By Bill Kurtz
Catholic Herald

Now or never at embattled Mount Senario College

LADYSMITH -- Mount Senario College here is in its 40th year. The next three months will determine if there will be a 41st.

"We're working feverishly seven days a week to bring financial stability," said interim president Charles Holt. "We're also doing a lot of praying."

The college was founded in 1962 by Servite nuns, starting in a two-story house where high school-age candidates for the sisterhood had lived. A lay board of trustees took over the college a decade later, but many nuns continued to teach here.

Financially, "the school has been unstable since 1972," said Holt. More than once, he added, "it gets bailed out for a few years," then winds up back on the financial brink.

Dewey Floberg, an assistant professor of business, recalled that in 1980, "my first month, Dr. (Robert) Lovett was locked out of his office," referring to the school's third president. Holt is the eighth to head the school.

The current crisis began in November 2000, when the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools placed Mount Senario on probation due to concerns over its deficit-ridden finances. Holt had arrived a few months earlier, as academic vice president, after a lengthy career at Morehead (Ky.) State University.

"When I interviewed, they were preparing to add master's programs," Holt said. Instead he found himself propelled into the presidency after his predecessor, Norman Stewart, was ousted last March. The final straw was when a bank loan was called while Stewart was vacationing in England.

"We could not make payroll last summer," Holt admitted. "We should have closed." But the City of Ladysmith and Rusk County rescued the college with several moves:

* The county-owned hospital bought a Mount Senario building for $1,150,000, then agreed to lease it back to the college.

* The city purchased a college athletic field for $125,000, also on a lease-back basis.

* The city facilitated sale of college-owned land, where a motel is now being built.

The county and city arranged a $150,000 short-term loan that has since been repaid.

With these moves, Holt said. "we thought we were home free." But the president said the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 delivered an unexpected financial punch.

Holt explained that Mount Senario operates a Milwaukee outreach program in law enforcement training. In the wake of Sept. 11, he said, "approximately one-third of our students dropped out," as military reservists were called up and police worked longer hours.

The deficit re-emerged. Holt wouldn't specify how large it was, but the St. Paul Pioneer Press estimated it as "close to $500,000." Holt said the school's trustees instructed him to eliminate enough positions to save at least $500,000. He wouldn't say how many positions were slashed.

The board also voted Dec. 12 to eliminate the college's athletic program immediately. Published accounts have estimated athletics made up $750,000 of a $5 million budget, while the Pioneer Press, which called the suspension of athletics "a last-ditch move to avoid a potential shutdown," estimated that more than half of Mount Senario's students were athletes. Holt said enrollment here dropped from 312 last fall to 250 now.

In Holt's view, "sports have run the school" in the past. "Two previous presidents tried to take on athletics. We had individuals more interested in making it to the NFL" than in studies, even though no Mount Senario athlete has ever made a major-league professional team's roster.

While the president had mixed feelings about eliminating the sports program, he concluded "how can you be cutting staff and faculty and not touch intercollegiate athletics?"

Holt noted that there was no athletic program when the Servites started the college. "It was a very focused mission, to serve rural northwestern Wisconsin," he said, vowing to "return this college to its central mission. For too long, the institution has depended on out-of-state students from Miami, St. Louis or Detroit" to survive.

"We hope to still have students from around the world, but our mission is to serve this area of Wisconsin," Holt declared.

The president admits schools like Mount Senario, rural colleges with less than 1,000 students, face an uphill battle. But he insists Mount Senario plays a vital role for students from small high schools who might be intimidated by colleges with bigger enrollments, or students from more comprehensive high schools.

"This school has not gone and built big buildings," Holt said. "We've gone to schools and police and fire stations and asked them what (training) they needed."

Holt is also proud of Mount Senario's graduates. "We've got dozens of teachers who graduated from this school, and they're great teachers," he declared. Some might not have graduated from other colleges, "they weren't 4.0 students, but these farm kids have common sense, a great work ethic, and they understand kids."

But everything will depend on a May visit from North Central officials to review the school's finances. "Our last two audits show deficits," Holt said. We've known we need to demonstrate a balanced budget this year. Everybody would like to know we'll be open in the fall, but it would be a mistake to say we definitely will."

"We are determined to meet their criteria," Holt said of North Central, adding that he thinks trustees "would rather close" than remain open without accreditation.

The president admitted that if the decision had to be made now, the college would probably lose accreditation. But that decision isn't until May and Mount Senario will keep fighting until then. And, Holt quipped, "at least twice a week my wife buys a lottery ticket."

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