Atlantic Union College Wants To Reopen
The cancellation of a planned merger with a Maryland college has not stopped Lancaster's Atlantic Union College from looking toward the future.
President Norman L. Wendth said he hopes the college will receive state approval to reopen in the fall of 2012, bringing in a small group of students for a school year that would act as a test of its ability to return to the enrollment levels it once enjoyed before it closed over the summer.
The Seventh Day Adventist school, which had operated since 1882 and had grown to an enrollment of nearly 500 students, closed after losing accreditation from the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC).
The school has sat dormant since, Wendth said, with only a skeleton crew keeping up the physical plant and manning the financial office. It has rented space for a variety of uses including church conferences and the filming of a movie. The school's musical branch, the Thayer Performing Arts Center, also remains active, offering non-credit music classes just as it always has.
"We're trying to keep the campus as busy as possible," Wendth said.
Still, he acknowledged that the road to a full reopening is not easy, especially after the idea of working with Maryland's Washington Adventist University came off the table.
Change of Plans
Wendth said he had hoped Atlantic Union's board would approve the idea of allowing the fellow Seventh Day Adventist institution to operate the Lancaster campus under the Washington name.
"I'm very disappointed because I was pushing a merger hard, but the board changed its mind and decided not to merge," he said. "That relationship has fallen apart."
Wendth said his impression is that board members voted against continuing with the merger because they didn't want to lose Atlantic Union's separate identity.
A statement posted on the college's website says that, "although both institutions believed the relationship would be a mutually beneficial one, the cost of the transition is proving to be more than the institutions can absorb at this time."
A spokesman for Washington Adventist University could not be reached for comment.
Wendth said the new plan is for Atlantic Union to apply for accreditation with Transnational Accreditation of Christian Colleges and Schools (TRACS). He said that while most New England schools are accredited by NEASC, a national organization like TRACS is also acceptable to the state Department of Higher Education, which determines whether colleges have the authority to grant degrees.
Wendth said the college expects to complete its application to the state and get an initial response in January. After that, he said, the state will process the college's request and determine whether it can reopen for a "candidate year" in 2012-13.
If that happens, the school will open with a limited number of students, perhaps around 100, Wendth said. But it won't be able to accept students who need federal financial aid unless it's fully accredited.
Lancaster Town Administrator Orlando Pacheco said the town wants to see the school come back to life.
"Right now the town is supporting all of the college's efforts to become an active campus," he said.
Pacheco said Atlantic Union and other nonprofits that make up a big part of the Lancaster landscape are a big part of the local economy. Even though the organizations don't pay property taxes, he said they give back in other ways, particularly by providing employment that's sometimes more stable than the jobs commercial enterprises can offer.
"It does provide a lot of jobs, and those jobs tend to be given to locals, so there is an economic impact," he said.
Pacheco and Wendth both say the path back to full operations for Atlantic Union is far from a sure thing. Wendth said the school is simply doing the best it can to make its case with the state and then waiting to see what happens.
"All of that is subject to a bunch of ifs and ands," he said. "We're not there yet."
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