Case 11.3 Agonizing Options for Marlboro College
To close or not to close? This is the question confronting many small colleges in the United States,
A number of factors have created these dire circumstances. First, student enrollment in higher education
‘across the United States has declined due to a strong economy (Nadwomy & Larkin, 2019). Second,
states are no longer funding higher education to help subsidize costs, so institutions are more reliant on
the tuition dollars of enrolled students. As a result, tuition at private colleges increased by more than
29% from 2008 to 2018 (Hess, 2019). Third, the coronavirus pandemic in 2019-2020 resulted in
increased online education offerings, making students second-guess the need for a residential, smal
college experience. Finally, the number of high school graduates has plateaued, making the landscape
for interested college applicants highly competitive.
‘These factors have resulted in sizeable drops in enrollment at many schools. Low enrollment means
less revenue, and that decline has forrad colleges to make difficult decisions, lke choosing ta cut staff
and faculty to make up for budget deficits (Harlow, 2019) or simply making the choice to close their
doors (Jaschik, 2019).
Marlboro College, a small liberal arts college in rural Vermont, recently faced the decision of whether or
Tot it should continue to operate as an institution of higher education. Marlboro served a specific type of
student—those who wanted to create their own academic plan, to graduate having written the
‘equivalent of a master’s thesis, and to have intentional interaction with faculty (ratio 7:1) (Zahneis,
2019). Was Marlboro's philosophy academic utopia or sadly doomed to fail? To the students who found
Marlboro, it was an academic dream, but with the myriad of factors impacting its enrollment, staying
‘open was becoming a harder really.
Marlboro president Kevin F. F. Quigley wanted to explore options rather than simply closing. He cared
deeply about Marlboro and did not want it to fal. To that end, he initiated a Strategic Options Task
Force, comprised of the board chair, the president, four trustees, two faculty members, and one student,
to review the options for Marlboro (Marlboro College, 2019). Among the questions the team investigated
included these: Could the campus still operate, but as a branch campus of another institution? Would
there be a way to ensure current students didn’t have a break in their academic journey? How would a
‘campus closure impact the small town (also called Marlboro) in which the college resides? What would
happen to the history and values of the school? How would students, faculty, and alumni handle a
change that would most certainly impact the identification they had with the school?
‘As the school entered the 2019-2020 academic year. it became clear that Mariboro. at best. could only
remain open for a few more years (Audette, 2019b). In collaboration with the task force, President
Quigley put out a call to other institutions to see if they wanted to partner with the college, ultimately
talking to 10 (Audette, 2019a).
The task force narrowed the options, landing on the University of Bridgeport, the only partnership that
would allow Marlboro to maintain its rural campus. Marlboro signed a letter of intent with Bridgeport, a
vocationally oriented institution that focuses on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and
enrolls 5,000 students annually in late July. But it was not to be. Negotiations between Marlboro and
Bridgeport broke off in September 2019 (Zahneis, 2019).
‘Surprisingly, in November 2019, a new deal was reached, Marlboro and Emerson College in Boston
‘announced that there would be a partnership between the two institutions (Zahneis, 2019). The
‘agreement would wind down operations at Marlboro College at the end of the 2020 school year, with the
‘opportunity for all remaining students to transfer to Emerson College in Boston to finish their studies with
their current tuition packages. Emerson agreed to hire all Marlboro's tenure and tenure-track faculty and
accept any current Marlboro student, honoring Marlboro’s current tution rate if the students did not
change majors. All other positions at Marlboro would cease to exist at the end of the academic year. Inthis process, Emerson received a transfer of assets from Mariboro, including a $30 million endowment
and $10 milion in buildings. Emerson College indicated that the Marlboro campus would close, and that
it had no interest in having a campus in Marlboro (Audette, 2019a).
Many were surprised by the announcement. President Quigley said negotiations with Emerson had
been intentionally kept under wraps. “Since the collapse of the talks with Bridgeport in the middle of
‘September, my community has really been on pins and needles, waiting for the shoe to drop,” he said.
“We changed how we talked about it on campus and who was involved in the process, so we had a
tighter circle of people involved. There were really no updates to the community’ (Zahneis, 2019),
‘The move created a mix of feelings among Marlbore’s students and alumni, A previous Marlboro faculty
‘member felt the situation was mishandled, saying, “All of this has taken place through secret
negotiations. Nobody knew what was happening” (Zahneis, 2019). This sentiment was also expressed
by the residents of the town of Marlboro, many of whom were employed by the college.
‘As soon as word became more public, one alumnus attempted to buy the institution with plans to have it
run by alumni sharing (Zahneis, 2019). Through Facebook, a large following of alumni pledged to quit
their jobs, take pay cuts, and help to rebuild their alma mater. They felt as though campus leadership did
not think about all the alternatives to the campus closure. But, the agreement with Emerson was
binding, and the university needed to move forward with the plan.
Many faculty and alumni were disheartened by the course of action, and to help ease fears, Marlboro
students and faculty made a number of visits to Emerson (Marlboro College Board of Trustees, 2019) to
ensure that the Emerson experience would fit with the Marlboro philosophy. Current students have
expressed a sense of unity over the situation. One shared, “I'm pretty optimistic about the merger. We
recognize that it's the best of a bad situation” (Zahneis, 2019).
‘At the same time, however, there was considerable concem by residents as to what would happen to
the college's campus located in a prominent part of the town, To address that, Marlboro College
established the Marlboro Campus Working Group, comprised of Marlboro alumni, trustees, staff, faculty,
students, and a representative from the town of Marlboro, to seek proposals “for endeavors that would
benefit the community and make productive use of the Marlboro campus” (Audette, 2020),
Questions
1. What were the competing commitments Marlboro's president was trying to navigate?
2. Would you describe the work of Marlboro's president as adaptive leadership? Why or why not?
3, Which of the following leader behaviors did the president utlize: (1) get on the balcony, (2) identity
adaptive challenges, (3) regulate distress, (4) maintain disciplined attention, (5) give the work back
to the people, (6) protect leadership voices from below? Provide an example of each,
4. Do you think there is a different course of action the college should take to resolve this challenge?
Why or why not?
5. If you were the president of Marlboro College, how could you have created a holding environment
for the students, faculty, and townspeople of Marlboro?
6. Adaptive leadership is about helping followers address value struggles. Who in the case is
struggling, and what is their struggle?
lenny Steiner, PRO, Univers of Minnesota