By Ryan Scott
D3hoops.com

I went to Eastern Nazarene College under rumors of closing. For decades, students were told, “it won’t be there when you graduate.” From what I understand, those were not unfounded rumors; the financial situation has been dire often over the years. I’m not sure that’s unusual for a small liberal arts institution, even before the demographic cliff.

That’s a phrase gaining popularity, but one familiar to higher ed administrators for a while now. Today there are simply fewer college-aged humans in existence than there were, and this will be the case for the foreseeable future. The result is increased competition for students and less chance these small schools will fill their classes and be able to remain open.

Division III has seen 10 of its member schools close since COVID; more are likely on the chopping block. ENC’s trustees have been very open that it would’ve closed earlier without the government intervention to support struggling businesses and institutions through the pandemic.

Still, when you operate under the cloud of closing for decades, it’s hard to believe it will ever happen. I’ve talked to so many employees and alums who assumed they’d find a solution at the last minute as they had so many times before.

There was a lot of denial and plenty of blame to throw around.

Reality, though, is that our beloved institution was on life support for a long time. In fact, that’s the analogy I heard most often since the closure was announced in July — it’s like sitting at the bedside of an aging relative. Everyone knows it’s time to let go, but that doesn’t make it any less painful.

I have a lot of compassion for those who’ve shepherded my alma mater into death — and while I think ENC has done as well as possible to close a college responsibly, none of it is good. There’s no good timing to do this sort of thing.

Yes, announcing in the spring might have given faculty and staff more time to find new employment, but the outlook for jobs in higher education isn’t exactly bright, and announcing too soon leads to an exodus of students and speeds up closure.

It would be very kind to extend generous severance packages to get people through the transition, but colleges are non-profit entities and governed by the state in which they reside — there are a lot of legal limitations to what money can be spent once the school moves towards closure.

For most people, nostalgia reigns. Those who care about the school 20 or 30 or 80 years later (the oldest living ENC alums graduated in the ’40s) probably had a good experience, and losing the school feels like a loss of those positive memories.

The reality is, struggling institutions change and change often. I graduated in 2003 and by my 5th reunion only one of my professors was still working at the school. Retirement, financial concerns, and administrative changes drove faculty and staff away en masse. ENC has been virtually unrecognizable to me since, which created enough emotional distance for me to handle closing without much mourning.

To its credit, ENC did a remarkable job of maintaining the student experience through most of its troubles. While the campus culture may have been different, the passion and care for students that make small liberal arts colleges so valuable remained.

That ended with COVID. When you cannot enjoy the camaraderie of knowing everyone on campus, because you’re stuck at home or in your rooms, most of the draw to these schools is removed. Why spend the extra money for none of the benefit?

ENC also suffered from the increasing cultural divide in our country; one that’s even more stark in conservative Christian circles. Some parents and donors thought the school was too liberal, others that it was too conservative; neither was excited to send their kids there.

I’m a fifth generation member of the Church of the Nazarene and the third straight generation to be clergy in the denomination. My father and grandfather also graduated from ENC; my dad and all three of his brothers met their spouses there. I was in school with four of my cousins and additional extended family; our classmates were often children of people who went to ENC with my parents. It was that kind of place.

It was bittersweet to attend the final homecoming in October. I’d missed my 20th reunion the year before, so it was good closure. My wife and I were able to show our 12 year old daughter around and put physical places to the stories she’d heard. At the same time, it was odd to be told, basically, to take whatever wasn’t nailed down.

We now have more ENC gear than we’d owned since we were students. My wife will have an ENC stool from the athletic department in her office for the rest of her career. People walked out of the science building with beakers and test tubes; the library was practically looted with souvenir books that bear the school stamp as mementos.

We laughed and re-told stories and connected with people we will likely only ever see again on Facebook. It was about the best funeral you could imagine. Except all the people are still alive. 

Students transferred. Staff are struggling to figure out what’s next. In the end, a lot of good people will be spared a lot of future stress, no longer struggling to keep ENC open — but it sure comes at a steep price.

I feel bad when people ask how I’m handling it. I’m heartbroken for those losing their jobs. ENC subsidized housing for a lot of employees in the extreme real estate market of greater Boston; many of them will have to move. At the same time, if I’m honest, it’s a relief to me. I feel great loyalty to ENC and incredible appreciation for my experience there, but there was little chance my daughter would attend and now I don’t have to feel guilty about that.

I suppose, nominally, this article should be about sports, given where it’s published. Athletics was a big part of my time at ENC. In the best tradition of Division III, our sports teams were populated by fellow students. There was little divide between the athletes and everyone else. With 600 students on campus, everyone was “everyone else.” We went to games because we were supporting our friends.

I attended every home contest of every team for my four years in Quincy. I followed the men’s basketball team home and away senior year, which culminated in an 8 seed over 1 seed upset at hated Endicott in the conference tournament. I cheered on our 70-plus year old college President who ran in the only cross country meet we ever hosted on campus (he finished in under an hour). 

I was in charge of intramurals my senior year, and brought a three-foot orange traffic cone to games, creating enough of a distraction to warrant a memo from the conference office to referees. I logged on to a site called D3hoops.com in January of 2000 to find out who our women’s basketball team might play in the national tournament — they made the Sweet 16 that year — for decades the only ENC squad to ever make an NCAA Tournament.

There is a real athletic legacy that will be lost. ENC and Gordon, the only two non-Catholic religious colleges in New England, used to square off at Boston Garden before Celtics games twice a year. ENC sponsored women’s intercollegiate athletics a decade before Title IX.

I think about similar legacies at places like Cabrini and Birmingham-Southern and Wesley, which was the closest Division III school to where I live now and was the only one in Delaware. Those are great memories and those who feel the losses will never not have that empty space within us. But time moves on.

One of the constant truisms in higher ed is that there’s always another class coming in. I remember being at move-in day the year after I graduated (my now-wife was still a student). Even though I’d been in student government, worked in the mailroom, a third generation student, knew everyone on campus, just three months after graduation the place had already moved on.

For thousands of alums across a dozen institutions, the last few years have been about moving on without the presence of their alma mater. That number will continue to grow in future years. I’m not sure what to do about it. I have no solution or strategy, other than to keep pressing on. As when a loved one dies, nothing is ever the same.

The reality is, though, each of our college experiences were unique. Nobody’s college was ever the same once we left. We’re living and re-living the legacy of a specific time and place. No one can ever take that away.

They’re making plans to tear down ENC’s athletic facility, to build houses on the soccer field (which was constantly flooded, by the way, just two blocks from the ocean — so buyers beware). We literally will not be able to go back in the future — but what we can do, of course — the primary thing a beloved college experience is supposed to enable — is to move forward. It’s not the same, but, then again, it never is.

My condolences to those who mourn and blessings for the road ahead.