Unable to read the article due to the paywall. When the merger was first announced there was virulent opposition from some Mills alumnae. Several lawsuits were filed to block the merger, all of which were dismissed. One group of Mills alumnae got a meeting with the California Attorney General to air their grievances. He told them there was no legal route to block the merger. Those groups will never be satisfied with Northeastern.
Sharing allowed via FB, twitter, email, etc, so doubt problem quoting most of article:
" Mills College is known as the first womenâs college west of the Rockies, a small private school on 135 lush acres that specializes in the humanities and was an early adopter of admissions policies for transgender women. But after years of losing students and money, the college in 2021 announced plans to close.
While others saw just another example of a failing small college, Northeastern University â 3,000 miles away in Boston â saw an opportunity. And it engineered a merger, completed in June, that would bring it valuable real estate and a residential campus to expand its physical footprint in a desirable part of the country.
In touting the union, Northeastern has described it as âa transformational step forward for our global community,â and it posted stories and photos of its new campus, showing Spanish colonial buildings and smiling students. But a recent visit to the campus shows that not all students are happy about the deal so far.
Some spoke of an abrupt change in culture resulting from an influx of first-year coed students on the campus that was considered a safe haven for the LGBTQ community. Others expressed frustration with shifting degree requirements, COVID-19 safety, communication, and financial aid administration in the months following the merger announcement.
âItâs not a merger; it is an acquisition,â said Victoria Ixchel Mayorga, a student who started at Mills in 2019 and now is enrolled at Northeastern, in an interview on a recent brisk afternoon in Oakland. âI would say it is academic colonization with the wiping away of our history and culture.â
The tension at the school, now known as Mills College at Northeastern University, reflects the challenges that colleges face when merging campus cultures and balancing the loyalties of students, faculty, and alumni. Hundreds of colleges around the country are facing financial hardship due to declining enrollment, demographic changes, and online competitors â struggles that higher-education experts say could prompt more mergers and closures.
Adding physical locations gives Northeastern, which also has a campus in London, the capacity to enroll more students, including some off its waiting list, at a time when slots at its main campus are increasingly hard to come by. While many colleges struggle to attract students, Northeastern said this month it had received a record 96,371 applications for the fall semester. It posted a record-low 6.7 percent acceptance rate last year.
Northeastern says it has taken steps to make the merger as seamless as possible for Mills students.
Mary Ludden, who oversees eight of Northeasternâs campuses including Oakland, said change is âincredibly difficultâ but feels the university has been available to address student concerns through âlistening sessions.â Mills was going to close before Northeastern came along, Ludden pointed out, but now the college has more resources than it did as an independent school, including more health and wellness services.
âIâm actually really proud of the level of access that we created for questions and conversations to take place,â Ludden said.
Ludden said certain issues, including confusion over financial aid distribution, were due to delays in receiving approval to allocate federal financial aid to students in Oakland.
About 500 first-year Northeastern students enrolled on the Oakland campus last fall. About half already have relocated to the main Boston campus as part of a program called N.U.in, which sends hundreds of students to other Northeastern campuses for their first semester with the understanding they will come to Boston in the spring âmore intellectually curious and ready to jump into the next adventure,â according to the universityâs website. Students accepted into that program can choose from a list of available campus locations on a first-come, first-serve basis.
The rest of the Northeastern students currently in Oakland are participating in a similar, year-long program called NU Bound, which sends students to locations other than Boston for two semesters.
The two programs include students who may not have chosen Oakland as their first choice but enrolled to relocate to Boston after a semester or two. This dynamic frustrates some Mills students who realize that some of the Northeastern students would rather be elsewhere.
After the merger was announced, Mills students were given the option of transferring to other colleges or continuing their education with Northeastern at no additional cost. Northeastern estimated total costs for the upcoming academic year of $81,472, while Millsâs sticker price was about $49,000.
About 40 percent of the roughly 800 students who had been at Mills when the deal closed continued at the Oakland campus last fall; the rest graduated, withdrew, or transferred.
Northeastern said it plans to grow enrollment at the Oakland campus and extend its signature co-op program to students there down the road.
On the recent campus visit, it was clear that Mills students take great pride in the campus, which is dotted with fir and eucalyptus trees. Crossing the campus green, three students wearing combat boots and graphic T-shirts mused about the schoolâs history and reminisced about life before the merger.
They pointed to Mills Hall, where presidential portraits hang from the walls near a display of teapots from one of the collegeâs founders. Mills, which started as the âYoung Ladies Seminaryâ in 1852, in recent years attracted more first-generation and low-income students by offering a lower price than other private colleges.
Mayorga, 21, who moved from Yonkers, N.Y., to attend Mills, said she never would have applied if she had known it would transform into a Boston-based institution.
At Mills, she said, she found a welcoming community of like-minded women and gender-nonconforming friends. She spoke of the exhaustion and disappointment she has experienced in recent months as she has tried to advocate for herself and other continuing Mills students struggling with the changes.
âTheyâre saying, âHere are pictures of students and theyâre doing great and everythingâs fine,â â Mayorga said of Northeasternâs portrayal. âThatâs just not whatâs happened. Northeastern is the opposite of what Mills was.â
Eshan Gupta, a first-year Northeastern student, spent the most recent fall semester on the Oakland campus through the N.U.in program, where he enjoyed his classes and professors. Gupta was accepted off the waiting list and was happy to stay close to family and friends in Palo Alto for the fall before moving to the main Boston campus for the spring semester.
But he said he was aware of tension between continuing Mills students and some incoming Northeastern students who werenât wearing masks indoors and were not âas appreciative of Millsâs legacy.â
âFor me, it was like going to Northeastern University at their Oakland campus rather than going to Mills College,â Gupta said.
Carrie Maultsby-Lute, a business professor at Mills who now is employed by Northeastern, said itâs understandable that the merger created tension. The womenâs college has trained young people âto find their voice, advocate for the most marginalized peoples, and to speak their truth to power.â
âThe merger cast a light on socioeconomic realities as we moved from a campus with many first-generation students to a more affluent student body and a campus ladened with resources,â Maultsby-Lute added.
Ludden said that the university is developing programming and research areas for the newly created Mills Institute at Northeastern, which Northeastern invested $30 million in to launch and is meant to advance âwomenâs leadership, gender equity, and racial justice,â and carry on Millsâs legacy.
To seal the merger, Northeastern loaned Mills another $30 million to cover expenses in 2022. The university, which will have 14 locations around the world when its latest in Miami opens, then assumed Millsâs debts of about $65.2 million and its assets, mostly land, buildings, artwork, and endowment investments, totaling $767.8 million.
Several current and former Mills students said they saw more money being invested on the Oakland campus after the deal closed last summer. Crews showed up to clean and repaint campus buildings, and replace furniture in common areas. Food trucks appeared on campus and continuing Mills students were given iPads as gifts.
There are also plans to add more faculty and staff over time. For professors, who are now Northeastern employees, the merger brought the first pay raise in 10 years and more opportunities for research and scholarship.
The infusion of capital, however, did not compensate for the loss of a beloved community. Perhaps most upsetting was the decision to eliminate several classes and majors including book arts, ethnic studies, and dance.
Abigail Selby, a former Mills creative writing student, transferred to Sonoma State University after learning that Northeastern would end some of Millsâs liberal arts programs and classes. Selby described a stressful period seeking information and answers from professors and campus administrators in the months before the merger was finalized.
âWe just felt like we were being swept under the rug and forgotten about,â Selby said.
Ludden said that Mills lost accreditation for its programs and Northeastern was helping students transition to comparable Northeastern programs.
A lawsuit filed on behalf of two Mills students last May in Alameda County alleges that Mills misled students about being able to finish their degree programs after the merger.
In October, about 15 Mills students organized a protest during a fund-raiser attended by Northeastern leaders, faculty, students, and alumni. The protesters passed out fliers that said, âStop the erasure of the Mills community.â
Soon afterward, Lilian Gonzalez, an alum and administrator at Mills, started meeting with organizers to address concerns. Gonzalez, who feels there is âa lot to gain in this merger,â said she has tried to help students understand how to navigate new systems and processes, and clear up âmisinformation.â They also agreed to start a biweekly newsletter to keep Oakland students better informed.
âIt takes a little time,â Gonzalez said. âI do believe while [Mills students] are receptive to change, it moves at the speed of trust. We work daily to blend the cultures.â"
Itâs difficult for the students, who chose Mills for what it offered them, and had the advantage of a Bay area location, but surely, they would have been worse off had the school simply closed and sold off the real estate. There must be other schools that certainly could have met their needs, if NEUâs bending over backwards to accommodate them wasnât enough.
Thank you. It is not surprising that some legacy Mills students are unhappy. But the Mills model had not been financially viable for more than a decade. Alumnae claimed that financial viability was possible if the former Mills administrators had done the right thing. But they were unable to specify what that would be.
Itâs interesting, the deal that NEU got. Sounds as if they invested certainly less than 100 million, and got real estate worth nearly 800 million, plus the fact that itâs an up and running campus, with some faculty in place (who were no doubt thrilled to get their first raise in eons). And it sounds as if they are trying to incorporate some of Millsâ gender/race social justice mission. Only drawback I can see for NEU is that it looks as if the campus is about 1.5 miles to the nearest BART station. But thatâs a heck of a lot better than most of the other options that students could find, if they needed to be in the Bay Area for co-ops/internships.
Just incredible, the meteoric rise of Northeastern over the past 25 years or so, from an also-ran option for local students, to a national, and verging on international, powerhouse in college education.
The premerger situation at Mills reminds me of two now closed Boston area colleges: Mount Ida College and Pine Manor College. Both evolved into schools serving primarily a minority and first generation student body. Their programs focused on the humanities and social sciences, social work and teacher preparation. Noble professions but not high paying careers. Students were graduating with large amounts of student loans and were unable to repay them. The Boston Globe carried many articles about the situations there such as:
Mount Idaâs struggles included deficit, low graduation rate - The Boston Globe
Again a paywall. Mount Ida campus is now an extension center of UMass Amherst and Pine Manorâs campus was acquired by Boston College.
Prior to Northeastern showing interest in Mills their only option was to be acquired by UC Berkeley who would use their residence halls and house back-office administration.
I fully appreciate that the transformation a modern womanâs college to a co-ed institution will come with a painful loss of a loved, unique culture and identity. On the other hand, it will be somewhat gradual for existing students, as each new co-ed freshman classes will start each year, and another class of senior women will graduate.
And, of course, I suspect of all the possible outcomes, the already-inclusive nature of any Bostonian university is probably among the least negative?
And as far as alumni - well, they are entitled to reminsce, but they are no longer passenger on that ship that long sailed.
Mills College had not admitted freshmen since September 2020, a year before the merger was even contemplated. Mills had announced its closure and would be doing a partial teach out for current students. It was that announcement that got the attention of Northeastern, and the rest is history.
Okay, the only remaining students who enrolled in the âoriginal Millsâ will be now be finishing up their junior years (the others will be graduating after in 3 months). So theyâll suddenly be outnumbered by ânew Millsâ students - which does explain it being a more drastic change.
We are local-ish to Oakland (neighboring city, my D even attended elementary and middle school in Oakland). Whatâs weird is that there is ZERO buzz about this locally. I had heard about he closure of Mills, but then it totally fell off the radar screen. My D is a senior who applied to colleges this year with a specific strategy of ONLY applying to local schools. Her counselor never ONCE mentioned NEU Mills campus. Not a single one of her classmates mentioned applying to NEU/Mills. We thought we had applied to every college within a 2 hour range, and I only learned that we had missed NEU by reading College Confidential!
So my point is, even in the immediate locale, no one even seems to know this college exists. Which is a kind of weird. There doesnât seem to be any local advertising/promotion and, since they seem to want to build the Oakland campus, you might think they would be trying to attract top local applicants? But not a word on it anywhere that I have seen around here.
As an FYI, there was actually a huge billboard about NEU/Mills on a 7/11 on 27th Street in Oakland. I was talking to my daughter about it, just a couple of weeks ago. Itâs now been replaced.
During our visit to NEU, they never mentioned Mills.
I did see an advertisement on a local (Berkeley) bus for NEU/Mills. But I agree that the local buzz about this seems to be lacking.
The Oakland campus will offer essentially a Northeastern University education, complete with coop. It may be that they are seeking a student body that is interested in that first. On the Northeastern decision thread, a couple of posters indicated that they were offered Oakland campus but were not interested because they were from California and wanted to go out of state.
I donât think that theyâve been trying to build the Oakland campus just yet. I think that they bought it for long term strategy - valuable real estate, valuable housing for their students who would be doing internships/co-ops in the Bay area, and an immediate additional launching site for freshmen who would then transfer to NEU, some after only one semester, in order to fill the slots of those who transfer away from the Boston campus.
I bet that theyâll ramp up advertising for the Oakland campus soon, since it really is a very attractive amenity, to know that one can have guaranteed housing for an internship/co-op in the Bay area, as part of the NEU experience.
Huh. Never saw it, as I expect most people around here never saw it. Heck, they could even place Facebook ads or something and generate more publicity. At a minimum, they should be doing some outreach to counselors - my daughter, for example, definitely would have applied had she known about it. Maybe some counselors in Oakland itself have been engaged, but not in the surrounding cities (at least it seems that way to me, maybe others have been told about and encouraged to apply). They donât seem to be making much effort, which doesnât bode very well for its future, imo.
You may be right, but still seems like theyâre missing an opportunity. There are some high stats local students who would apply (my daughter for one). They could start building reputation fairly easily with just a little outreach to local counselors. They could start building an attractive educational experience, rather than an NEU consolation prize (which it sort of seems like right now). But I guess weâll see what their long term plan is.
Was there much local attention paid to Mills before 2020?
I had heard of it, for sure. I hadnât paid much attention to it at the time because it was prior to D23 thinking about college, so it was mostly irrelevant to me at the time. Despite that, I was certainly aware of its existence. Now, when college is very relevant to us, I wasnât even aware of NEU Oakland campus. So that seems odd to me.
I totally agree with your post. Initially, there was a lot of hype that NEU was the first âtruly bicoastalâ university in the US. And outside of that one billboard, I havenât seen anything else.
I especially agree with this. NEU could be doing so much more with this âmergerâ, but it isnât apparent. And that is very concerning to me as a parent.