My best friend is married to her grad school professor. My D23 just found that out this year and was totally scandalized. It was nearly 30 years ago so times may have been a little different.
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About 30 years ago the wife of the President of McGill University pursued her Ph.D. there.
Story on the news tonight about Birmingham-southern closing but the baseball team going out with a bang. Hope they win.
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That’s a relatively well known name. Very sad for all involved.
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Delaware College of Art &Design closing end of spring 2024
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I have no idea how they stayed open as long as they did. Their enrollment has been unsustainably low. Certain things are required to keep a school going, and those things can’t necessarily be reduced just because enrollment is lower. I see that their accrediting body raised issues about enrollment decline in 2021, which means it had already been in a declining for a while by that time. It’s too bad that they didn’t make the decision in a timeframe that was better for students and staff. I suspect that the FAFSA issue was especially difficult for them, but they clearly knew that the writing was on the wall for several years.
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Marymount Manhattan merging with Northeastern, will become Northeastern - New York City. We could have an entire thread on Northeastern’s global expansion which has been quite impressive. Gift link:
This will be Northeastern’s 14th campus:
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I know a young woman who graduated from MM. The school was really flexible for her - she was accepted into the Rockettes while still in school, and she was able to dance and get her diploma. Hopefully, MM will be able to continue to accommodate the unique needs of students like this after the merger.
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That’s very interesting.
The “selectivity” measures are vastly different.
But obviously, for the long term, it will help the school survive - and hopefully avoid closing which will be great for its students.
And another NU IN.
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It will not be an NU In location. It will likely be similar to the Oakland and London campuses.
Will be interesting if that’s an option, this generation definitely likes urban campuses.
But Pres Aoun said this in the NYT article:
Joseph Aoun, the president of Northeastern, said he wanted to tap a far larger market for lifelong learners in New York — people who need to “re-skill and upskill” as technology reshapes the job market. He said that Marymount Manhattan, like Northeastern, had “placed great emphasis on interdisciplinary and experiential learning,” making the two schools a good fit.
No reason they can’t serve both purposes.
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I recently visited with an old college friend who taught at Mills for decades. She said that since NE took over, while she said the students were well prepared, classes in her department tripled in size.
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I have also read that when Northeastern took over, the Mills faculty members received their first raise in 10 years.
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Well yikes, if a class has 90 students instead of 30, they should get paid more!!!
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I understand how the students at Mills feel. I was at a school that changed hands during the time I was there. The school was run by a corporation, and the president of the corporation decided to shut the school down as a money saving move. We felt dumped and betrayed. The school didn’t close - it became an independent school. There were growing pains, but the truth is that little actually changed in my final two years under the new ownership (other than higher tuition). We knew that change was in the wind & it was unsettling. The school we knew and loved would be changed forever. This happened almost 45 years ago. It’s definitely very different today, but it’s still a great school. The program is different but still strong, and the facilities are greatly improved. It took a number of years to get to such a good place, but thanks to forward looking alumni, it’s a success story. So I understand how students feel, but I also know that the possibility of a bright future beats a closed school.
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Respectfully, as a Mills alumna, there was a lot that went on behind the scenes with NU that felt unsavory. It is also certainly appropriate and valid for Mills students and alumnae/i to mourn the loss of a vibrant learning space that was previously a safe haven for queer BIPOC students.
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Tana is making a profound point.
I get the financial realities. I understand how to leverage under-utilized assets. I am definitely in favor of making/keeping colleges strong and financially healthy and all of these things.
But there IS something lost when a big institution merges with/takes over a quirky institution which was known for something else. Even if that “something else” is no longer in vogue, doesn’t get kids into med schools or nifty jobs at Google, or has coops.
Not picking on Northeastern- they’re doing what they do. I felt this with Marlboro which was a really special place- as was Mills, College of New Rochelle (they had legal issues-- lots of them- and really bad stuff with the IRS), etc.
I guess we can feel multiple things at once?
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Agreed. It isn’t as if Northeastern did anything predatory to cause these colleges to fail; they were already struggling and looking for a partnership or buy-out option. And they have taken some measures to preserve the “legacy” of Mills. The Mills Institute at Northeastern University - Northeastern University Oakland But the living, breathing entity that was Mills College is gone, and that is a huge loss. Even more so since so many of the Northeastern students at the Oakland campus don’t even want to be there, and are just “paying their dues” for a year in order to get to Boston.
I hope Northeastern won’t gut the performing arts programs at Marymount Manhattan - this isn’t an area of strength generally for NU, but they could either take this opportunity to add an area of strength (how could a musical theater program in NYC not be a draw?!?) or they could just take over the location and “Northeastern-ize” it, which is what has happened at Mills, other than the Institute.
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I understand completely. It sounds like Mills would no longer have existed without the merger … but it no longer exists with the merger. It’s not the same model and doesn’t serve the Mills students. If students were led to believe that things would be the same only better, they were most likely misled. I can’t believe that the administration from Mills didn’t understand that the essence of what it is to be Mills would change. But they had to pretend (maybe even hope) that all would be well so that they could try to limit the fallout. I get it from a business standpoint, but it seems wrong in terms of serving the students.
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