Since its founding by a Louisiana-based religious order more than six decades ago, the College of Santa Fe has graduated thousands of teachers, business people, nurses and artists. Many have gone on to take their places in the local community — in the schools, the hospital, the government.

In the beginning, CSF primarily educated the children of local families, many of them members of the first generation to attend college.

Charles Marquez came from Tucumcari in the early 1960s to attend the college. He graduated in 1966 with degrees in education and Spanish.

"The brothers became teachers not only to get a job, but that was their dedication and commitment," Marquez said. "The Christian Brothers created this avenue that allowed primarily Hispanos, from here in the north, to get an education."

Like many small, liberal arts colleges in the U.S., however, CSF is in financial trouble. Its woes go back decades. The tuition was never enough to pay all the bills, and CSF has never had an endowment to carry it through the tough times. The financial challenges grew as the college became more secular. There were periods of greater stability — the late 1960s, the 1990s — but those times were the exception rather than the rule.

The latest and most serious financial crisis began to unfold about 15 months ago when — facing more than $35 million in debt — the college began looking for a partnership with another institution.

After a couple of partnership talks with private institutions failed, New Mexico Highlands University came forward with a merger deal that would require a state takeover of the campus. CSF faculty and students, hoping to persuade the Legislature to come to the school's rescue by agreeing to fund the merger with Highlands, plan to descend Tuesday on the Roundhouse.

"The College of Santa Fe is woven into the fabric of this community," said David Scheinbaum, a photographer who has taught at CSF since 1980 and serves as the chairman of the Marion Center for Photographic Arts. "Our children go to school here," he said of CSF employees. "We shop here. We are intellectually and economically a part of the community."


Brother Benedict Westrick, who came to the college in 1950, remembers what he calls the "growing pains." Banks were hesitant to loan the college money, he said. Later, when he served as principal at St. Michael's High School, also founded by the Christian Brothers, he said they insisted he co-sign loans to the college.

What primarily kept the CSF afloat during those days, Westrick said, was its economic educational model. Students were required to take 45 to 48 credit hours of liberal arts courses — including three philosophy and three theology courses — regardless of their major. Those requirements ensured them a well-rounded education and guaranteed revenue for the school.

The payroll was relatively small then. Many of the courses were taught by the brothers, who were not paid. Putting 100 students in a freshman-level psychology course taught by an unpaid brother created a financially sustainable program.

That model served the college well for about 20 years. Because tuition was low, the school attracted many students from Northern New Mexico. According to Brother Donald Mouton, it drew many who were turned away by more selective schools, including Mouton himself. He later became a teacher there and eventually was the last Christian Brother to serve as president.

According to Brother Brian Dybowski, who came to teach at the school in 1965, during those more prosperous years the college was clearing $100,000 to $200,000 annually. It was receiving federal grants for construction of new facilities. The school put up one-third of the cost of a project, the government provided another third, and the final third was loaned to the school at 3 percent, Dybowski said. "That's how we got most of our permanent buildings," including the administration building, student dormitories and the Greer Garson Theatre, then called the Liberal Arts Building, Dybowski said.

The college, he added, was also the second largest employer in Santa Fe at the time.

By the late 1960s and early 1970s, enrollment was about 1,300. From its peak in 1970, enrollment started to drop, Mouton said.


Brother Cyprian Luke Roney, who was president from 1958 to 1982, realized business was not the strength of the brothers on the college's board and began inviting savvy lay people to serve.

Expenses continued to rise. The payroll, which now included many lay instructors, was growing, as were the costs of everything else from utilities to maintenance. Solvency depended on attracting more new students.

At the same time, Mouton said, the brothers expanded their outreach. They started a program at the New Mexico State Penitentiary where prisoners could earn associate's and bachelor's degrees.

Even now, the brothers tout the program's success, saying it reduced recidivism rates among ex-convicts. According to the surviving brothers, their classroom and the Catholic chapel at the prison were some of the only areas protected during the deadly riot of 1980.

During this period, the college also began offering degree courses on nights and weekends. The classes attracted local students, but were offered at a lower tuition rate and did not contribute greatly to the school's revenues.

Facing one of many financial crossroads, in the mid-1970s CSF sold off 15 acres along Cerrillos Road that would later become College Plaza shopping center, and in 1981 another 5.5 acres, also along Cerrillos Road, to the Skaggs drugstore chain.

While the decision has been criticized by many who argue the valuable property should have been leased rather than sold, Mouton defended Roney's decision. "Brother Luke tried for years to lease," Mouton said. Indeed, in 1973 the school issued a request for development bids for the Cerrillos Road property. There were no takers, Mouton said, and so the property was sold.

The college also stepped up recruiting efforts, Mouton said, and hired additional admissions staff to represent the school at college fairs and high school visits.

Then, in 1983, the Santa Fe Community College opened and began offering courses similar to those at CSF — at a cheaper price. The college could not compete and, ironically, Mouton said, even offered space for use by the community college.

"When the community college came along, we said, 'this is the clarion call for us to see what is our niche,' " Mouton said. "Until then, we were the only game in town."

Mouton, who became president of the college in 1982, started discussing with the board the possibility of offering new programs in the creative arts that would build on Santa Fe's reputation as an art market.

Meanwhile, not all students were happy with the quality of education they were getting at the college nor the price they paid for it. In April of 1983, about 65 students walked out of class to protest what they perceived as a decline in quality, according to a story in The New Mexican. "CSF has lost its purpose," Dave Robinson, a student, said at the time. "Education is no longer a priority because survival has become its purpose."


By the time Jim Fries, the first lay president, took over in 1987, the college was operating in the red. Despite new visual arts programs, tuition from enrollment — about 425 full-time traditional students — was not enough to cover expenses.

"There was a general perception on campus and in the community that the college was on the way toward closure," Fries said. "A lot of local merchants would not accept purchase orders."

Fries, a former chemistry professor and now the president of New Mexico Highlands, said he and a planning committee spent two years "trying to carve out a future niche." Fries also decided to raise tuition to about $5,000 per year — a 30 percent increase — but significantly less than the approximately $28,000 per year students are now paying.

Despite the increase, enrollment remained stable and the average ACT scores of incoming students rose.

The college decided to emphasize the arts more and more — still within the context of a liberal arts education, Fries said.

The school had to move away from the idea that it was competing with the community college or that it was playing the role of the community college in Santa Fe, Fries said, and it did away with a two-year nursing program.

That change of mission received a big boost in the late 1980s, when actress Greer Garson donated $3 million to convert the school's old gym into a professional soundstage and production facility. The new facility opened in 1990.

"That really caught a lot of attention," Fries said, noting it was the only facility of its kind on a college campus anywhere in the country.

The new emphasis on arts started attracting more attention from national organizations. In September 1994, the College of Santa was recognized as the eighth best liberal arts school in the West by U.S. News and World Report.

The school also built the Marion Center for Photographic Arts, funded largely by a donation by philanthropists John and Anne Marion. The school began offering a bachelor's degree in documentary studies, the only one of its kind in the country.

While he can't remember exact budget amounts, Fries said, the school was able to balance the budget for most of the 14 years he was president. "It has never had a large endowment or excess funds with which to operate," he explained. "In order to balance the budget, it always required very tight fiscal management and an awareness of what the likely revenue stream was going to be."

During Fries' tenure, the school issued $12.5 million in bonds and raised additional money for new facilities, including the Driscoll Fitness Center, student apartments and the Visual Arts Center.


When Fries left in 2000, he was succeeded by Linda Hanson, who came to the school from Seattle University, where she had been vice president for university relations for nine years. She inherited about $11 million in bond debt and after her first year, CSF showed a $3.1 million deficit.

Although the school was able to dig itself out of that hole — it had a budget surplus of $1.7 million by June 2004 — by the time Hanson left in the spring of 2005, the school owed $18 million in bond debt and was nearly $2 million in the red, according to tax documents.

During Hanson's five years at the helm, the school built the Shellaberger Tennis Center with a $4 million gift from Rosemarie Shellaberger. It also renovated the J.F. Kennedy residence hall and Benildus Hall with revenues from two additional bonds totaling $9.5 million, according to Marcia Sullivan, vice president of administration and communication.

To complete Shellaberger's vision of the college as a tennis school — she also left a $1 million endowment for scholarships — Hanson started a tennis team, the Spin. The college's previous sports program had been dropped in 1986 after 39 years.

The Spin won second place at the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics Men's Tennis Championship in 2005 but was a short-lived success. Hanson's successor, Mark Lombardi, pulled the plug on the program in May 2006, citing expenses and a need to focus on academics.

Under Hanson, there was also a shift away from creative arts — the programs promoted during the Fries administration to increase enrollment — according to John Weckesser, who's worked at the college for more than 30 years and is now interim vice president for academic affairs.

She substituted new types of programs gaining traction in colleges and universities elsewhere. But a number of these failed, because the college didn't have the money to support them from the beginning. Sullivan cited programs such as sustainable enterprises, which enrolled two students, as one of the failed experiments. Conservation science survived for a while but never generated enough students to support itself, Sullivan said. The program was eventually killed after the fall of 2007 because of low enrollment and as part of the school's effort to cut costs.

Enrollment fell slightly during Hanson's tenure, from 680 students in 2001-02 to 669 in 2004-05.

Hanson left to become president of Hamline University in Minnesota, and Lombardi, then the school's provost, took over.

During Lombardi's leadership, the college never operated in the black. To stop some of the bleeding, he refinanced $20 million in bonds and borrowed an additional $5 million to build a new graphic design lab and the Mouton Student Center, and to complete numerous technology upgrades, Sullivan said.

Lombardi and the school's board also decided to sell 1.5 acres of land fronting St. Michael's Drive for $1.8 million to New Mexico Bank and Trust for a new headquarters. As part of the deal, the bank agreed to share the cost of a new entrance to the college and a new traffic light.

Enrollment continued to fall during Lombardi's two years at the school. By the time he left, there were 612 full-time students. That number now stands at 595.


Since November 2007, College of Santa Fe officials have tried everything to save the school.

They did away with programs with low enrollment, cut staff and even tried to resurrect a sports program that included soccer and baseball as a way to attract students.

Two separate sets of partnership talks — with Savannah College of Art and Design and Laureate Education Inc. — both fell through. Talks with Laureate failed in November 2008.

When negotiations with Laureate looked promising, the for-profit institution with education programs around the world loaned the college $2 million to operate during the fall 2008 semester, with the college putting up 20 acres of property as collateral. That loan, in addition to bond debt and a loan from First Community Bank, brings the school's total debt to $35.3 million.

The college is now asking the state for help, effectively pleading for a takeover. On Friday, in preparation for a takeover or closure, the school fired 14 employees, most of whom worked in the admissions office. The school has already announced the end of its athletic programs.

While both The University of New Mexico and New Mexico Highlands took an initial interest in a partnership with the school, only Highlands has taken any real steps to make a merger a reality.

In December, Highlands' Board of Regents approved a letter of intent to take over the college. That deal requires legislative approval, as well as the approval of the Higher Learning Commission, which accredits both institutions.

Last week, Rep. Lucky Varela, D-Santa, himself a graduate of the school, introduced a bill that would authorize a state institution to take over the college.

Inevitably, lawmakers will question what happened and whether CSF is worth saving.

Assigning blame for the college's current situation is irrelevant, according to Brother George Hetzel. What happens next is most important, he said. But he takes consolation from his own faith. "Remember," he said, "there's fall and resurrection."

Talk to CSF faculty about whether the college is worth saving, and their answer is an adamant, "Yes."

"The College of Santa Fe has always been committed to excellence in teaching," Scheinbaum said. "It started with the brothers. Everyone models the subject (they are teaching). Students look to the front of the room and want to be like that person. (The demise of the college) would be a loss to the whole community. Expertise and compassion is what is at stake here."

Contact John Sena at 986-3079 or jsena@sfnewmexican.com.