President Update

Dear Colleagues, Students, and Friends,

Please see below for this week’s presidential update. Sadly our normal joyful campus events are tempered this week by the news of murder of Charlie Kirk, which has impacted many in our campus community. I urge us all to keep the Kirk family, the Abbey community, and our nation in our prayers this weekend.

“Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give it to you. Do not let your hearts be troubled; be not afraid.”
-John 14:27

Dear Colleagues, Students, and Friends,

The third full week of classes here at the Abbey has brought many blessings to our college community. Students are flourishing and our academic, student life, and athletic programs are giving us cause for great joy and gratitude.

Interim President Dr. Joe Wysocki invites you to Homecoming 2025 at the Abbey!

Learn More About Homecoming 2025

Interim President Dr. Joe Wysocki shares about a successful first week at the Abbey, and remembers our late friend, Humpy Wheeler, Jr.

Dear Colleagues, Students, and Friends,

In medieval times, a “moment” was defined as ninety seconds.

7,364,160. That is the number of moments that I have been blessed to be the President of Belmont Abbey College. Each of those moments, the miraculous and the mundane has taught me the perfection of the present moment. To say, “Thank you, Jesus,” in every one of them and mean it.

Even so, words alone seem inadequate to express my thoughts and overwhelming gratitude to you and everyone who holds the Abbey dear. As beautiful and meaningful as the iconic gothic brick buildings on our campus may be, it is the love, friendship, fidelity, sacrifice, excellence, and virtue of Abbey men and women that make it a special place and a little slice of Heaven.

I think Cardinal John Henry Newman was envisioning Belmont Abbey when he described the characteristics of a College; he wrote: “Moreover, it is the shrine of our best affections, the bosom of our fondest recollections, a spell upon our afterlife, a stay for world-weary mind and soul, wherever we are cast, till the end comes. Such are the attributes or offices of home, and like to these, in one or other sense and measure, are the attributes and offices of a College.”

Divine Providence brought us to our Abbey home twenty-one years ago, and I hope and pray that Providence will keep us here…till the end comes. As Oblates of the monastic community and honorary alumni of the College, Mary and I look forward to spending the rest of our lives here, at our Abbey home, deepening the friendships born here and building new ones with those called here.

Thanks again and again for all you have done and continue to do for the Abbey.

God Bless,