Julie Englund: Setting Her Mind to CUA's Future

By Anne Cassidy

Julie Englund, Catholic University’s new treasurer and vice president for finance and administration, is looking out the window of her second-floor Leahy Hall office. “We have a beautiful campus, to which we’ve just added 49 acres. I can look out the window and see the new land,” says Englund, who hops up to show a visitor the portion of those leafy acres visible from her window. The land, purchased last spring from the Armed Forces Retirement Home, “is a tremendous opportunity for us, a great asset, especially in the District of Columbia,” she says.
 
In August, Englund left her position as dean of administration at Harvard Law School to assume overall responsibility for CUA’s budget, finances, human resources, administrative services, facilities and endowment. “This is a diverse job. There are lots of different pieces to it, and I like all of them,” Englund says. 

Julie Englund

Englund seems well prepared to help CUA meet the fiscal and growth challenges of the new century. She has decades of finance and administration experience with universities and nonprofits, as well as an undergraduate degree in urban studies and geography from Briarcliff College, a master’s degree in city planning from Harvard and a doctorate in education administration from Harvard.  Her educational background will stand the university in good stead when it comes to deciding the fate of the new acreage.
 
“From our initial interview and subsequent conversations,” says Very Rev. David M. O’Connell, C.M., university president, “Dr. Englund impressed me as an extremely well-credentialed, articulate and confident financial manager.  All three of those characteristics are necessary in an academic environment.  Add to that the skill set, leadership capabilities and experience that she possesses and I am quite sure that the university will move forward to meet new opportunities with great success, including those presented by the land acquisition.”
 
Everything from Finance to Snow Removal
As vice president of finance, Englund ensures that CUA’s economic engine is humming. “The financial area has made great strides recently, and I’ll continue to build the endowment,” she says. 
 
When Englund’s friend Ralph Beaudoin became vice president of finance in 1994, CUA had the poor credit rating of BBB with Moody's Investors Service. During Beaudoin’s tenure, CUA got its financial house in order to the point that Moody’s gave the university its second-highest credit rating of A-2. “Ralph did a tremendous job with the university’s investments over the last 10 years,” Englund says. “I’m reviewing where we are now and how those investments will fare given the current outlook for the economy.”
 
Making her position different from Ralph Beaudoin’s, Dr. Englund’s job description was expanded to include supervision of facilities and maintenance operations, activities traditionally associated with the vice president for administration.  “I made this change,” explains Father O’Connell, “to broaden the functions and role that Dr. Englund would play with respect to the development of the newly acquired 49 acres.”
 
The additional duties also mean that the buck stops with Englund when it comes to building and grounds, snow removal and scores of other daily management details.  “Many of the things I’m responsible for should run smoothly,” Englund says. “I have people working for me who are handling the day-to-day work. These departments have to run efficiently and well because they are the underpinnings that allow faculty and staff to do their jobs. My goal is to provide the best possible service in the most efficient way and to serve the community so that faculty, staff and students can do what they’re here to do.”
 
From Harvard to Here
As dean of administration at Harvard Law School, Englund was responsible for the school’s budget and accounting, as well as facilities and long-range capital planning. She managed a $120 million budget and had a say in land development planning, although she had a lot less open space to work with in Cambridge. Englund was also responsible for information technology and continuing education for lawyers, duties she does not have at CUA.
 
Before Harvard, Englund spent eight years as treasurer and vice president for finance and administration at the Brookings Institution, where she managed a comprehensive renovation of the think tank's 125,000-square-foot downtown office building. Before Brookings she worked at the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, and earlier was associate vice president at Hood College in Frederick, Md.  She also served as senior manager and in other positions in the U.S. Department of Education and the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
 
What made her leave Harvard for CUA? That’s simple: This was her dream job. While Englund has a special affinity for Harvard — she went to graduate school there, met her husband there and was married there — her long-range goal was to be vice president of finance and administration at a university. So when CUA called, Englund answered. “To me this is a wonderful opportunity to be in the type of job that I always wanted to do. This is a tremendous university with a bright future.”
 
And then there’s the domestic front.  While at Harvard, Englund spent weekdays in Cambridge and commuted home to Silver Spring on weekends to spend time with her husband, Brian Fitzgerald, who continued to work in the D.C. area. After three years of commuting, Englund is glad to be in one place again. “I had lived in Washington 25 years, so for me this really is coming home,” she says.
 
Most of all, though, Englund is excited to work with Father O’Connell and others to plan the university’s future.  “I like all the people I work with," she says. "We have a strong senior administration team.  The president is wonderful, very forward looking and dynamic. Our job is to think about the strategy of the university and allocating our resources in a way that can advance the university’s mission.” Englund says she enjoys the chance to look at the big picture, “to stand back and think of the university as a whole.”
 
A Different Kind of Pioneer
Englund is the first woman to hold the position of treasurer and vice president of finance at CUA. That’s not surprising, given that she comes of pioneer stock. Her mother, Irene Englund, flew B-24 bombers during World War II. As a member of the Women Airforce Service Pilots, she ferried planes, towed targets — did everything except fly combat missions. Though Irene Englund and more than a thousand other WASPs remained civilians, they were in effect the nation’s first female military pilots. “They were dismissed in December 1944 to make room for male pilots and were never brought into the military, much to their disappointment,” Englund says.
 
The WASPs were finally granted veteran’s status in 1977. Therefore when Irene Englund passed away in 2002, her daughter contacted Arlington National Cemetery to arrange to have her mother inurned there with military honors. “They told me she wasn’t eligible,” Englund says. When Englund asked for further explanation she was told, “They’re veterans but not eligible for the same benefits as male veterans.” Shocked at the injustice, Englund wrote an editorial for The Washington Post “Outlook” section. “The result of that, unlike 60 years ago when the WASPs were discharged without even bus fare home, was a tremendous outpouring of support,” says Englund. “I had hundreds of e-mails and letters from people who felt that this was not just.”
 
A week before Irene Englund’s funeral, Arlington changed its policy and allowed her to receive full military honors: a rifle salute, taps and an American flag. Not only that, but Arlington changed its rules so that members of 37 other groups with wartime service, such as ocean-going merchant marines, battlefield ambulance drivers and signal corps operators, could also be inurned at Arlington. It was the kind of event movies are made of — and in fact Englund later wrote the script for a documentary on WASPs and other women in aviation.
 
“I was glad I could do something not only for my mother but for the rest of the WASPs still alive,” CUA’s treasurer says. “I was very honored that the WASPs could now get the recognition they deserved.”
 
Unlike her mother, Englund never learned to fly, but she does love to sail. In their spare time, Englund and Fitzgerald like to sail their 37-foot sailboat. “ I’ve done everything from cruising Chesapeake Bay to delivering boats to New England. We’ve sailed in the Caribbean, and this summer we took our boat to Maine and spent two weeks there,” Englund says.
 
One lesson that Englund learned from her mother continues to serve her well, especially when she embarks upon a new and challenging position like the one at CUA: “I was fortunate to have the mother I did, who instilled in me — because she believed it about herself — that one can do anything one sets one’s mind to.”

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