Monmouth College presidency offers a 'second homecoming' for Patricia Draves

'There's good intellectual capital here, and there's a dedicated board of trustees and alumni board,' Monmouth president tells Monmouth Rotary Club.

by Barry McNamara

MONMOUTH, Ill. (08/07/2024) — One month into her Monmouth College presidency, Dr. Patricia Draves said that she and her husband, Jeff, are enjoying their "second homecoming" in the Maple City.

Draves, who began her tenure as the college's 15th president in July, made her remarks at Monday's Rotary Club meeting at the Monmouth Country Club.

The first homecoming for the couple was from 2002-06 when they taught together in Monmouth's chemistry department. They had actually attended Monmouth Homecoming events together prior to that, as Jeff is a 1985 graduate of the college, where he studied under legendary chemistry professor the late Richard "Doc" Kieft.

"Jeff and I met as grad students at the University of Illinois, and I must've heard hundreds if not thousands of stories about Monmouth," said Draves, whose husband's apartment mate in Champaign was Dean Kreps '84. "It took us about two seconds to apply when Doc asked us."

Relationships and the community

In reply to a question about what she was most looking forward to in Monmouth, Draves said the people of the college and the community.

"It's the relationships," she said. "We have some lifelong friends here. This is our second homecoming."

But it's not just a few friendships that caused Draves to leave a college presidency at Graceland University in Lamoni, Iowa, where she had served for the past seven years.

"Number one, Monmouth is a good college with good, smart people. There's good intellectual capital here, and there's a dedicated board of trustees and alumni board. My job as a leader is to bring us all together," she said. "Number two is the students."

Draves said a third reason that she decided to return to Monmouth was the Monmouth-Warren County community.

"Our family loved this place," said Draves of their four years in Monmouth. "Whether it was doing a chemistry outreach at Harding (Elementary School), or Jeff coaching soccer at the Y, or leading vacation Bible school at Faith (United Presbyterian Church), we loved this place, and Monmouth loved us back."

'The college of choice'

Draves left Monmouth to work with former president Richard Giese at the University of Mount Union in Ohio as that school's vice president for academic affairs and dean of the university. Giese helped her embrace the "win-win-win" dynamic of fostering community connections with the college, and she will certainly keep that focus in Monmouth.

"I brought that knowledge to Graceland and will absolutely bring that culture of connection and partnership here," she said, noting it was one of the five initiatives of the first part of her Monmouth presidency.

Another priority "is to articulate what is distinctive about a Scots education," said Draves. "What are the internship opportunities, the out-of-classroom experiences that make us distinctive?"

A third initiative has a tangible goal.

"We want to focus on enrollment growth," she said. "We want to be the college of choice in the region."

Draves will have been in office for three months when her inauguration ceremony will be held as part of Homecoming weekend festivities. The ceremony is scheduled for 2 p.m. Oct. 4 on Wallace Hall Plaza.

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