Schreiner University in Kerrville marks 100 years of change

“It’s always pleasant to know there’s some things deeply rooted in our DNA that 100 years won’t get rid of — things like relationships with students and our focus on having students enter with hope. They don’t have to have the highest SAT scores and they don’t have to have the biggest wallets,” said McCormick, just the sixth president in that century-long evolution.

The prevailing image of university namesake Charles Armand Schreiner, an Alsatian immigrant, merchant, rancher, banker and one-time Texas Ranger, comes from photos of a white-haired, dark-suited and grandfatherly figure with a full mustache and gentle features.

But understanding the much younger Schreiner, who lost his father when he was 14 and his mother at 19, long before he became an empire builder in land, mohair and finance, best captures the perseverance and determination of the university and its students, McCormick believes.

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Schreiner had moved to Kerr County some 65 years before donating land along the Guadalupe River for the Schreiner Institute, which opened in September 1923.

“We like to imagine him sitting on back of an old pony and looking out over this valley and thinking to himself, ‘Am I going to let the future wash over me, or am I going to be resilient, adaptable, nimble and find a way to survive, thrive into the future? ’ That’s what he did, and I can’t help but think a lot of that’s rubbed off on the institution that shares his name,” McCormick said.  

The private, Presbyterian university is rounding out a series of 100th anniversary events with a family weekend starting Friday, followed by arts and culture events this fall. The university has an interactive web page with dozens of archival photos from each decade of the school’s history. Centennial events also are listed at schreiner.edu. 

It began as a place for boys living too far from public schools to get a high school and junior college education. For 75 of the past 100 years, Schreiner family members have served on its governing board. Former San Antonio city councilman Weir Labatt, the founder’s great-great-grandson, has been on the board for 18 years. 

The first women at Schreiner, day students from the Kerrville area, began attending in 1932. The first female boarding students were enrolled in 1971.  

The institute made military training optional at the college level in 1957 and discontinued it in 1969. Renamed Schreiner College in 1973, it dissolved its high school program. It became a four-year institution in 1981, expanding undergraduate programs to include political science, theater, communications and public health, and adding graduate programs, including an MBA. 

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It was renamed Schreiner University in 2001. Today, popular majors there include nursing, business, biomedical sciences, fitness and psychology.  

McCormick said the university has achieved one of its growth objectives, surpassing enrollment of 1,200 after hovering well below 1,000 for many years. But it has potential to grow to 2,000 on its 170-acre campus and still “focus on students as individuals,” he said. 

“There is sort of a crazy race in higher education to just recruit the highest SAT scores, the top students in the high school class,” McCormick said. “There needs to be some institutions that care a whole lot about students with promise and potential, grit and resilience, even if those don’t always translate to high standing in the high school class or high SAT scores. We want to be one of those institutions, and we want to be the premier among those institutions.”

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More than 35 percent of Schreiner’s students are Hispanic and 4 percent are African American. Almost half of its enrollment are first-generation college students. 

The university has a small new aviation program, one of a handful in Texas offering a four-year degree that opens a pathway to become a commercial pilot. It’s expanded its engineering studies with tracks in civil and mechanical specialities, partnering with North Dakota-based Killdeer Mountain Manufacturing, which has a university lab at its Kerrville office.

Schreiner also has created a rural banking program and will offer agricultural education next fall. 

While previous presidents had to manage high school students, military trainees or lead the institution through dramatic change, McCormick said the core mission hasn’t changed much in 100 years.    

“It’s clearly been a big part of my role to make sure we are partners in this community, in this region,” he said. “And for me that goes back to Charles Schreiner’s original vision. He wanted it to be a Hill Country institution.”