After Nearly 200 Years, New York’s Cazenovia College To Close
It’s the end of an era for one private college in Upstate New York. After nearly 200 years, Cazenovia College has announced it will soon permanently close.
Named one of "America’s Best Colleges" by U.S. News for nineteen consecutive years, Cazenovia College has produced some incredible minds. Alumni include Carole Cole, daughter of Nat King Cole and CEO of King Cole Productions, Leland Stanford, co-founder of Central Pacific Railroad; Governor of California, and founder of Stanford University, and Lucinda L. Combs, the first female physician to serve in China with the Women's Foreign Ministry Society.
Cazenovia College opened its doors in 1824 as the Genesee Seminary and was sponsored by the Methodist Church. Over the years, the college took on several names including Cazenovia Seminary, Oneida and Genesee Conference Seminary, the Oneida Conference Seminary, and the Central New York Conference Seminary.
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In 1942, the church dropped its sponsorship of the college, and the school added a junior college program as well as a prep school. From 1961 to 1982, the college operated as the Cazenovia College for Women but in 1982, it became a co-educational school once again and adopted the name it holds today - Cazenovia College.
On December 7, 2022, Ken Gardner, chair of the Cazenovia College Board of Trustees announced that the school was facing a “deficit of several million dollars for next year” and that in response the private college would complete its fall 2022 semester and would hold classes, events, and graduation in the spring of 2023 but that it would not reopen in the fall of 2023.
“We are deeply disappointed that it has come to this,” said Gardiner.
Officials say the school’s relationships with other private institutions such as Daemen University, Keuka College, Wells University, and others would aid in the transition of students.