For This Small College, a Merger Was a Lifeline. Now It’s the Focus of Suspicion.

On a September afternoon in 2008, Thomas R. Ahlersmeyer and Patrick T. Ferry found themselves sitting next to each other in an Oregon airport. The two college presidents had been together for a meeting of the Concordia University system, which is composed of six campuses operated by the Missouri Synod, a Lutheran denomination. Ahlersmeyer was awaiting his flight home to Concordia’s Ann Arbor branch, and Ferry to its Wisconsin arm, in Mequon. Ahlersmeyer was returning to a campus on shaky financial ground, while Ferry’s had solid footing. Nearly five years later, the conversation bore fruit. The two colleges agreed on an acquisition of Ann Arbor’s campus by the Wisconsin branch, which the two sides called a merger.