Member News

Facing a $6.2 million budget shortfall, Saint Martin’s University in Lacey has resorted to a series of cuts to get its budget back in order. Cuts have been made to faculty pay, and faculty members are not happy about it, according to emails and a social media link shared with The Olympian. The Facebook post calls on the college to “honor the contracts” of faculty, which has attracted dozens of concerned comments.

In the wake of the much-publicized financial crises faced by Birmingham-Southern College, small private colleges and universities across Mississippi have been working hard to remain resilient in the face of their own institutional challenges. While donations and larger endowments can “provide a cushion” for challenging times for any institution, Barbara Mistick, president of the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities (NAICU), said institutions must cultivate their own strategies to overcome tough times.
 

Eight years ago, the president of Sweet Briar College abruptly announced that the more-than-century-old school would shut down. Horrified alumnae rushed in to save the small private women’s college in Virginia — and they did. Now, after a national search, one of those women, Mary Pope Maybank Hutson, will be the school’s 14th president, college leaders announced Thursday. She’ll be the first alumna in the role.

After 103 years, The College of Saint Rose is closing its doors. The school’s Board of Trustees voted Thursday to close at the end of the academic year after the May 11 graduation. Saint Rose interim President Marcia White confirmed the decision in a letter to the campus community Thursday evening.

The Vermont State Colleges system said Wednesday it tapped Elizabeth Mauch, the president of Bethany College, an Evangelical institution in Kansas, to be its next chancellor. Mauch is slated to take over the system on Jan. 1. She will lead the Community College of Vermont and the system’s newly merged four-year institution, Vermont State University, created through a union of Castleton University, Northern Vermont University and Vermont Technical College.