| Pillsbury Baptist Bible College closes |
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Posted: Sunday, January 11, 2009 12:19 pm
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Baptist college forced to close before completing academic year
Pillsbury Baptist Bible College, which had been in existence in Owatonna since 1957, officially closed its doors at the end of 2008.
The school’s board of trustees voted in October to cease academic activities at the college on Dec. 31. The announcement of the school’s closing came as the campus was celebrating “Spirit Week.”
Pillsbury Baptist Bible College is a four-year private college that prepares students for Christian ministries throughout the world. Each student enrolled majors in the Bible, along with another area of study such as education, music or law.
Dr. Gregory Huffman had been recently hired to serve as president of the school. Huffman was officially inaugurated as the school’s president on Oct. 10, less than two weeks before the trustees’ decision to close the school.
Tom Lawson, director of communications and financial aid at the school, said at the time, that national economic conditions, combined with deficits caused by declining enrollment, had exhausted the school’s financial reserves, leaving the school without the necessary funds to complete the remainder of the academic year.
Signs of possible trouble for the school were made public by school officials in early 2007, when then school president, Dr. Robert Crane, asked members of the Pillsbury community as well as friends of the institution to pray in earnest around the clock for the school’s future.
At that time, declining enrollments coupled with increasing costs had put clouds of doubt over the future of the school. Enrollment at the school had dropped from a high of about 800 in the 1970s to less than 150 in its final semester. School officials said that the school needed at least 200 students a year.
Still, Crane said at the time he asked for the around-the-clock prayer for the school that Pillsbury was not in danger of closing its doors.
That was then.
In the fall semester 2008, only 148 students enrolled, far below the 200 school officials anticipated prior to the start of the school year.
Officials said the school had built up a financial reserve that would have been able to keep the school open for an additional two years. There was also a full-time school representative on the road recruiting students to consider attending Pillsbury.
But because a number of anticipated freshmen decided not to enroll in the school, officials said they were forced to spend their reserves at an accelerated rate.
The Rev. Julian Suarez — president of the Minnesota Baptist Association, a Pillsbury trustee and a Pillsbury alumnus — said the school also faced a number of debts that he described as “pretty substantial” given the size and scope of Pillsbury’s ministry.
When they exhausted every avenue of raising any funds, Suarez said there was a somber sense from the Board of Trustees that everything had been tried, but failed. It was then they voted to close the school Dec. 31.
The campus officially went up for sale Jan. 1 by the Minnesota Baptist Association, which owns the school. Proceeds from the sale — if and when it occurs — will be used to meet the obligation to the college’s creditors, officials from the school have said.
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