Get Busy Livin' or Get Busy Dyin'

Colleges fail.  They close.  "On average, five private 4-year non-profit colleges and universities have closed per year over the last ten years, with as many as 9 institutions closing in 2009" (Digest of Education Statistics, 2013).  They close because of low enrollment, small endowments, high debt, and deferred maintenance.  Among twenty indicators listed by Martin and Samel in their 2009 book, Turnaround: Leading Stressed Colleges and Universities to Excellence, a college risks closure when:

o   its enrollment is below 1000 students.

o   it depends on tuition for more than 85% of its operating budget.

o   more than 10% of its annual operating budget goes to servicing debt.

o   the average annual alumni gift is less than $75.

o   it can't develop an online program.

o   it hasn't developed a new degree program for at least two years.

o   the institution is on probation, warning, or financial watch with a regional accreditor.

Colleges close for reasons only tangentially related to leadership style, communication transparency, instructional quality, distinctive facilities, faculty commitment, student loyalty, or alumni nostalgia.  While those factors feel most central to institutional identity and constituent experience, none have the power to keep a failing college above water.

Furthermore (and perhaps harder to accept), loving Jesus exempts no business from the market forces that closed Circuit City, Borders, Woolworth, and Blockbuster.  In an April 2013 New York Times article, Jeffrey Selingo soberly quantifies the likelihood of institutional persistence.  "Only 500 or so of the 4,000-plus colleges and universities in the United States seem to have stable enough finances to be truly safe.  The remaining colleges… can no longer hold off the technological, demographic and economic forces quickly bearing down on them."

Idyllic Montreat College

Some vocal alums imagine they're owed transparent communication, that they merit a voice in a conversation of decision-makers.  But Montreat grads are a strange bunch.  Yes, survivors of the residential tradition return to the Barn for homecoming square dances, but so few of us offer the school our financial support that the low percentage of alumni donors recently threatened Montreat's bid for re-accreditation.  We don't give to the school.  And we rarely send our children.

Part of that is Montreat's own fault.  As one example, the school's recruitment strategy has historically privileged men's baseball over women's soccer.  To be blunt, baseball players often require significant tuition discounts.  Women's soccer players, by contrast, tend to come from the lucrative demographic of families able to pay the full cost of college.

Additionally, the school's selection of majors has long dumped graduates into low-earning professions. Degrees in Music, Religion, and Outdoor Education infrequently predict high-dollar philanthropy.  The satisfying but intangible nobility of those majors doesn't endow chairs or renovate dorms.

Yes, other college alumni typically have a place at the table.  They help to steer the legacy of their respective institutions.  But they pay for the privilege.

We might prefer that Montreat's leadership team explain the college ledger, line by gruesome line, to those who imagine themselves stakeholders.  But if the board is trying to secure a merger, a savior-donor, a new president, or even a larger student body, that's probably not the wisest public relations maneuver.  I'm not defending silence or obfuscation – of which there has been much.  But if I were desperately attempting to increase the college's curb appeal, I wouldn't simultaneously broadcast its every fiscal liability.

Instead, I'd play my financial cards close to my chest, publicly committing to no one option, yet investigating them all.  Yep. That's what I'd do if I held a hundred families in my palm.  That's what I'd do if a word from me could close a retirement account or end health coverage or send a sophomore scrambling to continue her education elsewhere. I wouldn't lie, but neither would I add to the fire of speculation.  I wouldn't injure or unduly panic any of my friends until no option remained.

That's how I'd play it if I feared Montreat would soon appear on a list of 130-odd closed or merged North Carolina colleges. That's what I'd do if I owned the school.  But I don't.  The trustees do.  As much as we may wish they were beholden to stock owners, they are not.  They are proprietors of a privately held business obliged to balance the books within the constraints of the law.  They are Ernst & Young, Publix Super Markets, Pilot Gas Stations.

I understand the instinctive need to embrace dear memories, to defend precious ideals.  I, too, wooed a sweetheart on the shores of Lake Susan. I cheered teams to victory from the bleachers of McAlister Gym.  I slept through French classes in Gaither Hall.  I cried at the funeral of Professor Bonnie Lundblad.  And I surrender not one of these memories to inflexible economic realities.  I begrudge no man his conscience.  I encourage no one to abandon the struggle to keep Montreat alive and kicking (though panic in the game's final seconds seems insincere when the need for a new and winning strategy has been evident since halftime).

Things end.  Often without dignity.  Seldom timed to our liking.  Many endings owe nothing to the Fall's corrosive influence.  They simply occur because God ordained time to work as a one-way, forward flow from one event to another.

Things end because the God of kindergarten is also the God of graduation.  The God of happy birthdays is the God of old age.  The God of flight is the God of gravity.  The God of rainbows is the God of rain.  Through starting pistols and finish lines alike, our God speaks his will into the world.  Selective proof-texting too often confines God to the cage of Alpha.  We should not forget he also merits worship for being, gloriously and authoritatively, the Omega.