So This is What Happens when a College Closes.... Part One

In the 1990s Joel and I would occasionally drive by a college campus in Milton, Wisconsin as we made our way from Joel's family home to Cornell College where we were attending school. The campus we passed on our journey was the small quaint campus of Milton College.

The Milton College campus was silent. Abandon. The school had closed in the early 1980s, and as we passed it on our way out of Wisconsin, we were often struck in to silence too. How did a college like Milton close? What happens when a college with grand brick buildings and a courtyards stops teaching classes and the students leave? What happened to the college to leave these structures standing as headstones to what had once lived in Milton, WI?

I have thought about Milton College a lot in the last 2 years, and now I think about it every day. At the time it closed its doors in 1982 it was the oldest operating college in Wisconsin (echoing the College of Santa Fe's position in New Mexico).

My sister was laid off from her job working for big national company in January. The office in Albuquerque closed and all of the employees lost their jobs. When my sister lost her job this year and the office started its close-down procedure, she talked to me about having these realizations, "oh, so this is what happens when an office closes."

Now the College of Santa Fe will be closing on May 22nd - either for the summer or indefinitely. Everyone at the College will loose their jobs on that day. Like the job losses I have experienced with my family in corporate America, the College must prepare for its closing. With the college closing certain things must be arranged for students, faculty, and staff. These arrangements have been both horrifying and comforting. Life will go on.

The closing of the College is pretty strange. I have tried to anticipate some of the things that will occur, but even in my mental preparation I have been surprised that the sadness is deeper than I anticipated. I was not at all prepared for the ways uncertainty and confusion leave deep wounds. And like my sister, I too am struck almost daily with the realization, "oh, so this is what happens when a college closes."

As much as possible, I would like to share some of those experiences. I think many colleges will close in the coming years. There were lots of college that closed in the 1980s along with Milton College. I think we have reached another point in the ebb and flow of our economy where these changes and losses are inevitable. It is just the beginning of the suffering for small liberal arts colleges in America.

Here is a link to an article published in 1997, remembering how Milton College closed. For now I will let this quote from the article about Milton College speak for the College of Santa Fe's current situation:

"We all were crushed. Devastated. We couldn't believe it," Koeffler said. "It was so sad to watch people you knew loved teaching and this college to be let go. It was watching people suffer."