Midtown changes forever
Santa Fe no longer has a four-year university smack dab in the center of town. Whether as St. Michael’s College, then the College of Santa Fe, and finally, the up-from-the-ashes Santa Fe University of Art and Design, the presence of a campus made the possibility of a university education more accessible to locals.
Now, as the city of Santa Fe — which bought the property after the College of Santa Fe shut down in 2009 — looks to find a new purpose for the 64-acre campus on St. Michael’s Drive, the rest of us can take a moment to ponder both the gifts this college gave us and the possibilities for what happens next.
For Santa Feans of a certain age, the college was inextricably linked to the city’s Catholic roots, tied to St. Michael’s High School — for years both were male-only, run by Christian Brothers in the Lasallian tradition of education featuring faith, concern for social justice, academic rigor and a desire to grow an inclusive community. The school was a place for locals to pull themselves up from the working class and become teachers, business owners, government employees, occupying the sorts of jobs that required university degrees and guaranteed a comfortable life going forward.
The Catholic tradition rooted in the school’s original mission changed over the years (or it didn’t, depending on who is telling the story), but the idea that education was a path to a better life never shifted. Still, after the school officially became the College of Santa Fe and began accepting women in the mid-1960s, it appeared to locals that the college was a more secular institution.
The brothers — who still ran the college until the mid1980s and remained as teachers — don’t agree, but perception can become reality over decades. As the school’s financial struggles grew, many graduates of the school felt they did not recognize what it was becoming — more a liberal arts college with a strong emphasis on visual and performing arts, and less a place where students studied to become teachers, nurses or accountants.
Without a permanent endowment, with costs increasing and finally, with the aftershocks of the 2008 recession, the College of Santa Fe closed its doors. The city bought the property and looked for a tenant. The Santa Fe University of Art and Design — a for-profit school operated by Laureate Education — opened in the space in 2010, keeping university education alive in mid-Santa Fe. But not for long. The campus is shuttering. The last graduating class — this one from the Santa Fe University of Art and Design — will receive diplomas this weekend.
As we consider the future of the property, the importance of education — affordable postsecondary education — must be kept firmly in mind. Without the College of Santa Fe through the decades, Santa Fe would not have built its stable middle class, the very people whose children and grandchildren are leaving the city for what they see as greater opportunity. Those are people we want as neighbors, the people who will keep Santa Fe a vibrant city.
With the expansion of distance education, the university of the future might not be located in a place, of course. It could be delivered via computer to individual homes all over Santa Fe. What matters most is that college be affordable, but we still value the actual presence of a campus community in the center of town, one with diverse students and faculty.
It is true that the city is fortunate in the excellent Santa Fe Community College, with its Higher Education Center midtown available to help students gain a four-year degree in Santa Fe. We also are blessed with St. John’s College and its unique Great Books curriculum and rigorous academics. Also available — and not just for Native students — is the Institute of American Indian Arts, an affordable, intriguing option for students.
No, Santa Fe is not without higher educational options, but that does not mean losing the Santa Fe University of Art and Design does not hurt. Not only do Santa Feans have fewer choices, we will miss the bright, creative students who came here for college and contributed to our city. Faculty members, too, have made our town better. All of that could be lost.
At this point, we must prepare for the future while taking care of this legacy. City of Santa Fe officials must keep the film studios occupied, look after the art treasures and rare books in the school’s collection and maintain the buildings and grounds. Is there someone — anyone — ready to take over operations of The Screen, a movie theater that offered the rare and fascinating to Santa Fe’s sophisticated filmgoers? The Santa Fe Art Institute, located on the campus but independent, is continuing. That’s a plus for whatever comes next. Options are being debated, with the Midtown Campus Project underway to plan for this valuable property and its buildings.
We remain in flux, one chapter closed and the next barely the outline of possibility. What now? We are eager to find out.