Last year it was Cardinal Stritch University in Milwaukee, closing permanently. This year, even hosting the Packers for training camp might not be enough for St. Norbert in DePere. That retrenchment is in the news, but overshadowed, perhaps, by the closure of The University of the Arts in Philadelphia. Apparently the accreditors' cartel had something to do with it. "We would have shared this news with you directly, but the Middle States Commission on Higher Education elected to withdraw UArts' accreditation and announce before we could communicate with you." In some ways that accreditors' cartel behaves a lot like the state public service commissions, issuing directed service orders because a railroad's legal department didn't properly post the notices of discontinuance. "Accreditors have increasingly insisted that institutions facing significant financial turmoil keep their overseers informed and prepare plans for students to transfer to other institutions, among other things." Oh, and to continue the railroad metaphor, the current president at Arts came over from Marymount Manhattan, which was recently acquired by Northeastern. Well, if Penn Central could be forced to take on the New Haven ...
The closure might have been more noteworthy than most as Arts was the academic home of Camille Paglia. Glenn "Insta Pundit" Reynolds, an active researcher of the shakeout of higher education, quips "It’s funny — a few years ago, lefty students at UA wanted Camille Paglia gone. Now UA is gone."
I'm not sure where to place Professor Paglia in the cast of academic characters. On the one hand, sometimes she, and many times her fans, pointed to her as an example of the epistemic closure in the university, with none of the institutions with the U. S. News problem and English departments chock full of nuts wanted anything to do with her. On the other hand, as there are more high quality scholars in circulation than there are tenure line posts at the institutions with the U. S. News problem, that she kept active with her work and used the relative freedom of a department not in thrall to the latest academic fads to be a public intellectual is something that Paul Fussell, who, admittedly from a position of privilege at nearby Penn, mused in Class how sad it was that many professors who never got the call to an institution with the U. S. News problem devoted their lives to envy and bitterness rather than tackling the many intriguing problems the world poses with scholarship and wit. You might agree or not with Sexual Personae, and yet the scholarship and wit were there, irrespective of her affiliation. Whether that was true at those other classes providing safe spaces for lefty students is moot.
The retrenchments go on elsewhere. "Cuts announced in May are among the deepest reported so far this year. Layoffs, program reductions and other belt-tightening measures are largely being driven by the usual suspects: declining enrollment and increased operating costs." Let's call the roll: Columbia College, Chicago; Brandeis, Boston; St. Cloud State in Minnesota; Delta State, Mississippi; Lynchburg, Virginia, beware the boilerplate "After months of review and in-depth analysis, the University of Lynchburg announced a university-wide transformation today that will best address the needs of students and optimize the staff working experience, positioning the institution most effectively for the future;" Eastern Oregon, no plans to reorganize as Western Idaho; Viterbo, La Crosse, Wisconsin, I wonder if those teach-out agreements include refugees from Cardinal Stritch; Northland, Ashland, Wisconsin; Columbus State Community College, Ohio: I'll behave myself and not crack wise about the community college on the banks of the Olentangy; St. Norbert; Southern Maine, Portland; and Buffalo State, not to be confused with Mid-American member Buffalo in the same city. I mean, if Northeastern can buy a Manhattan campus, why are there two State University system campuses in Buffalo?
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