EVERETT – Puget Sound Christian College will hold commencement next week.
It will be its last.
College leaders publicly announced Thursday that the school will close its doors.
The 57-year-old college has seen enrollment stagnate instead of grow as it had hoped when it moved to downtown Everett three years ago from Mountlake Terrace.
About 140 students enrolled in the college’s business, social sciences, ministry and music classes will need to find a new place for studies.
Students learned of the plan to close the college during a chapel service Monday.
“Some people are really surprised, others aren’t. Some are really depressed about it,” said freshman Kelly Hutchinson, 19.
“The whole student body has come together a lot more than before, though. … The students are all planning to keep in touch with each other.”
Final exams are set for next week. The last class day is May 11.
The college’s 53rd commencement is set for the following Saturday with 39 graduate candidates.
A separate degree-completion program, called Excel, will continue its night classes until the end of the program’s current term in August.
College leaders declined to comment further on the closure this week.
Most of the school’s administrators also teach, and they are busy with finals preparations as well as helping students figure out where to go next, said Roger Pedersen, a trustee.
The board of trustees decided to shutter the college at a meeting Sunday.
Puget Sound Christian had been looking at merging with Hope International University, which is based in Fullterton, Calif. But an agreement could not be reached, according to an e-mail sent to students.
The college has lined up agreements with several Christian schools that will accept credits from Puget Sound Christian students who transfer.
“It was kind of a shock,” said Mike McGee, an associate professor of music who has been with the college since 1999. “Things happen for a reason.”
The closure follows that of the 150-student Henry Cogswell College, which shut down last year because of dwindling enrollment in its engineering, business and digital arts programs.
At the same time, downtown Everett is expected to get another Christian college.
The 125-student Trinity Lutheran College, now in Issaquah, is poised to remake the former Cogswell building and a neighboring site in the 3000 block of Colby Avenue into its new campus by fall 2009.
Trinity is among the colleges that will accept credits from students who want to transfer.
Puget Sound Christian College began in West Seattle in 1950 as Puget Sound College of the Bible. The school later moved to Edmonds and Mountlake Terrace before settling in Everett.
The closure marks the end of one family’s 53-year relationship with the college.
Conley Silsby of Snohomish was the college’s first full-time faculty member in 1954.
Over the next two decades, Silsby, now 99, taught everything from Hebrew history to speech. His wife, Carol, taught English; she passed away March 28 at age 94.
Silsby told his son and daughter-in-law that he wasn’t surprised by the college’s closure. He holds fond memories of the school that he helped build.
“He found satisfaction in what he was able to do while he was a part of the faculty there,” said Greg Silsby. “He’s certainly found satisfaction in all of his work in the many, many decades of teaching – those who have become church workers and ministers and missionaries throughout the years.”
Conley and Carol Silsby’s three children – including Greg – attended the college, as did some grandchildren.
Greg and Dorothy Silsby met at the college when it was in Seattle, although Greg wasn’t a student at the time. “I was just trolling, checking out the freshman crop,” he quipped.
The college’s early homes included a church and a mansion. One of its Seattle locations was near the Woodland Park Zoo, which students in the 1960s jokingly referred to as “the east campus,” Greg Silsby said.
“It’s been a school with an interesting history, and it’s sad to see something like this happen,” Greg Silsby said. “But small schools always have that difficulty of keeping going. And many of them don’t last this long.”
Reporter Melissa Slager: 425-339-3465 or mslager@heraldnet.com.
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