Dear Commons Community
The College of Saint Rose, a Roman Catholic institution in Albany, N.Y., will close its doors at the end of the spring semester, following years of declining enrollment and labor battles. The institution’s board voted on the closure last week. The president, Marcia J. White, called the decision “truly heartbreaking” in her announcement to the campus community on Friday.
Saint Rose, which was founded in 1920 and enrolled nearly 2,800 students in the fall of 2022, according to federal data, has endured years of financial hardship, which came to a head this week when it asked the City of Albany, Albany County, and the State of New York for emergency funding, as the Albany Times Union reported. None of those entities were able to provide an immediate bailout, leading the college’s board to call it quits.
Here are further details as provided by The Daily Gazette and The Albany Times Union.
After news organizations broke the news Thursday afternoon that The College of Saint Rose will close next year, President Marcia White was met Friday with boos, and angry students and staff while explaining why the school will permanently close in May.
The announcement with students and staff was held at the Massry Center for the Arts, but ahead of the speech, some would-be attendees were told they could not enter as the 405-seat hall was at maximum capacity. One staff member said they were not expecting so many people to show up. They scrambled to set up speakers outside in the hall for the leftover people who were not allowed in, as they did, one student commented, “They couldn’t even get this right.”
The College of Saint Rose’s Board of Trustees voted to close the school on Thursday. The college’s Board of Trustees Chair Jeffrey Stone kicked off the announcement on Friday, saying cost-cutting and fundraising efforts by the college were not enough to bridge the financial gap the institution faces.
“As it became more clear that the college would be unable to continue as a standalone institution, we sought financial support from the legislature and other elected officials and, behind the scenes, actively sought to partner with a like-minded institution of higher learning to continue our 103 years. But, those efforts were unsuccessful. The board’s decision to close The College of Saint Rose was not an easy one,” Stone said.
Only a few minutes into his speech, he was met with booing from the crowd. When White interjected to tell students to be more respectful, the crowd both inside and outside the hall only voiced their anger louder.
White spoke after and said she wanted to address what she called factual errors and misinformation in media reports of the closure. Earlier last week, the Albany Times Union reported that the school was facing mounting debt and had lobbied state officials for emergency funds.
“It was reported that we recently reached out to various political leaders for a financial bailout. That is not true. We never asked for a bailout. That was not a request for immediate funding,” White said. “It was a request for bridge funding to support operations through the 2024-2025 academic year to give us time to work towards a continuation of the college’s critical programs to a potential partnership with another institution and to the programs that significantly increase the professional workforce in fields that are facing a shortage of crisis proportion in New York State.”
Speaking to reporters following the community gathering, White criticized reporters for breaking the news of the college’s closing.
“The only reason that I’m not a wreck and in tears is I am so angry at the fact that our students, our faculty, our employees, their parents, the parents of our students had to hear this news in the press, rather than from us today, which is a time we had put aside to do a personal message to them and have a conversation,” she said.
She also reiterated that the request for state funding was not a “bailout,” but a request for “bridge funding.”
White said the college had been in financial trouble for about 10 years and there was a decline in enrollment that was exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. She said, during that time, the school cut $9 million in administrative costs and $6 million in academic programs, while also looking for potential partnerships. She said the school signed non-disclosure agreements, so she could not share which institutions were approached. It is also unclear how big a budget gap the school faces.
Another question is what will happen to the college’s 48-acre campus in the city’s Pine Hills neighborhood. In a joint statement, Albany Mayor Kathy Sheehan and Albany County Executive Dan McCoy expressed their sadness for the students and staff.
“We are in close communication with City and County stakeholders, state and local government leaders, academia, and developers to ensure that we are all working together to reimagine the CSR campus to minimize the impact of the College’s closure,” the statement read. “In the coming weeks and months, we will also work with the College’s staff to connect them to job opportunities with the City, County, and other local employers through job fairs and other events.”
Sad news for the College’s students, faculty, and staff and the City of Albany!
Tony
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