The start of April marks James Shadid’s one-year anniversary of taking on the role of Bradley University’s 13th president.
A Peoria native and 1979 Bradley graduate, Shadid served as a U.S. District Judge prior to his appointment to succeed Stephen Standifird.
Shadid says over the last year, Bradley has made strides in enhancing the student experience and strengthening the university’s ties to Peoria and the community.
In an extended interview with WCBU reporter Joe Deacon, Shadid reflects on his first year leading Bradley and looks ahead to strengthening the university and upholding its mission.
This transcript has been edited lightly for brevity and clarity.
President Shadid, you’re marking one year as president of Bradley University. How would you characterize the first year, and what do you see as notable steps or accomplishments?
Shadid: First of all, I’d say the first year was a whirlwind. It seems to me like we haven’t stopped since we started on Day One. And frankly, I’m not sure we have stopped. We’ve moved forward on a lot of initiatives, with our focus being on students first. Every question we ask and answer here these days is, 'How will this help us attract and retain students?' Students are what we are all about here.
I’ve been grateful for the opportunity to be president of Bradley University. I’m just as grateful for the way this campus has received me, and the way the faculty and staff and students have embraced me and helped me grow in my first year as president.
How do you believe you’ve taken to the position? Are there aspects of being Bradley’s president that you had to adapt to or didn’t expect?
Shadid: I think I came in here believing that my skill set from the federal judiciary would transfer, and I believe that it has. Specifically, when I say that, I mean the skill set of listening to all of the stakeholders, giving everybody an opportunity to be heard, focusing on facts that matter and not being distracted by facts that don’t matter. And then when deciding to effectively communicate those decisions to all of the stakeholders on this campus.
I feel that when I came in here, there were a number of things that I wanted to address initially, and I wanted to move forward some initiatives and focus on those — enrollment clearly being the first. I feel good after the first year that we’ve moved a number of initiatives forward, that we’ve engaged the campus, and that I believe that our enrollment numbers look encouraging.
You touched on the question I was going to ask next, about how your experience in the legal and judicial field prepared you. So I’ll pivot a little bit: What about the job is something you weren’t quite expecting?
Shadid: Well, I don’t think that there’s anything about the job that’s a surfaced that I wasn’t expecting. It’s easy to tell the story of Bradley University because I believe in it. I believe in the storied tradition of the university. I believe in the stories in our faculty and our staff, and their ability to engage our students and provide our students a quality academic experience.
I believe that we’re creating a student experience out of the classroom that will help us enhance the student experience. So, I’m not quite sure there’s anything here that I didn’t expect. I’ll go back to what I’m grateful for: I’m just grateful for the reception that I’ve received and the number of people that have are willing to help me grow into this job.
Prior to your term, Bradley had been facing some financial hardships that resulted in several programs being cut and others being dropped as majors. What does the university’s financial picture look like now, and how do you envision improving it?
Shadid: I think our financial picture is strong, our endowment is strong. Clearly, four years of enrollment decline created some financial strain and financial stress. Going forward, that means we’ll have smaller classes over the next couple of years until we turn enrollment back to the numbers that I believe we will and that we need to.
So, we have to make do in that time with limited resources, and how to utilize those resources to help us produce, help us develop, help us recruit, help us engage the young people on this campus. I think everybody understands that, and I believe everybody’s doing their part to help us accomplish that.
We’ve heard a lot of information about a looming enrollment cliff across higher education. So what steps might be possible to prepare Bradley for that possibility?
Shadid: Well, I think that cliff has come, and that cliff will continue to come. So I think what we need to do here, and what I believe we are doing — we’ve created, in the academic world, some initiatives and our faculty is creating programming that is relevant for our students. So, we need to define the road map that’s right for Bradley University, and we need to stay on that road map.
I’ll give you an example of some of the things we can do. First of all, on Admitted Student Day last week, and any Admitted Student Day or Visiting Student Day, when I address students and parents, I tell them, 'Here’s the thing that separates [us], when you ask yourself, ‘Why Bradley?’
Before I even get to our academic excellence, before I even get to our property initiatives, before I even get to the five women’s club sports we just started to help increase and enhance the student experience … before I get to any of those things, I tell them to look around and see all of the faculty and all of the staff that are present that day to help these young people and help their parents understand why Bradley. That’s what differentiates us, this personal touch that we provide to every single student we serve.
You mentioned developing a road map. How much input would you like to see from faculty, staff, administration, students even, in plotting that road map?
Shadid: A lot of input. In fact, we have that input currently going on. The faculty has started a strategic planning process that is undergoing. We have developed a student, or a strategic enrollment task force. All of these have faculty and staff, administration people present. So we’re all in this together. We need everybody’s input, and we need everybody aligned on our mission.
You’ve overseen the undertaking of several projects to upgrade and enhance the Bradley campus, from the entryway arch at the corner of Main and University to the outdoor rec center and activity stage along Clarissa Court. Why do you see these improvements as vital, and what benefits do you envision?
Shadid: Well, I’ll go one by one. I see the campus entryway as more than just an entryway to our campus. I see it as a gateway to the community, where our students can interact with the neighborhoods because I envision an urban, vibrant urban corridor on Main Street that will help our students work their way down towards the [Peoria Riverfront] Museum, because of the relationship we started with the museum where every student, faculty and staff get a free membership to the museum. So, I believe the entryway is a gateway to the community as well as an entryway to our campus.
I believe the pickleball courts and the sand volleyball courts and the band show on the back quad will be a place for gathering, for students to interact, for students to enjoy the experience of what we’re offering there. You know, pickleball has become huge ... and the students have already signed up, a whole bunch of them, to play.
The University Hall renovation was long overdue. It’s our freshman dorm, and we need to create better space for our students. Williams Dining [Hall], we’ll throw into that, enhances the dining options for our students. I think the students really like it.
We need to continue to do more of these things to help us attract and retain students.
Across from the entryway arch on the northwest side of the intersection, the former Avanti’s Restaurant site that Bradley bought back in 2023 remains undeveloped. The university previously committed to making it a green space. Is that still the plan, and when might we see that start happening?
Shadid: Well, I’ve announced that that plan was put on pause, so that’s not still the plan of the university. The plan right now for the university as it pertains to the Avanti’s building is to wait and see if Main Street develops, as I hope it will, and see then if there are options for that corner before we decide again what to do with it.
What could be some of those options?
Shadid: Well, I’m hoping that the options might include a restaurant, or somebody willing to create — I don’t know what — there. If Main Street gets developed, Main and University, but Main Street, that corridor gets developed into the vibrant urban area that I hope that it is, it could be any number of things. But I’ll leave that to developers, if they come forward.
So in that instance, would it be something that maybe the university would look to then sell?
Shadid: You know, I’m just going to leave it at that for now. We own the property; I believe it was the right thing to do, to buy the property. It’s our front door to the university, that corner is. And I want, keeping in mind what I’m saying here, I’m saying that I want to enhance our student experience, every opportunity we can. I’m also saying that part of that enhancement means our students’ ability to interact with the community and with the neighborhood. I’m hopeful that that corner fits in there at some point.
You’ve mentioned many times a desire to maintain and strengthen Bradley’s relationship with Peoria and the community. Why is that critical, and how do you continue to plan on doing that?
Shadid: Well, I think it’s critical for a whole bunch of reasons. When our students come here, they don’t just see Bradley University, they see the city of Peoria. The city of Peoria and Bradley University are intertwined like I’ll bet no other university in the community in the country. So if we want our students to be attracted here, the city has to be attractive.
If the city is trying to attract people here, the university has to be strong and has to be vital or have a lot of vitality. If we want our students to stay here, we need to develop partnerships with businesses in this community, through internships and experiential learning opportunities.
You’ve touched on it a few times as we’ve spoken, but along those lines, what importance do you place on campus life, activities outside the classroom, and the success of intercollegiate athletic programs?
Shadid: I think it’s absolutely critical to our ability to attract and retain students. We are poised to deliver to young people what I believe they want, and it goes back to our founder [Lydia Moss Bradley]. In 1897, she directed us to recruit and develop young people who would be independent, meaning they can think for themselves, who would be industrious, meaning that they’re resilient and determined, and who would serve their communities. I believe that is as relevant today as it was in 1897. I believe young people want that for themselves. I believe we’re poised to deliver that for them.
Tying back a little bit into the financial picture, some critics have pointed to the costs associated with intercollegiate athletics — from coaching, salaries, recruitment, travel, operations — as a burden on universities, particularly as those costs keep rising. How do you respond to those concerns?
Shadid: Well, I would say that every university is facing challenges today in the world of Division I athletics, and I would say that Bradley is no different. I would say that while we have to be aware of the landscape of Division I athletics, we need to develop a road map, as well, that’s right for Bradley University and Bradley University Athletics.
I want our student-athletes to have every opportunity to have a good experience here, and every opportunity to be competitive here. How we get there is always going to be a subject of discussion, especially in this changing world, which is actually changing day by day.
Bradley recently announced a degree pathway partnership with Syracuse University’s top-ranked school for public affairs. What do you see as the upside of this agreement, and is Bradley considering or pursuing other similar partnerships?
Shadid: I see this as an excellent communication for our students to understand just how significant partnerships are between universities. This partnership with the Syracuse Maxwell School of Public Policy guarantees admission and assistance ships in seven graduate programs. It is one of the premier public policy institutes in the country.
These are the types of opportunities that we can provide for our students that come here. This will make Bradley a more attractive place for students. We created a partnership with DePaul law and UIC law for guaranteed admissions. In the case of DePaul, if they meet certain qualifications, guaranteed scholarship opportunities. We’ve got a partnership with the UIC College of Medicine.
We have partnerships with other community colleges like we’ve developed with ICC [Illinois Central College]. All of these things help us attract students. All of these things help us retain students, and actually, all of these things help us tell the story of this university on how we are preparing students for success in their personal and professional lives.
With your first year behind you now, what do you see for yourself and for Bradley University a year from now, in five years, 10 years?
Shadid: That’s a great question, and I expect that we will continue — we will focus on enrollment and growing enrollment and attracting and retaining students. That is at the heart of everything we do right now.
But I want to build upon the initiatives that we’ve created here. I want to continue to build upon academic initiatives. I want to continue to encourage the faculty to develop programs that are relevant, that our students will want, and that they want to teach, for that matter.
I want to continue to grow this university in terms of buildings and dining options that enhance the student experience. I want us to develop the five club sports that we announced a couple of weeks ago and continue those at an elite level, so that those help us attract students and provide a good student experience.
Going forward, even beyond that, I want at some point, when we have returned this university — maybe 'returned' is the wrong word, but understand what I mean here — that people will look back three, four, five years ago, and they will say that Bradley University made it, and excelled, and differentiated itself and set itself apart from other universities who went through the same challenges.
Because we didn’t lose sight of who we were, because we went back to our roots, and the foundation that our founder put in place for us, and we built upon that. That is, in my mind, this 'One Bradley' concept of being aligned, all the stakeholders being aligned on the mission of the university.
