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12 People You Need to Know in 2017: Tim Cloyd

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Tim Cloyd has been there and done that. 

The former head of Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas, Cloyd was selected in 2016 as the 18th president of Drury University due largely to his experience in growing the enrollment and footprint of Hendrix.

From 1997 to 2013, Cloyd raised $175 million for capital projects including three new art buildings, student housing, a $28 million student-life and technology center and a $17 million all-purpose athletics stadium. He also raised enrollment at Hendrix by 52 percent to nearly 1,500 students from under 1,000 all while the liberal arts school shared the city of Conway with the larger public University of Central Arkansas. 

One semester in at Drury, Cloyd expressed his vision for the longstanding Springfield liberal arts college, which includes expanded or new recruiting in elite suburbs well outside of Springfield, identifying its distinguishing characteristics and developing new buildings on the Springfield campus by the 150th anniversary in 2023. 

“Drury is a school with good bones. You don’t get to be 143 years old without the capacity to be resilient,” Cloyd says. “I’m looking to grow Drury, enhance the prestige of the institution and lengthen the shadow of the university.”

He aims to increase engagement with donors and alumni. His vision: the development of three or four new academic buildings and more efficient use of its center city campus and 3,000-4,000 students on hand by 2023. It’s incoming freshman class this year topped 500, a jump of 39 percent compared to fall 2015 with new recruits coming in from the St. Louis, Kansas City and Chicago areas. Cloyd said suburban markets around those cities and Dallas have been under-utilized as targets for enrollment growth. 

Before Cloyd, undergraduate day-school enrollment fell 9 percent to 1,325 students in fall 2015, compared to 1,454 the year before.

Now, a new leadership team is emerging. Among the moves, he’s placed two of his former Hendrix colleagues on the executive team and named Drury Dean of Continuing Professional Studies Aaron Jones his chief of staff. 

Part of the new vision is to innovate academic programs and ensure students and parents feel they have a unique value in Drury. 

Between 2001 and 2013, Cloyd added a dozen new programs at Hendrix all while raising the school’s endowment to $185 million from $110 million. His efforts helped the school gain national attention including three appearances in The New York Times in one year– once on the cover and above the fold. 

Now, his full attention is on raising Drury’s status. 

“The goal is to make Drury a more distinctive place in the market,” he says.

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