An OLLU-affiliated public art project has been nominated in the San Antonio Current’s citywide “Best of San Antonio” competition under the “Best Mural” category. This semester, students in Professor Gonzalez’s Barrio Arts and Popular Culture class partnered with community members to help restore the historic Segundo de Febrero Mural at the Cassiano Homes public housing complex.
The mural honors Segundo de Febrero and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, marking an important chapter in Mexican American history and identity. We are grateful to Juan Hernandez and Tache Torres, the original artists, as well as the Segundo de Febrero Committee, Opportunity Home, and Councilwoman Teri Castillo for allowing our students to be part of this meaningful project. Please vote to help recognize this important mural and the community history it represents: Best Mural Vote.
Our Lady of the Lake University continues to strengthen its commitment to academic excellence, cultural preservation, and community engagement with the expansion of Mexican American Studies on campus.
As part of this effort, the university is integrating the Center for Mexican American Studies and Research into broader academic and student programs, creating greater opportunities for interdisciplinary learning and collaboration.
Additionally, important archival materials will be moved into the university library, improving accessibility for students, faculty, and the public while supporting the long-term preservation of these invaluable cultural resources.
This initiative reflects OLLU’s mission as a Hispanic-Serving Institution—honoring the rich history and contributions of Mexican American communities while fostering new pathways for research, learning, and engagement.
Texas Mission of Mercy (TMOM) will bring its large-scale free dental clinic to Our Lady of the Lake University on Friday, May 29, and Saturday, May 30, marking the first time the organization has hosted an event at OLLU. TMOM’s mission is to improve oral health and quality of life for underserved Texans by providing access to free, basic dental care through mobile clinic events.
The clinic is expected to treat approximately 400 to 500 patients each day. Services will be offered on a first-come, first-served basis, with patients lining up beginning at 5 a.m. both mornings.
Patients attending the clinic will complete registration, have their vital signs checked, receive dental X-rays, and then undergo treatment. Services will include cleanings, fillings, and extractions — all provided free of charge, with no insurance required.
Hundreds of volunteers, including dentists, dental hygienists, medical assistants, and registration staff, will support the two-day event. Registration will take place in OLLU’s main building, X-rays will be conducted in the MARC, and treatment areas will be located in the UWAC.
A special blessing for volunteers and staff will be held at Sacred Heart Chapel on Thursday before the clinic begins.
TMOM has hosted clinics in communities across Texas, but this appears to be the organization’s first event at OLLU and potentially its first major clinic in San Antonio. The outreach is expected to bring significant activity to campus while providing critical dental care to hundreds of community members in need.
Imagine that our region looks to us because of our programs. Through our students and graduates, we unmistakably align with solving the most complex challenges of our time while remaining firmly rooted in mission. Enrollment reaches a stable and healthy level, allowing us to offer competitive wages, reinvest in our physical plant, and scale our endowment. We achieve this by being explicit about who we serve and intentionally choosing where we will not compete.
Our graduates are sought out by employers because they understand what an OLLU credential represents. Completion rates rise to national distinction. Our students enter high-demand fields and lift their families and communities toward dignified standards of living.
Because of our commitment, it is unambiguous that we are closing the gap of generational poverty that grips our communities by equipping students to rise as leaders by earning wages that allow them to live livelihoods grounded in their values.
Our university is known for our unwavering focus. For our clarity of purpose. For our distinction.
Faculty, Staff, Colleague, Friend. This future is for us to choose and create and commit.
Each of us carries forward the congregational legacy entrusted to us. The Sisters of Divine Providence understood what it meant to pioneer. They crossed oceans, entered unfamiliar terrain, and responded to the needs of their time with courage rooted in God’s providence. They discerned. They acted. They built.
And as I write this reflection in March 2026, it is clear we are part of their legacy. We are stewards of our university and are entrusted with the lives of 1,600 students and their families. The pace of change today compresses what once unfolded across decades into years, or even months. Higher education, locally and nationally, is being reshaped in real time in many ways, including demographically, economically, and technologically. While we cannot alter the rate of change around us, we do choose how we respond.
Our response will not merely be to find a path, which suggests a fixed trail, mapped once and followed mechanically. Our response will be to establish a rhythm—grounded in attentiveness, discipline, adaptation, and trust.
Our conversation last Thursday affirmed that Focused Differentiation is both the path we will take in 2026 and the rhythm we will establish as the ethos of our university. As we process our loss of market share since 2001, before us is the shifting higher education landscape and our need to make a clear strategic choice . That choice is Focused Differentiation.
The work ahead is about morphing, transforming, and becoming the institution we are called to be. The work ahead is about aligning our strengths, sharpening our impact, and ensuring that every decision moves us closer to fulfilling our mission at the highest level.
In San Antonio alone, approximately 135,000 students are enrolled in higher education. The market is competitive and structurally constrained. Private institutions like ours compete for a small and narrow share.
Focused Differentiation demands that we define who we are for. It requires a narrow target market and a small set of distinctive differentiators—attributes so authentic and focused that they cannot be easily claimed or replicated by others. If another institution can make the same claim, then it is not distinctive, and we will refine.
Part of our rhythm will be continual refinement—clear “we will” and “we will not” decisions.
We will remove friction from the student experience. It will not be complicated to enroll. It will be seamless to re-enroll and retain.
Lent calls us to discernment and refinement; to remove what burdens us so that we may move freely toward what matters most. Focused Differentiation is an act of institutional discernment.
Becoming the premier Catholic institution and a national model for mission-driven innovation and social mobility will only be accomplished together. Our university needs each of us. You matter, and you matter greatly.
We will establish a disciplined rhythm that ensures not merely business sustainability, but faithful sustainability—an institution capable of carrying the Gospel and Catholic social teaching into the next generation with strength. Our founders remind us that we are rooted in profound trust in God’s providential love and care for all.
That trust gives me courage, and I hope it does the same for you. Because as we embark on this mission, together, we will not retreat from change, we will shape it.
Together, we will move toward the horizon before us.
I truly and sincerely value your thinking. Please consider completingthis very short, anonymous surveybelow by Monday, March 9, to help us shape our Focused Differentiation direction.
Grubhub is coming to Our Lady of the Lake University! Students, faculty, and staff will soon be able to order food from campus dining locations and participating off-campus restaurants — all through the Grubhub app.
Whether you’re studying late, in between classes, or just craving your favorite meal, convenience is now just a tap away!
Stay tuned for more details as we get closer to launch. Get ready to skip the line and order ahead — Grubhub @ OLLU is almost here!
On July 7, a story in the Beeville Bee-Picayune about Sinton baseball player and OLLU signee Nick Flores being named Player of the Year of the 2024 South Texas News High School Baseball Super Team:
