ARTICLES

Just Something Unfortunate

What Happened to Campion College

BY ERIK KEILHOLTZ

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. As soon as word was made public about this new college, situated on MacAllister Street in the shadow of the University of San Francisco, the Jesuits clamped down on Father Fessio, exiling him to remote hospital ministry in Duarte, near Los Angeles (where earlier fellow St. Ignatius Institute founder, Jesuit Father Cornelius Buckley, had been sent) and advising him, under obedience, that he was to have nothing to do, explicitly or implicitly, with Campion College.

The Campion board of trustees recognized the ability of John Galten, who had recently been fired from his job of directing the St. Ignatius Institute, and named him the new president of the college. Although Campion College was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Guadalupe Associates, the two were separate corporations. Each one had its own board, and, in the words of Galten, "Guadalupe Associates had a hands-off approach to the running of the college."

Practically, however, the ties between Campion and the Guadalupe Associates were strong. Several staff members of Guadalupe Associates' Ignatius Press were also on the staff of Campion, most notably Mark Brumley, the chief operating officer of Ignatius and provost of the college. The college switchboard was routed through Ignatius Press. And most importantly, the purse strings of Campion College were controlled by Guadalupe Associates, which heavily subsidized the college.

While the Guadalupe Associates wanted Campion to remain viable, its main concern was that the school uphold its Catholic character and remain loyal to the magisterium of the Church.

To ensure viability, the college, with the approval of the Guadalupe Associates, established a five-year plan, which had enrollment targets of fifty students by the end of the plan. Furthermore, the college was intended to be fiscally independent of Guadalupe Associates subsides in seven years.

The first year of Campion College was a triumph of nearly David and Goliath proportions. Housed in several Victorian houses on MacAllister Street, the college was able to attract some of the old Ignatius Institute teachers as well as other excellent teachers and a bright, motivated, and proudly Catholic student body. As a new college, Campion was not accredited but was taking all the required steps to be recognized by the Western Association of Schools and Colleges.

In the words of Campion professor Stephen Cordova, "at Campion I can have a genuine conversation with any of the students, and I do not talk down to any of them. Not just the faculty, but the students themselves nurtured an environment that promoted genuine intellectual discourse."

This view was supported by several other Campion faculty members, one of whom (who requested anonymity) expressed it in terms of a common goal that was found among the students and faculty: "there was a shared end view of the educational good in mind. The students had it, the faculty had it, and that produces something pretty close to elation, which is doing what you want to do, and doing it really well, with people who also want to do it well and for the most part succeeding. We had great discussions on literature, and I had papers that ranged from OK-for-college to things that were so good that I wish I could have written them at 18. One was participating in the growth of souls and the growth of the kingdom of God. At Campion I was convinced that I was involved in that."

Several students expressed similar views. In the words of first-year student Mary Price, "the academic program was really good.... I went to a community college, and comparing that to Campion -- well, at Campion, they really made you work and focus on the material at hand. They wanted you to learn, whereas at [the community college], the teachers were not sincerely concerned with having you learn. The Campion teachers really wanted the students to grasp what they were reading."

Speaking about the Catholic identity of Campion, Price noted that "during the first semester, I did not see the Catholic identity so much, but during the second semester I began to notice the various devotions that people had. Although none of the classes were explicitly about Catholicism, except for Sister Ignatius' class [on Catholic social teaching], you were surrounded by faithful Catholics. It helped support me, because man is by nature a social animal, and when surrounded by this atmosphere, it pervaded the college and made it easier to live and practice your faith."

Some students did leave after a year because of concerns about Campion's lack of accreditation. Price observed that "there were people who left because of accreditation, but the people who stayed really wanted the truth."

In spite of the general feeling of goodwill that prevailed, some faculty members sensed tension between Ignatius Press personnel and the college when Galten took Father Fessio's place as president of the college.

According to Cordova, "[having Galten as president] meant that someone who was apart from the Ignatius Press corporate culture was going to be in charge of Campion College. Galten had to deal with being a newcomer in an established corporate culture. Galten had great experience in managing an academic program but did not have experience [with] or was even antithetical to the corporate culture of Ignatius Press."

Cordova continued, referring to the atmosphere in the college when Galten became president: "I was happy with the change, because I knew what a good boss Galten was. He standardized salaries and brought in a sense of academic professionalism. There was a sense that we were a real academic, intellectual enterprise, more than a venture by the press people."

Further strain between the Ignatius Press and Campion arose in the second year by Campion moving its classrooms and men's dormitories to the old convent at St. Monica's Church on Geary at 23rd Ave. While the women's living quarters remained on MacAllister Street (characterized by one unnamed faculty member as "Father Fessio's Catholic Sesame Street"), the college conducted most of its business at St. Monica's.

However, in spite of the various disagreements, the relations between the two subsidiaries of the Guadalupe Associates remained stable. According to Mark Brumley, the press was committed to the vision of Campion College but did need to be assured of the long-term viability of the endeavor.

By the start of the second semester of the 2003-2004 academic year, the Campion administration was aware that the number of incoming students for the next year was not on target and that massive recruiting had to start. While the faculty was apprised of the situation, they were given assurances that the college would continue in spite of the low numbers.

According to Cordova, "we would have regular faculty meetings, even in this past spring, as late as April, and it was a given that we were going to have a small incoming class for the coming year, and we were assured and reassured that it was going to be OK. There was no hint. As late as May, as late as graduation. No hint. Nothing."

In fact, the night before the Guadalupe Associates board voted to cease funding the college, the members had dinner with the students. According to several students interviewed for this story, the evening was pleasant, with the board members asking students what classes they were planning on taking in the fall, giving no indication that the future of the college was at risk.

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."

When asked if the decision could be characterized as a panic, Brumley replied, "it was just something that was unfortunate, but to characterize it as a panic, well -- the perceived financial threat of continuing became overwhelming. Ignatius Press is not out of the woods yet on this."

After the decision was made to discontinue the Ignatius Press subsidy, the Campion board of trustees scrambled to seek alternative funding but found the task prohibitively daunting. Said Galten, "there was some discussion between the Campion College board and representatives of Guadalupe Associates, but it did not look feasible. I think that there was interest in seeing the college go on, but there were discussions of resources and the final disposition of them. The final problem that bedeviled us was the we had to pay $500K or $600K in a few weeks to open in the fall."

Brumley confirmed that the Guadalupe Associates would have preferred that the college continue, saying, "if anything, since we started it, we wanted to see it continue."

As to suggestions that were made by several faculty members and students that there was a group within the Guadalupe Associates culture that was opposed to the college from the beginning, Galten replied that there were some who had expressed "typical prudent misgivings of good business people" over the feasibility of Ignatius Press being able to sustain a venture like the college.

By early July, in spite of feverish meetings of the college board of trustees over the Independence Day holiday weekend, the fate of the Campion College was sealed.

Although she suddenly found herself without a school, or generally accepted college credits for her year at Campion, student Mary Price insists that she still would have chosen Campion, knowing the risks of its shaky financial footing and lack of accreditation.

While Campion College now belongs to the realm of happy memory, the same dissatisfaction with Catholic higher education in the area continues to prod faithful Catholics into searching for an alternative. A handful of former Campion faculty, students, families, and friends have begun to form what will be known as the St. Anthony of Padua Institute, which promises to offer a radical departure from the funding model followed by most modern colleges.

Although he is not one of the St. Anthony of Padua Institute founders, Brumley is supportive. "I am certainly not happy with the choices for Catholic education in the Bay Area," he said, calling his "own sense of personal failure... pretty heavy... I hope that this new group can learn from what did not go right at Campion."

TOP