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With apologies to Thomas Paine: These are the times that try college's souls. During the past three decades, each cycle of economic recession has claimed a handful of small private colleges. The reasons that each closed are complex and varied. Some were born in the euphoria of the 1960s and lacked the depth of resources required to survive. Others failed to adapt historic, often church-related, missions and curricula to evolving and dynamic external environments. And a few fell victim to conflicts of vision, philosophy, and operation between boards of trustees and institutional management.
We are now well launched into another global cycle of recession and (presumably) recovery. The accompanying fiscal stress, demographic realignment, and scrutiny has put institutions under intense pressure. To maintain public trust and market competitiveness, colleges and universities must demonstrate sustained progress in student learning, scholarship, research, and service—as well as financial viability. For institutions in every sector, stasis is not an option. Each must chart its own continuing transformation or accept a triple plague of declining enrollments, reduced financial circumstance, and eroding impact.
Richard Guarasci was named president of Wagner College in 2002, after joining the college in 1997 as provost and senior vice president for academic and student affairs and professor of political science. From 1992–1997 Guarasci was dean of the college and professor of political science at Hobart College and before that the dean and founding director of the first-year program at St. Lawrence University. He is the author of Democratic Education in the Age of Difference: Redefining Citizenship in Higher Education (Jossey-Bass, 1997). Provost and vice president for academic affairs at Wagner, Devorah Lieberman was previously vice provost and special assistant to the president at Portland State University. She has written on intercultural communications, faculty development and academic institutions as learning organizations, diversity in higher education, and creating community-based learning opportunities.
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