By Dean Hoke, October 21, 2025
🎧 Listen to the full podcast episode: https://smallcollegeamerica.transistor.fm/25
📺 Watch the video on YouTube: https://youtu.be/5e7TmyDxBWo
In the newest episode of Small College America, my co-host Kent Barnds and I speak with Jon Nichols, author of Requiem for a College: The Troubling Trend of College Closures in the United States. Nichols’ book offers a deeply personal and reflective look at the 2017 closure of Saint Joseph’s College, an institution intertwined with his family for three generations—his father, Dr. John Nichols, taught there for five decades, and his brother Michael continues to teach at Purdue University.
The Story of Saint Joseph’s College
Founded in 1889 by the Missionaries of the Precious Blood, Saint Joseph’s College in Rensselaer, Indiana, was a small Catholic liberal arts institution known for its close-knit community, rigorous Core Curriculum, and dedication to service. For more than a century, it served as both an educational and cultural anchor for Rensselaer and surrounding Jasper County, educating generations of teachers, business leaders, and clergy. At its peak in the 1970s, the college enrolled more than 1,500 students and earned national recognition for its innovative Core Program, which blended history, philosophy, and theology in an interdisciplinary approach to learning.
Despite its enduring mission and loyal alumni base, Saint Joseph’s faced mounting financial pressures and declining enrollment, leading to the suspension of operations in 2017. By that year, the college’s enrollment had declined to about 900 students, a sharp drop from its earlier decades of strength. The closure reverberated throughout the region, symbolizing a growing crisis among small, tuition-dependent private colleges across the United States.
About Jon Nichols
Jon Nichols is an author, educator, and observer of the changing higher education landscape. A graduate of Saint Joseph’s College and longtime member of its academic community, Nichols witnessed firsthand the personal and institutional struggles that informed Requiem for a College: The Troubling Trend of College Closures in the United States. His work combines narrative storytelling with research and reflection, capturing both the emotional and systemic dimensions of college closures. Today, Nichols teaches English at Waubonsee Community College in Illinois, where he continues to write and speak about the sustainability challenges facing small colleges and the communities they serve.
Nichols captures the profound emotional and social toll of a college closure—on faculty, students, alumni, and the surrounding town. His narrative reminds readers that when a college closes, it is not just an institution that disappears, but a community, a sense of purpose, and a shared legacy.
Our conversation explores a range of topics, including the warning signs that should have been taken more seriously—both at Saint Joseph’s and across higher education—and how his book captures not only institutional failure but also human loss: the erasure of identity, community, and legacy. Nichols also reflects on what sustainable models of higher education might look like in the years ahead and what long-term effects the closure has had on former students, faculty, and the Rensselaer community.
Small College America is a podcast series that shines a spotlight on the powerful impact of small colleges across the nation. Hosted by Dean Hoke and Kent Barnds, the podcast brings listeners inside the world of small colleges through candid conversations with higher education leaders, policy experts, and innovators. Each episode explores how these institutions are adapting, thriving, and continuing to deliver a personal, high-quality education.
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