Small Colleges Get Experimental in Bid to Survive

Faculty members hope the changes will attract students by offering them high-impact experiences and the chance to focus their education on societal challenges like climate change while learning the same analytical skills that liberal-arts programs have always promised. [...]while some such changes prompt complaints from critics — can a college that doesn’t offer a major in religious studies or philosophy call itself a liberal-arts institution? — backers point out that a college that has been forced to close benefits no one at all. Fox responded by persuading James McCoy, an old friend who had handled admissions at Louisiana State University and the University of New Haven, to come out of retirement and serve as vice president for enrollment. [...]the dean and vice president of academic affairs had resigned, so Varlotta hired a replacement, Judith Muyskens, a former French professor who had retired from Nebraska Wesleyan University as provost and before that had worked for the Appalachian College Association and for Colby-Sawyer College. The committee gathered information on what students said they wanted when they applied, the number of students each faculty member taught, the number of credit hours each generated, and how much it cost to educate a student in each major.