Member News

Marylhurst, an independent institution near Portland, Ore., announced this month that it would close after 125 years, with its leaders saying they preferred it to die with dignity than limp on. The Board of Trustees plans to return the campus to the religious order that founded the college.  As is common when colleges close, faculty members, students and some alumni have objected to the decision and are urging the university's leaders to reconsider. They have questioned, among other things, how a university that was ahead of its time in its focus on adult students and its embrace of innovative approaches to learning lost its way.

The Editorial Board writes:  The traumatic shutdown of Mount Ida College (MA) didn’t have to cause as much turmoil as it did for students. A few towns away, another college faced its own crisis — and handled it much better.  

The president of a private Christian college in northwest Iowa apologized Tuesday for equating sexual assaults with gay relationships in a reflection piece he shared with students, faculty, alumni and community members.  Greg Christy, president of Northwestern College (IA) since 2008, had written that “pornography, premarital sex, adultery, sexual assault, the objectification of women, and same-sex activity all exemplify the brokenness of sexual desire and expression.”  Reaction was swift to the piece posted on Northwestern’s Facebook page Friday morning.

The vice president for academic affairs at Villa Maria College (NY) for the past six years has been named the college's interim president.  Matthew Giordano succeeds Sister Marcella Marie Garus, said Board of Trustees Chairperson Catherine Grantier Cooley. Garus announced her retirement in March after serving as president for 40 years.  Giordano will begin July 1 and remain until the permanent appointment of the college’s fourth president can be named, according to the college.

The University of Chicago has agreed to pay $6.5 million to settle a class action alleging that it did failed its fiduciary duty to employees in ways that forced them to pay excessive fees in their retirement plan, Investment News reported.