High Hopes Dashed From Lack of Cash

The unfortunate and abrupt ending of Campion College in San Francisco:

In late July Campion College, San Francisco's upstart Catholic college, announced that it was shutting its doors after two years of operations. Citing the decision of Guadalupe Associates to cease their funding of the college and an inability to raise alternative funding, the college informed the archdiocese of San Francisco that it had no choice but to cancel classes for the fall semester.

Campion College was conceived by Jesuit Father Joseph Fessio in February of 2002, following the well-publicized gutting of the University of San Francisco's Saint Ignatius Institute. The idea for an authentically Catholic, two-year liberal arts college had been discussed by Fessio and John Galten, the former director of the Ignatius Institute, a number of years ago, but it remained in the discussion stage until the Jesuits moved on the institute, leaving a void in Bay Area Catholic higher education.

Under the umbrella of the Guadalupe Associates, the parent organization to Ignatius Press, a curriculum was drafted, administration positions filled, and faculty hired, all under Father Fessio's direction.

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When the Guadalupe Associates board unanimously decided to sever its funding relationship to Campion College, Galten, who is a voting member of the Guadalupe board, was on the East Coast on a combination vacation and student recruitment trip. "I knew that there was going to be a planning meeting to discuss matters for the future," said Galten. "They knew that I was going to be away. I guess that matters came up at that meeting. I was not aware that the fate of Campion College might be discussed."

While the meeting without Galten and the lack of warning to either the faculty or students takes on a darkly conspiratorial note to some involved, Brumley insists that the board did not go into that meeting with a premeditated intention to cut funding. According to Brumley, "[while] over the past year, we had concerns, it was really at the end of May that it became clear [that there was a crisis]. A couple of factors: we were unable to recruit a sufficient number of students. We only had two for the fall who were committed. We needed to see ten students for Campion to be viable. That would be one factor. We had a few students who had told us that they were not returning, and many of the students who were returning were not in a position to contribute much more financially. Third was the overall financial strain that Campion was posing to Ignatius Press."

One father of a Campion student (who asked not to be named) discounted this, noting that a responsible business should have been able to see the budget and recruitment problems no later than December of 2003, when a decision to discontinue funding would have left faculty and students adequate time to make other plans. Furthermore, he added, "I had never heard that we should be looking out for money. They asked those of us on financial aid to let the college know if our financial situation changed, but there was no importuning for us to seek outside donations to help the college financially."