Saint Joseph's College: PR of Activity Suspension

Recently with all the changes in the world there have been many communication or public relations issues highlighted in the news. In addition to those highlighted stories, a new one a day it seems, there has also been similar cases that have hit home.

This past week my hometown's local college, Saint Joseph's College announced they would be suspending all activities at least until 2018.  Within a week the board of trustees announced they were holding a meeting to discuss the financial situation of the college and made the announcement of suspension of activities. Financial problems of that size do not happen within a week.

The board was not transparent about the issue of finances and did not make a good effort to reach out to alumni for help or even just make information accessible.

The students of Saint Joseph's College are involved in many co-op programs such as nursing and business programs.  Those host programs posted information for students to transfer and find resources to change programs before Saint Joseph's informed students of the activities suspension. All 900 plus current students are looking into options to transfer programs and not fall behind in their graduation track. This change of location is causing problems for numerous local students. The fact that the school didn't give their students more warning and resources to help them locate another option is really troubling.

Right now there is a petition going around for the state attorney general to review the actions of the board. So far an estimated 5,500 people have signed the petition. The town of Rensselaer is hurting after this announcement and a lot of local residents are concerned at how a college town will thrive without their college. The college was a big employer for residents of Rensselaer, Indiana. It will be interesting to see how the town does after so many students and employees are forced to relocate.

Both of my parents are alumnus of the college and loved their experiences there. They recently told me that they were troubled by the lack of communication and transparency through the whole situation. My father is a special topics professor there and wasn't given clear information about the situation. Both of my parents get more calls in a week from Ohio Northern University asking for donations or updates about what's going on at ONU than they have gotten from Saint Joseph's since they have graduated. A group of alumni are trying to use the petition to gain awareness and save Saint Joseph's from closing permanently.

Organizations need to be transparent in situations as hard or difficult they may be. Having information accessible to those affected is important. This whole situation may have been prevented if five years ago when they realized they were in some type of trouble, indicated so and asked for help. Withholding information and announcing these major findings in the same week did not elicit a good reaction from their publics.

It will be interesting to see how this case resolves, but watching the public relations and communications of it all unfold makes transparency and accessibility something to be valued highly in speaking to publics of organizations.