The Sad News of Eastern Nazarene's Decision

When the odds are stacked against you

Like many people involved in Christian Higher Education, especially those connected to the Church of the Nazarene, I was stunned this week to see the news that Eastern Nazarene College’s Board of Trustees had begun a plan for closing the institution as has existed. The college website includes this announcement from the Board.

The Board of Trustees of Eastern Nazarene College has voted unanimously to begin the process of closing ENC and transitioning it into a new educational enterprise that will carry on ENC’s legacy of providing a transformational education that equips diverse students to lead and serve our world as agent of Christ’s love and truth.

I’m not sure what the “new educational enterprise” will mean. Likely, neither to they. As I understand things, they will be open for the fall semester in attempt to get seniors graduated. Plans are in place for other students to transfer to other institutions.

Having spent 15 years in Nazarene institutions with ENC as a sister school, this one struck closer to home. I have friends who were faculty members there, who were cabinet officers, and even was connected to some of their presidents. I have been aware of their struggles for a long time.

I had interviewed the current president about ENC’s cooperation with state agencies to serve migrant populations. I had hoped to use it as an example in my Fearless Christian University book¹. Under the circumstances, it’s less apt.

The simple announcement above doesn’t give any information about the factors the board and administration considered in making their decision. But like most other struggling institutions, you begin that conversation with enrollment. More specifically, it’s the gap between the tuition revenue coming from that enrollment against the costs of institutional operation. At some point, you can’t cut your way out of trouble.

I went to IPEDS to see what I could learn about ENC’s enrollment. That gave me data from 2005 to 2022. As this chart shows, they had around 1,000 students from 2005 to 2016. One year (2014) was very strong and one (2009) fell far short.

The bottom dropped out in 2017. Each subsequent year was slightly smaller than the year before. By 2022, enrollment was half of what it had been six years earlier. Enrollment struggles have burdened many smaller colleges. As the Quincy paper wrote:

Like all small, private, liberal arts colleges, Eastern Nazarene has faced significant financial headwinds in recent years, the board said in its announcement. During that time, the Board and multiple presidents have pursued numerous alternatives to closure. While these efforts produced fruit that enabled ENC to continue operating until now, the underlying challenges have intensified.

There are many reasons for these “financial headwinds”.² Competition among liberal arts college in the Northeast is fierce. A simple Google search turned up 62 such institutions, many of them with long-standing reputations. It’s hard for a Christian liberal arts college to gain visibility, even if it does have the Boston experience to share. The other two CCCU institutions that have closed in recent years, Kings College and Alliance/Nyack, were also in the Northeast.

Last year, Ryan Burge noted that in 2022 the percentage of Nones in the Northeast was greater than the previous leader of Oregon and Washington. It stands to reason that this makes life much more difficult for a Christian liberal arts college to recruit a student body.

For a variety of reasons, ENC has been burdened with patterns of frequent leadership turnover. A new president of VPAA comes on board with great plans and dreams and then is gone a few years later. Starting from scratch like that destroys institutional momentum.

Small colleges do not have the reserves that larger institutions have. Their endowments are meager and they are happy when the end the fiscal year with a minor surplus. Catastrophic events like COVID can weaken institutional resources further. Just today, Inside Higher Ed reported that smaller colleges are being hit by the delay in FAFSA availability which has affected fall enrollment.

There are historic factors in play for ENC as well. In the 1960s, the Church of the Nazarene opened two new colleges in the US: Midamerica Nazarene in Olathe, KS and Mount Vernon Nazarene in Ohio. They briefly operated as two year schools before become liberal arts institutions in their own right. A colleague of mine at Olivet Nazarene, whose father had been a church leader in New England, argued that the denomination’s action — taking away previous feeder regions in Eastern Ohio, Eastern Kentucky, and West Virginia — had significantly damaged ENC.

In the late 80s, I drove the editor of the denominational magazine to O’hare. Along the way, we talked higher education. He argued that the denomination, rather than creating two new institutions, would have been better to concentrate its efforts to create three vibrant universities: one on the West coast, one on the East coast, and one in the center of the country. Such institutions could have developed the critical mass to have about 5,000 students. Instead, the colleges all seemed intent on being within driving distance of the churches. I’ve often pondered what would have happened if we had followed his advice. Certainly ENC would be in a different place.

Yesterday on Facebook, I came across this excellent piece by Jeffrey Scott. His great-grandfather and grandfather were both presidents of ENC. Naturally, the news from ENC hit him hard. In the midst of his grieving, he spoke of the disaffection that arose between the college and students of his generation.

I might add the school failed to be representative of a significant portion of recent alumni as well. My own class (’98) had little interest in staying connected. This past fall we celebrated our 25^th reunion. I was there with one other classmate and a visitor from another class who showed up to chat. We shared donuts for 30.

He goes on to discuss meaningful professors, both of whom were accused of “being liberal”.³ The school, rather than supporting them, saw them as potential sacrifices to keep conservative constituents at bay.

In his piece, he ties together many of the themes I’ve raised here. He also speaks to the central thesis of The Fearless Christian University.

In a world that is evolving, ultimately ENC could not, and it is a microcosm of a reality the Nazarene denomination is facing. ENC’s closure has as much to do with a denominational crisis of identity as it does with financial instability. It has been a house divided, and we know what happens to houses like that.

So I’m left with this a sense of loss, not just at another Christian university closing, but at the overwhelming sense that it didn’t have to be this way.

1. Some FCU updates: I now know that the book will come out in February 2025. I have completed editing page proofs and the descriptive copy that will be in the Eerdmans catalog. I have seen the cover art (it’s great!) but am not allowed to share it until August.

2. Can’t administrators come up with a new metaphor?

3. Naturally, they are both friends of mine.