Shuttered St. Joseph’s College plots a comeback, even as doubts hang over 3-year plan – Journal & Courier
Saint Joseph’s College, shuttered since 2017, has a new, three-year plan toward rebirth. What it will look like and why some alumni and people in Rensselaer have their doubts it will work
RENSSELEAR – When Saint Joseph’s College comes back – and Bill Carroll, adviser and spokesman for the private, four-year institution that closed nearly three years ago, insists it will be when, rather than if – it will mean leaning on partnerships with stronger colleges and universities.
Given the increasingly shaky standing emerging for other small, four-year liberal arts colleges since Saint Joe’s shut down in May 2017, Carroll suggests the college – with a new, three-year plan meant to restore life at the 131-year-old campus in Rensselaer – might wind up being seen as a leader.
“I think we’re a beacon of hope,” Carroll said this week, after a letter went out to alumni that gave a rough, three-year outline of the way trustees plan to breathe life back into Saint Joseph’s.
“I know it’s been a hotly contested idea that the board closed down in 2017 – and voluntarily so,” said Carroll, the former president of Benedictine University in Illinois, owner of consulting firm Hunter Global Education and hired in March 2019 by the shuttered Saint Joseph’s as an adviser. “There’s been a lot of criticism of that and a lot of hard feelings. But, OK, that’s finished – that’s behind us. How do we move forward?”