CV NEWS FEED // A group of alumni from a small Catholic liberal arts college in New Hampshire are working to save their alma mater from closure.
The board of trustees at Magdalen College of the Liberal Arts announced in November that the college would shut down after its graduation ceremony in May due to financial hardship. The college, which recently celebrated its 50th anniversary, had accumulated a greater debt than it could handle under its current endowment.
In an article for the European Conservative, Magdalen Alumnus Felix James Miller made a case for the institution, writing, “In America, there are just a few handfuls of colleges and universities that attempt to teach and operate in accordance with the teachings of the Holy Mother Church, and the loss of this one would be a genuine tragedy.”
Miller is part of a five-large group of alumni which has rallied together to salvage Magdalen College. Shortly after the board announced its November 19 decision, the group responded by sending a letter to alumni and friends to garner support for their cause.
“Our immediate action,” the group wrote, “is to rally alumni and friends to indicate to large scale donors the seriousness of this endeavor.”
They have already raised approximately $70,000 from 42 pledges from alumni alone in the first ten days of their mission.
The group continued in the letter:
We intend to seek expansion of the Board with several additional alumni, to retire the debt to the Foresters Group by bringing on new benefactors that are already known to us, and to share our comprehensive plan of new programs and recruitment of new students.
The group plans to attract new donors for the school by enacting an expansion plan that will add an accelerated Catholic high school that will allow students to complete high school and college in six years, an “Applied Arts” or “Trades” major, and a summer program for young people with special needs.
For more information, or to pledge support for the College, click here.
