical Lutheran Educator program as one of 
our six church work programs. Students are formed through 
Lutheran doctrine and practice as well as a classical, Soc-
ratic pedagogy that engages ancient languages and primary 
source materials through the lenses of the virtues.
•	 Invested in campus facilities to enhance learning and the 
student experience, including a state-of-the-art nursing sim-
ulation lab for our fast-growing BSN program and a new 
welcome center for prospective students and other visitors.
•	 Established an Apologetics Boot Camp for CUC students to 
prepare them to defend and promote the true faith and the 
inspiration of Scripture.