Saint Joseph’s College’s abrupt decision to suspend operations at the end of the current semester has alumni scrambling to raise the necessary funds to keep the school open. The Alumni Association Board of Directors is hoping to collect $20 million by April 1 through an effort they’re calling the “Involved for Life Fund.”
Board member and Knox native Jason Crittendon acknowledges that reaching that goal will be difficult but says it’s not outside the realm of possibility. “We have roughly 15,000 living alumni from the college, and there are some that are very wealthy,” he says. “There are some as captains of industry, and just depending on what we can do contact- wise and how much we can yield out of that, it’s not impossible. It is definitely an uphill climb.”
He says the Alumni Association was given the $20 million figure from College President Robert Pastoor just nine days before the Saint Joseph’s College Board of Trustees voted to suspend operations on February 4. “This was not a move that we expected to happen at all,” Crittendon says. “We knew that the college was in a financial crisis, but we didn’t know the severity of it. I don’t feel like we’ve been informed by the school as to how bad the situation was. Most all of the alumni that I talk to, we are in the same boat. I mean everybody was just absolutely blindsided and nobody had any idea that it was this bad.”
However, if they’re successful in meeting their $20 million goal, Crittendon says they won’t release those funds to the college until the top administration and business leaders step down. “These people had, basically, one mission, and that was to protect the college and keep it on task,” he says. “And they’re ultimately responsible for all of the direction of the college, the budget of the college, the health of the college. And so those people need to be held accountable, and we don’t feel like we can entrust millions of dollars worth of, basically, bailout money to the people that are currently running the institution.”
Pastoor has already announced his resignation and the vice president for institutional advancement has been let go. Beyond that, Crittendon says the Alumni Association Board of Directors will soon develop a more specific list of which people they believe need to step down. He expects it will include the chair of board of trustees and most of the executive board.
Crittendon adds that Saint Joseph’s College is a great institution, and they’ll do all they can to preserve it. “The college has survived a lot and has been around for a long time, and it’s a shame that this has been allowed to happen,” he says. “And I say that very deliberately: it has been allowed to happen. Because we believe there were measures that could have been taken years ago that would have prevented this, eased the burden, whatever you want to call it. But those things didn’t happen.”
Donations may be given to the Involved for Life Fund at DeMotte State Bank in Rensselaer. More information about the campaign can be found at InvolvedForLife.net.
