New Mount Mercy president brings calming, stable presence

CEDAR RAPIDS — With 35 years of academia behind him, 18 years as a university vice president under his belt and nearly two decades into his faith walk as a Catholic convert, Todd Olson didn’t want to wait for the shifting higher education landscape to settle before pursuing his dream to become a college president.

“I turned 60 not long ago and really had this fire to pursue a presidency,” Olson told The Gazette, just weeks out from his inauguration as Mount Mercy University president April 28 and 29. “Frankly, I did not want to wait around a couple of years and have things calm down. And I just wasn't sure if that would happen in any case.”

The vacant presidency at Mount Mercy — Cedar Rapids’ private Catholic liberal arts university established by the Sisters of Mercy as a junior college in 1928, currently with about 1,500 students — was among several positions for which Olson applied between 2020 and 2021 in his pursuit of a “new adventure.”

“I'm very glad this is the one that worked out for me,” he said. “I was drawn to Mount Mercy because I was committed to Catholic higher education. I loved the Midwest and was enthused about getting back to the Midwest. I loved the small college environment. And when I came here to interview, I was impressed with the warm welcome I received and just the quality of the people here.”

‘Love that small college experience’

Olson grew up Lutheran in a small Minnesota town northwest of Minneapolis called Battle Lake. He went to college at the University of Minnesota-Morris — which is part of the public University of Minnesota System but is about the size of Mount Mercy — and had an experience that would shape his life.

“I learned a lot and made close friends, many of whom I'm still connected with today,” he said. “That's one of the things that’s appealing for me about coming here is I just love that small college experience.”

After graduating in 1983, Olson went on to earn a master’s in counseling psychology from the University of Kansas in 1986 and worked on campus in residential life and leadership development. That seemed a natural fit for his interests at the time, Olson said, and he landed his first job post-graduation that same year as a residence hall director with the University of Denver in Colorado.

“I thought I would stay a few years but ended up being there 16 years and had seven different job titles,” he said.

He ended his tenure at Denver as associate vice provost — supervising a number of student life and auxiliary areas like conferencing and housing. While on that campus, Olson earned a doctorate in higher education and adult studies — with his career path in academic administration coming into focus.

While in Denver, Olson met his wife, Regina, who he said was a “very committed Catholic.” Faith had always been an important part of Olson’s life, and he said Catholicism appealed to him.

“We talked together about it, and I made the decision that I would make that transition,” he said about his yearslong Catholic initiation. “After going to church with her for a period of time and seeing things I really liked, I decided to go through this process.”

In the middle of his initiation, Olson landed a new opportunity across the country in Washington, D.C., at Georgetown University, founded by Bishop John Carroll in 1789 and touted as the oldest Catholic institution of higher education in the country.

Olson started his tenure at Georgetown as associate vice president for student affairs in 2002 before stepping in as interim vice president for eight months before taking the job permanently.

“They said, well, you seem to be doing OK, and we think there's some promise here,” Olson said. “I had that same role until this last summer.”

‘Not something I needed to worry about’

Before Olson’s appointment as Mount Mercy’s 11th president — a term he officially began July 21, 2021 — the campus was navigating turbulence in the form of a pandemic, a devastating derecho and the resignation of its 10th president after only two months on the job.

Robert “Bob” Beatty resigned in early September 2020, just two days after a delayed start to the fall semester following widespread damage across campus from the Aug. 10, 2020, derecho.

The Mount Mercy administration never explained the abrupt departure. In Beatty’s updated resume — made public when he became a finalist in May 2021 for University of Maine Graduate College of Business dean — he boasted overseeing Mount Mercy’s $36 million operating budget and $29 million endowment.

Among his major accomplishments, Beatty listed collaborating with public health officials, faculty and staff to “re-imagine university operations due to the COVID-19 pandemic,” and partnering with the campus’ emergency response team to “fully rebuild the campus following a derecho that caused millions of dollars in damage.”

He also listed among his accomplishments the university’s selection as a “college of distinction” — an achievement Mount Mercy announced on June 26, the week before Beatty started.

When asked whether Olson had any qualms about leading a campus that had experienced such turbulence in recent months, he said the interview process eased any concerns he had.

“I was convinced after I came that was not something I needed to worry about,” Olson said. “That the university was ready to provide solid footing for a new leader, and that's been borne out for me.”

Before accepting the Mount Mercy position, Olson had spent some time in Des Moines, Sioux City and Council Bluffs. But he’d never visited Cedar Rapids until his 2021 on-campus interview.

“Cedar Rapids was new to me,” he said. “But I've had a really warm welcome here and found the people very civic minded, very committed to the community.”

‘Fresh and an open perspective’

As part of the team involved in finding a new president, Sister Linda Bechen — Mount Mercy’s vice president for mission and ministry — said she appreciated Olson’s breadth of understanding and experience in the Catholic faith and “culture of mercy.”

At the same time, Bechen said, he isn’t bogged down or beholden to Mount Mercy’s past.

“Todd brings what I would call a fresh and an open perspective,” she said. “He very much wants to know what's happened here, and where we are. But he is not one that just wants to stay where we are. He is very future-focused and wants to take us beyond the legacy of the past into the treasures of the future.”

Pointing to Olson’s desire to collaborate and partner across campus and the wider community, Bechen said, he’s proved a natural at pursuing key pieces of the Mercy mission to serve the common good and promote purposeful living.

“Since he came, one of the first things he wanted to do was get out and visit Catholic high schools in the state,” Todd Coleman, vice president for enrollment and marketing, told The Gazette. “So we’ve visited 11 Catholic high schools.”

One of the messages Mount Mercy heard was the high schools’ struggle to find teachers, making it hard to offer a full array of courses.

“So we're working on a program that will allow us to teach classes online, but also hire a teacher that will teach a Mercy-level course in the high schools,” Coleman said.

Olson conceded stepping in as a new president in the midst of a pandemic would have been complicated on any campus. But Bechen said Olson brought a measured leadership style that has delivered a sense of stability.

“He has a very calming presence,” she said. “When you meet him, you are the most important person or thing on his agenda. That presence speaks volumes.”

‘Tremendous promise’

In Olson’s vision for Mount Mercy’s future, he aims to capitalize on and grow its areas of strength.

“This place has tremendous talent and tremendous promise, and as we work to unleash that promise, some of the ways that we'll do that are by continuing to grow and strengthen our Martin-Herold College of Nursing and Health,” he said. “We have a great reputation for our nursing program … and so we'll continue maximizing what our nursing programs can offer.”

He also aims to grow Mount Mercy’s enrollment by exploring and expanding its curriculum in other health-related fields — like health care administration and public health.

Mount Mercy aims to keep offering “deep engagement” opportunities outside the classroom while keeping its finger on the pulse of the community and its needs, meeting local business and workforce demands with relevant degrees — like in education, social work, exercise science and others.

“We also want to strengthen the liberal arts overall and be a place where a student can get a great liberal arts education that either prepares them for the workforce right away or prepares them to prosper in graduate school and in various professions.”

Vanessa Miller covers higher education for The Gazette.

Comments: (319) 339-3158; vanessa.miller@thegazette.com