Is it possible to navigate college closures ethically and compassionately?
College closures have been a mournfully regular affair over the past few years and are likely to continue in the future, now that the much-dreaded and long-predicted “demographic cliff” is here. TL/DR: birthrates dropped to an all-time low during the Great Recession and never bounced back. The US now has a birthrate below replacement level. And every year for the foreseeable future, the entering freshman class for colleges nationwide is going to be much smaller than what we were used to in the past.
This won’t hit every college (Harvard will survive, I’m certain), but what this means, unfortunately, is that some colleges that have been struggling already will likely not survive. The reasons may vary, but for small religiously affiliated colleges the reason could be connected to the shrinking of a particular denomination or the shrinking of population in a particular region of the country. Just ask state colleges and universities in Vermont, who are consolidating campuses because of enrollment declines, all to try and avoid closing. Several such consolidations happened a few years ago in Georgia as well.
Still, closures are sometimes unavoidable and necessary. And yet, in too many cases, when such closures have been announced of late—like yesterday’s announcement about the closing of Eastern Nazarene College at the end of this year—the way the university’s management or leadership announces and handles this process seems lacking in compassion.
It is late June. The board’s announcement comes right at the end of the fiscal year, as the members (presumably) figured out that the state of the college’s finances was too dire to survive another year. Did they not know this earlier? That seems impossible to believe. Rather, for whatever reason, the board waited until the last possible moment to let faculty and staff know that after December, they will no longer have jobs. And, of course, let the students know that they will not have a college to come back to after this fall. At least, for students, it looks like the college was able to make plans:
ENC’s goal, pending the commitment of a critical mass of students and faculty, is to continue serving undergraduate and graduate students who are on track to graduate by the end of the year. Administrators have arranged teach-out agreements with three institutions – Gordon College, Mount Vernon Nazarene University and Trevecca Nazarene University – to provide streamlined transfer options for all other students. ENC will also provide job-placement support and access to counseling resources for faculty and staff affected by the closure.
At least the students can always transfer to other colleges—there are plenty out there, in this climate, eager to welcome more students! Although we should still be concerned about the students. Statistically, “52.9% of students who experienced a college closure did not re-enroll”–meaning, the closure of a college will leave some students demoralized and without a degree. Worse yet, a late June announcement is simply catastrophic for faculty. The academic job market generally operates on an annual cycle, with jobs usually posted in the fall and early spring. Very few job are posted later than that. New positions, then, begin in August.
In other words, the way ENC has handled the timeline for this closure virtually guarantees the end of an academic career for most of its current faculty. Even if they apply for academic jobs in the fall, no new position will begin until at least eight months AFTER the end of their current job. Eight months is a long time to go without a paycheck.
Is there a better way to handle college closures? Yes, the closure of a college will likely always be a mournful affair. Of course, we know that institutions on this earth are transitory. We still love them deeply. There is much history attached to any given college or university campus. And there are people who are there now—students, faculty, staff—who love this place and mourn its loss. All of these are only additional reasons to figure out a way to navigate college closures with compassion for all parties.
So what might this look like when you are a board or president of an institution that is definitely in financial trouble, and you are trying to decide how to break the difficult news?
First and foremost, I think the most important factor here is not the “how” but the “when.” The single most helpful thing that the board and other leaders of institutions that are headed towards shutting their doors for good can do is to be kind and transparent towards faculty and staff. I would argue that a minimum of one year’s advance notice is essential to allow the closure of a college to happen compassionately.
Sure, in many corporate and other workplaces, a two-week notice is all that the management is required to give to employees. Some people even find a new job in those two weeks. But higher education works differently, because of that quirky annual hiring cycle described above. A minimum of a full cycle is necessary for faculty to be able to apply for jobs and see if they can find something in academia or if they must look elsewhere (very likely, these days). A year’s notice will also allow faculty the necessary time to place a house on the market or finish out a lease and make plans for relocating without losing a lot of money in the process. Because academic jobs typically require relocation, this is important, as any new academic job (and possibly a non-academic one too) will require moving again.
The story that repeatedly emerges in every college closure is that the leadership knew for a while that the institution was not doing well and was headed towards closing. In every case, it seems, the leadership could have easily given the faculty a year’s notice. Instead, in every case, the leadership wanted to wait until the last possible second to communicate the full truth in its ugliness.
But in higher education as elsewhere in life: hiding a difficult truth never makes it go away.