The president of Martin University has high hopes for its future.
He says Martin is filling a unique gap for Indianapolis — a place for older students to get a degree fast, with institutional support through resources such as the school’s free childcare and pre-K.
For the state, meanwhile, Martin hopes to continue serving as a destination for workforce development.
“We’re not a research institution,” said Sean Huddleston, president of Martin University. “We are not a residential institution. But we are an institution that is very focused on a fast return on investment for our students.”
Those are some of the topics that Huddleston discussed in a wide-ranging interview with Mirror Indy.
He also answered questions about Gov. Mike Braun’s proposed budget, which did not include funding for Indiana’s only predominantly Black college. Though Martin is a private university, the school received a $5 million grant in the 2023-25 budget, one-time funding to recruit and retain students to high-demand careers such as STEM and teaching.
Here’s Mirror Indy’s interview with Huddleston, which has been edited for length and clarity.
On Martin University’s mission
What role do you see Martin as filling in Indianapolis and Indiana’s higher education ecosystem?
Predominantly minority-serving institutions largely exist because we are a place where people have come to find a sense of belonging. I think that institutions like Martin University have the very unique ability to be able to identify individuals who may not have seen themselves as successful in a higher education environment, and be able to help them believe in themselves and find their success and then connect them with the life-changing futures that are awaiting.
Martin University is historically focused on non-traditional age students. That means students who don’t come directly out of high school, or students who did not take a straight path into higher education. We’re an institution that is focused on getting students directly from college to career, and ensuring that that return on investment comes pretty quickly.
On state funding for Martin University
What was your response when you heard that Martin University was not in the governor’s budget proposal for this next cycle?
To be clear, the funding that we received was very focused on workforce development for our state. What we were asked to do was to ensure that we helped prepare more people for our workforce. The reason that it made sense for Martin to receive that funding is that almost 100% of our graduates stay in Indiana after they graduate. So we have the ability now to contribute to the workforce and the economic vitality of our city by ensuring that our graduates are continuing to do so by working in our state.
We did see the initial rounds of grant funding almost as money to pilot these new initiatives, and we hoped to be able to have another conversation about how we might be able to scale that up. Again, we didn’t have any guarantees that we would get a second round of funding. But I was a bit surprised that we hadn’t had the opportunity to have a conversation about the potential of having a second round of funding. Very fortunately now, through some great advocacy and leadership of some of our elected officials and our community leaders, it looks like we may now have the opportunity to have that conversation.
In your op-ed in the Indianapolis Recorder, you mentioned being thankful to those who shared their personal experiences and advocated for Martin. What is your response to seeing so many alumni say why the university was important to them?
The beauty is that our alums and friends of the university have never been quiet about that. They have always been very vocal about the importance of Martin University, the legacy of our tremendous founder Fr. Boniface (Hardin) and what Martin has done for them personally and shaped their lives. What really warmed my heart the most is that now we have a broader audience that can hear those stories and listen to that.
I think the great gift of all of this is that there are people around the country now that not only know the name of Martin University, but understand the importance that Martin University has to our state of Indiana. I got calls from people as far as California, Washington, D.C., as far north as Minnesota and as far south as Georgia and Florida.
On Martin University’s future
In recent years, Martin has faced enrollment challenges with the pandemic and some financial challenges — I’m thinking of the 2023 audit that found some doubt about the university’s ability to continue. Are you confident about Martin’s ability to sustain itself, especially if you don’t receive state funding in the coming budget?
It’s an emphatic yes for me. The students that we serve, we make sure that there are a lot of resources in place to be able to serve those students. Because of that, it’s a little bit more difficult for us to expand to serve a larger population of students because we put so much into the students we have. It doesn’t mean that we don’t want to expand. In fact, we believe that we will grow.
But over the course of time, we’ve had to combat questions about the value of higher education. We aren’t necessarily competing with other institutions. We’re competing with the lives of the students that we serve. We call ourselves a “communiversity,” which means we’re in, of and for the community. So we’re part university, part community center. We believe that there is value and importance with that.
I think Martin’s future is as bright as it always has been. I think that we have faced some of the challenges that many institutions face, especially those that are in environments where we choose to serve and where we intentionally set ourselves up to be successful. Martin will be celebrating its 50th anniversary in 2027 and I can tell you that for many of those 50 years, Martin has been doubted along the way. But yet we continue to survive, and we continue to operate, and we continue to change lives.
What do the next 10 years look like for Martin University? What’s your plan to ensure its future?
Continuing to evolve to become a work-based learning institution is high on the list for us. That means that we believe that there is deep and important value in partnering with employers to make sure that we are building the workforce and the talent that they need to be successful.
We have, over the course of our history, largely served that adult student population. What we’re finding is that there are students coming right out of high school that have some of the same desires and even some of the same characteristics of non-traditional age students. These are people who, number one, want to start their careers right away. Number two, people who may have a dependent at home, whether it be a child or a sibling or a parent that they need to be able to care for. They are not necessarily looking for a residential experience, but looking for an opportunity to advance their education. We believe that we’ll expand into that.
Gov. Braun recently committed to visiting Martin after meeting with some community leaders. Have you heard anything about that visit? What do you hope he takes away from his time at the university?
I think that the group that visited with the governor, that was led by Elder Lionel Rush and the Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance, they took along with them a number of Martin University alums, as well as people who are part of our community. And I think they were very successful in opening his eyes to the mission, purpose and value of Martin University.
When the governor does visit, and I believe that they’re working on scheduling that right now, he will be able to have a tangible example of what was described to him in that meeting. We will certainly have him do a tour of our campus, but we’ll have a conversation not only about our contributions to the state of Indiana, but the importance and relevance of having an institution like Martin University in the overall landscape of higher education in our fantastic state.
Is there anything that I didn’t ask that you want to say?
The dedication and commitment of our institution and the impact that we have is very critical. I’m sure you’re aware that we lost recently one of our best and brightest students, Camari Hunt. Camari was a second-generation Martin University student. His father, Cameron, graduated from Martin University and convinced his son to come and complete his studies at Martin University.
Camari was a young man who had tremendous promise and was on a path to make a complete difference in this community. It just goes to show you that with all of the hard work and dedication that we have, we still continue to battle against those things that become distractions and disruptors to education and to that access. The vital importance of a Martin University is to continue to do that work so we can limit these types of casualties and fatalities as they happen.
Claire Rafford covers higher education for Mirror Indy in partnership with Open Campus. Contact Claire at claire.rafford@mirrorindy.org or on Instagram/X/Bluesky @clairerafford.
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