President’s Biography
Meet Rev. Daniel S. Hendrickson, SJ, PhD
The Rev. Daniel S. Hendrickson, SJ, PhD, is the 25th president of Creighton University. As a former student, faculty member, and trustee of Creighton, Fr. Hendrickson is guided by a deep passion for the Creighton mission to form leaders who will go on to build a more just world.
Entering the Society of Jesus in 1994, Fr. Hendrickson first encountered Creighton as a student in the Jesuit Humanities Program in 1996 before returning as an adjunct instructor of philosophy and an adjunct professor with the Institute for Latin American Concern (ILAC) program in the Dominican Republic from 2000 to 2003.
He would go on to serve as a visiting instructor at Jordan University College in Morogoro, Tanzania, and as an adjunct professor of philosophy at Fordham University in New York before joining his alma mater of Marquette University in 2012. At Marquette, he held faculty and administrative positions, including serving as co-director of the Burke Scholars service and leadership program. He was elected to the Creighton Board of Trustees in 2013. In December 2014, he was announced as the 25th president of Creighton, and he officially began his tenure July 1, 2015.
Fr. Hendrickson’s priorities for Creighton include bolstering the role of interdisciplinary higher education between the sciences and humanities; advancing a pedagogy of engaged learning and global experiences; and broadening the reach of Creighton’s health sciences programs.
During his presidency, the University has experienced record-breaking enrollments; an expansion of academic program offerings and undergraduate research opportunities; and national recognition as one of only 25 higher education institutions named to the Carnegie Foundation’s Leadership for Public Purpose elective designation. Additionally, an increase in student support efforts has helped Creighton achieve historic retention rates that far surpass the national average and a 99% outcome rate for graduates.
Fr. Hendrickson has also overseen significant expansion and enhancements to the University’s physical footprint. This includes more than half-a-billion dollars in investments to the urban core of Omaha through infrastructural improvements as well as building a brand-new campus in Phoenix in 2021 for interprofessional health sciences education, including a second four-year school of medicine, with the ability to serve approximately 1,000 students in one of the fastest-growing cities in the country.
Moreover, with Fr. Hendrickson's leadership, Creighton strengthened its philanthropic support. As of 2024, the University has seen a 33 percent increase in endowed chairs during his tenure with 13 positions being created since 2015 and nine of those being funded during the ambitious Forward Blue campaign, which was launched in 2021. More than $650 million has been raised in support of campus improvements; mission-driven services and programs; and scholarships, including an impressive $208 million as scholarship dollars, providing financial assistance to more than 6,700 students
Outside of Creighton, Fr. Hendrickson serves on the boards of Boston College and Xavier University as well as serving as the current chair of the BIG EAST Conference Board of Directors. He is also a trustee of ILAC/Centro de Educación para la Salud Integral (CESI) in the Dominican Republic and Jesuit Worldwide Learning (JWL). His international experiences in more than 60 countries on nearly every continent have nurtured his belief in the importance of global immersion as key to a well-rounded education.
Growing up in Fremont, Nebraska, Fr. Hendrickson graduated from Mount Michael Benedictine High School in Elkhorn and comes from a family of educators. His identical twin, the Rev. D. Scott Hendrickson, SJ, DPhil, is the associate provost for global and community engagement and an associate professor of Spanish at Loyola University Chicago, while his older brother, Ryan C. Hendrickson, PhD, is Provost and Vice President of Academic Affairs and a professor of political science at Eastern Illinois University.
Fr. Hendrickson holds a BA from Marquette University; an MA in philosophical resources from Fordham University; a Master of Divinity degree from the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University; and MA and PhD degrees from Columbia University. He is the author of “Jesuit Higher Education in a Secular Age: A Response to Charles Taylor and the Crisis of Fullness,” published in 2022.
