By Bill Kurtz
Catholic Herald
Mount Senario loses its struggle for survival
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After 40 years of serving students, Mount Senario College, shown here in a February photo, will close its doors Aug. 31. The school has been unable to overcome severe financial problems. (Photo by Jeff Peters) |
LADYSMITH -- Mount Senario College, whose struggle for survival was described in the Catholic Herald two months ago, will close Aug. 31, 40 years after it was founded by Servite nuns. Students were informed April 16, and some employees have already been laid off.
"Every effort is being made to get the students into other colleges," said Craig Voldberg, director of the Newman and Young Adult Ministry Center on campus. He declined to comment further.
The college had been placed on probation by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools in November 2000 due to concerns over its deficit-ridden finances. "We could not make payroll last summer," president Charles Holt told the Catholic Herald two months ago, but the City of Ladysmith and Rusk County rescued the college by purchasing property and arranging a short-term loan.
In a last-ditch effort to survive, the school eliminated its athletic program immediately on Dec. 12. But the move helped slice enrollment from 312 last fall to 231 now.
"We just ran out of money," trustee Robert Fraser told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. "We're very dependent, almost entirely dependent on revenue from students." The newspaper reported Mount Senario was $2.85 million in debt.
The Journal Sentinel estimated Mount Senario's annual impact on Ladysmith's economy at $20-25 million, and State Rep. Marty Reynolds (D-Ladysmith), who also is Ladysmith's mayor, called the closing "economically devastating." Reynolds also told the Journal Sentinel that Mount Senario "has been a source of learning and living experiences that we won't otherwise have."
The Servite Order transferred control of the college to its board of trustees in 1972, a decade after the school was founded, but many nuns continued to work there.
"The sisters feel badly, of course," one Servite nun who declined to be named told the Catholic Herald. But she added that the nuns took satisfaction that during its 40 years the school they founded "helped a lot of area people get degrees and get into good professions."
© Superior Catholic Herald, 2002