Jeffrey Docking Passes Historic 20-Year Milestone as Adrian College President
Posted Friday, January 02, 2026
Author: Mickey Alvarado
Jeffrey R. Docking just accomplished what only two other Adrian College presidents have done since 1859, by leading the private institution for more than 20 years.
It is not unheard of for an Adrian College president to reach a 20-year milestone, but it is rare. Harlan L. Feeman did it, serving from 1917 to 1940 (23 years), as did John H. Dawson from 1955 to 1978 (23 years). The only other president to come close was Stanley Caine, who led from 1989 to 2005 (16 years).
“I will always be grateful to the Board of Trustees for allowing me to serve for twenty years,” Docking said. “I’ve tried hard to meet their expectations, but twenty years is a long time for a board to stand by a president, so my overwhelming feeling is one of gratitude. And it’s not just gratitude for what they have done for me personally, but also for my wife, Beth, and our four children.”
“While I’m pleased with our progress, I hope everyone knows that this story is not about one guy who led the college out of a tough situation,” Docking said. “It’s about 300-400 employees, countless alumni, donors, faculty, and friends of the College who love this institution and want to see it succeed for many years to come. It has been a group effort all the way.”
When Docking arrived in 2005, Adrian College’s enrollment had dropped below 900 students, and the retention rate was 59 percent. The College was running annual deficits of about $1.3 million, and the physical plant needed significant improvements.
Five years later, Adrian College had nearly doubled its enrollment, growing to 1,609 students, many of whom were attracted to the College through newly added sports programs and co-curricular activities.
Docking said if he had to break his presidency into chapters, Chapter One would tell the story of conceiving of — and then implementing — a strategic plan designed to grow enrollment, balance the budget, and inspire others to help build a culture of excellence throughout campus.
“Excellence matters a lot,” Docking said, “and it can only be done collectively. God calls us to be excellent; it is woven into our souls. This is why human beings gravitate to the beautiful, the good, the exceptional, and why we are inspired by environments that collectively uphold high standards. It’s a natural human instinct to want to attend an excellent college because it pushes us to know our highest capabilities. It doesn’t matter if you are a student from a poor family in a tough neighborhood, or a wealthy family from a world of privilege; people know excellence when they see it, and they want to be part of it. This College devoted itself to excellence twenty years ago, and it has paid off very well. Although we are far from perfect - and we never fully achieve this ideal, excellence will always serve as our North Star.”
During Docking’s administration, the Bulldogs jumped from 16 athletic teams in 2005 to 53 by 2025, with new sports programs in acrobatics and tumbling, bass fishing, bowling, cheer, club baseball/softball, club volleyball, ACHA hockey, club wrestling, cornhole, dance, esports, equestrian, figure skating, lacrosse, NCAA hockey, rowing, rugby, synchronized skating, wrestling, and many others.
These teams have won 16 national team championships and 33 individual national championships in a wide range of sports.
“We certainly have added several athletic teams, but we know that we are not trying to build an Olympic village on campus. We are an educational institution first and foremost. Full stop! Athletics serves several purposes, among them, increasing enrollment and balancing the budget, but it is not an end in itself,” Docking said. “Eighty-five percent of our budget comes from tuition, room and board, and fees. If we don’t have students, we don’t have a College. No margin, no mission, is one of our mantras on campus. Athletics has helped us a lot by attracting great students.”
Docking said that Chapter Two of his presidency has been devoted to replicating the athletic-growth model on the College’s academic side. The College recently launched nearly 40 new majors, minors, and certificate programs to attract new students. Programs in Cybersecurity, Artificial Intelligence, Supply Chain Management, Computer Science, Data Analytics, and many highly sought-after areas are now available to students at Adrian College. “These are the majors modern students want,” he said. “They are highly in demand, and employers are willing to pay high salaries to young graduates with excellent skills in these disciplines.
“If we don’t start these majors, we will lose students to large public universities,” Docking said. “We would also be doing students a disservice by failing to prepare them for the high-tech world they will step into after graduation.”
To enable the launch of several new majors simultaneously, Docking brought in two Harvard graduates, Kevin Harrington and Connor McCarthy, and co-founded a shared online learning platform called Rize Education that enables colleges to share majors, minors, and individual classes at a fraction of the cost of starting a new major. “This platform is the future of higher education,” Docking said. “By enabling colleges to work together to share much-needed academic programs for a fraction of the traditional cost. We can then pass along these savings to students and families. Our ultimate goal is to reduce tuition costs for students attending Adrian College.”
The success of this innovative platform has caught fire from coast to coast. Today, over 140 traditional colleges offer new academic programs online through the Rize platform, with over 10,000 students taking classes synchronously or asynchronously across various campuses. Over 800 new majors are now being offered to colleges in this shared consortium.
“Over the next several years, I am certain every college campus in America will be sharing classes and offering hybrid learning opportunities to their students,” Docking said. “We learned during the COVID epidemic that students want some of their classes online. This doesn’t mean traditional college classrooms, face-to-face instruction, ivy-covered walls, campus chapel services, and hanging out with new friends will go away. It simply means that future colleges will be different because they will share hybrid learning opportunities.”
The Rize platform has enabled Adrian College to add 40 new majors, 77 new minors, 25 new certificate programs, and 19 new master’s programs.
Docking said Chapter Three of his presidency will focus on building The College of the Future, an effort devoted to leveraging AI and the Rize platform to lower costs and create a transformative educational experience never seen before in higher education. “We stand on the threshold of enormous change,” Docking said. “In the not-too-distant future, AI will enable us to personalize learning for each student on campus in new and exciting ways. Professors will work hand in hand with technology to tailor lectures and lessons in ways that ensure every student has a thorough understanding of the class learning objectives and the skills required for success after graduation. This is very exciting. I am already doing this in my own class on campus, and it has been very popular with our students.”
“Our commitment to building the College of the Future inspires us to double down on the entrepreneurial spirit that has guided us for twenty years,” Docking said. “There will be no pulling back on the reins of creativity and innovation at Adrian College. We are all in — trustees, faculty, and administration.”
US News has selected Adrian College as the #1 Most Innovative School in the Midwest for the past two years.
Many donors have generously supported Adrian’s success. “People feel good about contributing to a successful story,” Docking said. “Annual donations to the College have risen from $1.9 million twenty years ago to $12.5 million a year or two ago.”
In the two decades Docking has been president, the amount of property Adrian College owns has increased from 132 acres to more than 271 acres, including a 119-acre property donation in 2016 called Walden West, which is used as an outdoor environmental classroom.
New construction projects under Docking’s leadership have totaled nearly $150 million, and include the Sweebe Family Indoor Athletic Center (2025); Arrington Ice Arena (2007); the Gateway Arch (2021); and Docking Stadium (2006), among many others.
Academic improvements include a new or renovated Peelle Science Building, Jones Business Building, Rush Center for Communication Arts, a student theatre, the Hickman Art Gallery, and the Goldsmith Center for Modern Languages and Cultures.
“To be successful, you’ve got to be able to understand the mind of an 18-year-old, and today’s students respond very well to facilities,” Docking said. “They want to attend classes and participate in athletic competitions in great facilities that are new, exciting, clean, and dynamic. For this reason, we have renovated or built nearly every building on campus. It’s almost impossible to walk around this campus without being inspired by the beautiful buildings and grounds.”
Adrian College Board of Trustees Chairman Patrick Farver said the amount of support Docking has garnered is remarkable. Adrian College’s endowment has increased from $17 million to about $90 million over the last 20 years.
“People trust Jeff [Docking],” Farver said. “He is a man of his word. When we hired him 20 years ago, he told us that increasing our athletic programs was key to increasing enrollment, and he proved it. He was absolutely right. Now he’s telling us the direction to go is increasing our academic programs and leveraging existing and new facilities, which we are going to do without hesitation. Jeff Docking is a visionary leader and has put us on the map as ‘The College of the Future.’”
When Docking moved to Adrian, he had a third-grader, an eighth-grader, a junior, and a senior in high school. The third-grader was married just weeks ago.
“They have all grown up,” Docking said. “Three of them are married, and another is to be married next month. I’ve got five grandchildren with another on the way. God willing, there’ll be more.”
He credited his wife, Beth, for sacrificing so much and supporting him as the president’s spouse over all those years.
“Beth has been a wonderful First Lady,” Docking said. “Her commitment to Adrian College has been beyond anything I could have hoped for when I accepted this position in 2005. At every trustee meeting, she hosts a major program for trustee spouses and friends of the College. She attends nearly all of my boring speeches and is present at every graduation ceremony. She hosts students for dinner every single year, whether it’s the RAs or honor students. Over the years, Beth has hosted thousands of people at the President’s House, the annual Christmas party, and many other events. She has been a gracious and kind First Lady through the ups and downs of the past 20 years. The College and I are very fortunate that she has been willing to take on this role.”
He is most proud of the students Adrian College sends into the world each spring. “America is in good hands with these future leaders,” Docking said. “Adrian students are intelligent, kind, gracious, hard-working, patriotic, and always ready to roll up their sleeves to accomplish the task at hand. I’ve never seen a better generation of young adults, and I’ve been in higher education for nearly 40 years.”
Docking has a few regrets. “I wish we could have increased the endowment more during my time here, and I wish we could have built more residence hall facilities. Those are big disappointments,” he said.
Of course, these projects and many others will be tackled in the next few years. “I wish I could feel satisfied,” Docking said, “but unfortunately, I live in a permanent state of dissatisfaction. It’s a personality disorder,” he added jokingly. “I am never satisfied or willing to believe the job is done. There is always another mountain to climb.”
