For Small Colleges, Closure is the New Disaster Plan
It is said that it takes at least six weeks to change a habit — such as trying to walk 10,000 steps a day, reduce your intake of sugar, or some other act of self-improvement. On Friday, April 6, 2018, the closure of Mount Ida College was announced. On Friday, May 18, 2018, Mount Ida College closed. Six weeks may not be long enough to change a habit, but it had to be long enough to close a college.
When Mount Ida College announced its closure, I held the position of Vice President for Student Affairs, and due to the closure, it became my job to lead in a way that I never dreamed. This is a personal account of the final days of an institution that was founded in 1899 as a school for girls and evolved over its nearly 120-year history into a four-year college whose signature programs provided students with practical degrees with a liberal arts core curriculum of study. This is not meant to be an analysis of how it happened, nor is it a detailed account about the failed merger with Lasell College, or the eventual acquisition of its property by the University of Massachusetts Amherst — that isn’t my story to tell. Rather, this is a personal account of an institution’s final weeks and some of the events which took place within that time that are seared into my memory. As a Student Affairs professional with nearly 30 years of experience, I have had to manage crises of various proportions and severity, from power outages as a result of hurricanes, flooding as a result of soccer balls hitting sprinkler heads, and the untimely death of two students. Disaster plans and standard operating procedures are something I have been used to writing and reviewing. Table top exercises are a normal event. I have never written a plan for a college closure. But now, I have one.
On Friday, March 30, I was asked to attend a one-on-one meeting with my boss, President Barry Brown. The meeting started off with small talk but quickly turned to his telling me about the closure of the College. The conversation was, admittedly a blur, and while some of the specifics went in and out of memory, I do remember what was rushing through my head — the Division of Student Affairs staff, a staff whom I recruited and developed during my five years in the Vice President role. Their faces and their circumstances were front and center in my mind’s eye. Three of the staff were getting married in the next two months, one just bought a house, and one had their first baby. I thought about their children who needed braces and evaluations for learning challenges, their parents going into nursing homes, and all the other circumstances that you know about as the leader of a small college division. Some members of the team had experienced excruciating personal loss in the last semester, and some members joy.
Thinking of the joys and losses of the Student Affairs staff brought me immediately to thinking about our students, the heart of any institution. A highlight reel of student accomplishments rattled in my mind’s eye — the orientation leaders’ summer skit, the women’s basketball team achieving its most successful season on record, the commuter student lounge dedication.
As my mind was racing around thinking of my staff and our students and their individual and collective capacity to manage this emotional blow, personal reality hit: What about me? Where is my family going to live? Living in college-owned housing came with the job. My 11 year-old’s only memory was living on campus, being a special part of the community, attending events on campus, eating in the dining common and chatting with the students, even going as far as adopting one of the beagles from the Veterinary Technology program in 2012. We also had the great and good fortune that she was attending an elementary school she loved less than a mile away. Not a week went by that she didn’t say something about how special it was that she lived on a college campus. How was I going to tell her? And where the hell were we going to live? I asked about the house, and if we had to move out before my daughter’s school year was over. I was told we would be able to stay until she was done with school in late June. I didn’t believe it.
I had a short list of transactions to manage, the scheduling of rooms, the booking of coach buses, and the securing of a sound company for upcoming meetings. But all that would only be needed if the deal with UMass went through, and we wouldn’t know that until a week from today, and until then all these arrangements had to be made by me alone, as the matter was strictly confidential.
In the upcoming week, regularly scheduled meetings were cancelled, moved and rebooked. My team knew something was wrong, because I was never available, and when I was available, I was clearly not all there. That Monday evening, the College held our annual Passover Seder. I was planning to attend, and I did, despite the fact that the event was hosted by the President of the College, and I had to keep my mouth shut and act as if all was normal. I considered if a plague of frogs would have been a more tenable feeling than what I was currently experiencing.
On Tuesday, the fourth annual “Inspiration Nation” was held. The event was an interdisciplinary day of learning that included an early morning kick-ball tournament, a multi-disciplinary showcase of student work in disciplines across the institution, followed by a faculty and staff workshop on teaching civil disobedience and a keynote presentation. The keynote speaker was Frank Warren, founder of a community art project entitled “Post Secret” that encourages people to send homemade post cards to Frank with their secrets written anonymously on them.
“This is my favorite day of the year,” a faculty member said to me after Frank’s keynote. I thanked her and then went to my office and shut the door and wrote down my secret. I still haven’t mailed it, by week’s end the secret was out.
On Thursday, April 5th, that weekend’s admitted student day was cancelled with little or no explanation. The community felt something was coming, and on Friday, April 6th, it came crashing down. On that day, the Administrative Council of the College, the President’s Cabinet, sat in the conference room awaiting the vote from the UMass Board of Trustees. We had been holed up in the conference room with regularity over the last week, discussing plans should the UMass acquisition go through, and now, the decision was real. It was a go.
I sent a text message to my direct reports and said to meet me in the Executive Director of Athletics office. I breathed and looked at my daily planner a tool that I use, rather than exclusively using Outlook calendar. I feel it allows me to better plan and to better reflect. I take time daily to write down a paragraph, a thought, a quote, something that provided me with contemplative words that gave me context as to what I was managing that day both emotionally and practically. During the closure, this had a heightened level of importance.
When I met with my Direct Reports, I looked at my daily planner for the items I had scribbled down in the conference room once news of the vote came through:
· Classes will be cancelled Monday
· Meeting for students will be held tomorrow, Saturday, at 3pm
· Meetings will be held for faculty and Staff on Monday
· Actual date of closure will be announced next week …
I looked up after each statement to tears and looks of stunned silence. My heart broke. Five years prior, I was appointed to this position. And these individuals, along with the rest of the Division of Student Affairs staff, fulfilled each and every challenge I threw at them. They worked their tails off implementing strategic plans, overhauling operations, raising student satisfaction, and bringing our operations to a level that exceeded my expectations. I knew right then and there that I had pushed them harder than any other group of people I have ever worked alongside, and I also knew that I would never be able to replicate this team. This was a staff that was not merely recruited, it was curated.
Emails pinged. The announcement had been made.
We sat still as my Assistant VP read the email aloud. Emotions were rising, and while we had no idea what the next six weeks were going to be like, I was feeling a bit more settled knowing that this was the team that was going to lead the students through it. One person said what I was feeling: “I don’t want to work anywhere else, I want to work with you guys. I love working with you. This isn’t like other places.” In the rawness of the moment, we all agreed.
These individuals had helped guide the campus through other crisis events and the previously mentioned “disasters”. I knew they knew how to manage difficult situations, but this was going to be one that no one had ever considered, and I also knew I wouldn’t want to go through this with any other assembled team. It was clear that closure had become our new disaster plan.
As I walked across campus to my office, people were running and screaming like they were escaping a burning building. Veterinary Technology students dressed in their scrubs and walking beagles around campus scooped them up and ran for the kennel, student athletes found each other and grabbed ahold with their eyes shut and arms held tight, and faculty and staff simply shook their heads not knowing what to say and whom to say it to.
On Saturday at 3:00pm a meeting was held in Alumnae Hall for the students. The room was still set up from “Inspiration Nation” as we planned to use it for the now cancelled admitted student day that had been scheduled for that very same day. I was often quoted as saying Alumnae Hall looked like an old gymnasium in the era of the movie “Hoosiers.” It was always a challenge for the Student Affairs team to come up with ways to make the old barn look like anything but, and I am proud to say they often did a magnificent job. It’s amazing what a healthy dose of pipe and drape and up-lighting can do. But today, it didn’t look like a place of pride, it was a place of mourning.
I arrived for the student meeting at 2:45. The room was filling up. I looked to my left, and behind the pipe and drape were half a dozen members of the Board of Trustees. I choose to think they weren’t hiding from the students. Rather, I believe they were hiding from the emotions. As I worked my way to the front of the room, Kevin, a student who had overcome several learning challenges to finally earn his way to graduation after six years at Mount Ida, reached out to me and grabbed my hand, “Laura, please tell me you didn’t know about this.” I had not rehearsed how to answer this, maybe I should have. “Kevin, I found out a week ago. I couldn’t say anything. Besides, I live on campus, with my family. Don’t you think if I knew I would have gotten out of here?” Kevin knew I was telling the truth.
The event was planned to be kicked off with a statement by the President of the Associated Student Government, Mackenzie and then President Brown would take questions. In the audience I could see parents who were seething, students who were stunned, and faculty and staff who were processing. Six campus police officers lined the room. I had only requested two, but the additional officers showed up, believing that their presence was important, and they too, wanted to hear and see what was going to be discussed. The President of the Associated Student Government approached me. She loved Mount Ida College, but due to this love of the people and the place, she had to be mentored by her ASG advisors to find her voice as an advocate for the students, especially when it came to pointing out where administration could do a better job. As she clutched her manifesto and approached the microphone, Mustang City finally heard her voice.
She spoke with passion and strength about how she and others had given so much to the institution and how the individuals whom they had entrusted to lead the college were letting the students and the community down. She nobly fought back tears, but it would be inaccurate to say she didn’t cry. Rather, her emotion rang true, and her words were her own. She said she felt lied to, and people cheered. She said she was disappointed, and people cheered. She said she will never forget the place, and people cheered. I was proud of her, and I couldn’t hide my pride, which was seen clear as day on my face which was visible on the Facebook live stream via the ASG Facebook page. Despite the pain in my heart, it was full from what I was seeing over the next three hours. It wasn’t just that Mackenzie found her voice. The legacy of leadership that I had hoped to instill during my time as the Mount Ida College VPSA was that students would develop a pride of place, and there it was on full display.
During the remaining six weeks of the College, the Division of Student Affairs staff found unique roles for themselves as they helped accompany our students on their transition to their landing places. Each of our three varsity spring sports teams made it to post-season play; we held all of our traditional spring events, including spring weekend and the requisite awards ceremonies that grace campuses each April and May. Due to security concerns, we chose to move Commencement off campus to a venue that hosted over a dozen college commencements each spring. They had the proper staffing, and the size of the venue would accommodate our needs. Plus, it didn’t cost us any more money than keeping it on campus.
Days after the announcement, the senior class held a meeting and voted to un-invite the President of the College and the Board of Trustees as well as several members of the President’s Cabinet from Commencement. They decided to invite only those on the Cabinet who they determined were committed to the institution to the end, and that included the Provost, the Vice President for Advancement, the General Counsel, the Vice President for Human Resources, and me. The Class Officers also determined that the individuals who had been previously notified that they would be distinguished with an honorary degree would also no longer be invited to the event. While the students had no ill-will toward these people, neither did they have a connection to them. Rather, they decided to give honorary degrees to individuals who cared about them, including two professors, the head football coach, and two members of the dining hall staff. I too was privileged to receive such an honor and was asked to deliver the final Commencement address.
The senior class cabinet presided over the Commencement exercises. For anyone who has attended Commencements, you know it is a complex array of traditions in floppy hats with a heavy dose of “please rise”, “please be seated” and “honoris causa”. A well run Commencement is a tricky thing to pull off, and you know what? They did. It was a public display of unity and resilience.
In the week that followed Commencement, staff and faculty cleaned out their offices, and alumni came back and took photos. On the final day, many of us gathered on the turf field, where we sat on the 50-yard line, ate lunch and drank from bottles of wine and beer. As people ate lunch with one another, I soaked in the faces, the emotions and the moment. While I had curated my team, and led with legacy in mind, it wasn’t about me. It was about the wonderful and absolutely organic combination of humanity that is created when people work together for a common goal and objective.
On June 1, my family and I were required to move out of the college-owned home. As I had predicted, we weren’t able to stay much beyond the closure of the College. I was able to find a place to rent that allowed for my daughter to stay in her school. It was the only thing she asked for, to stay at her school with her teachers and her friends, and I was going to honor her wishes. She had experienced a level of loss in the closure that others had not, she was losing her childhood home, and I was not going to allow her to lose her school and her friends.
After we had unpacked in our new house, she asked to go back to campus to say good-bye one more time. We went into what had served as the administrative building on campus where a skeleton crew of a half dozen people were working through the transition. I dropped off my keys and some other items from the house that belonged to the college with the transition team, and then took one last walk through one of the grand living rooms. My daughter knew the space well, having helped to set up events there by my side. She walked up to one of the panels that was actually a “secret cabinet”. She pushed on the panel, and the door sprang open to an empty hiding place, and then my daughter pulled a note from her pocket placed it in the cabinet and shut the door.
“What did the note say?” I asked as we walked back to the car. “It says that Mount Ida College was my home, and I loved it here,” she said. Her secret lives in the walls of Mount Ida College and forever in her heart, as well as in the hearts of so many others.
Laura De Veau is the former, and forever, Vice President for Student Affairs at Mount Ida College. She is now the Principal & Founder of Fortify Associates, LLC.
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