History

Four decades as a college, one abrupt closure, and an attempt to reopen the buildings as something else. All of it drawn from the center’s own archived pages.

1. A Servite college, then a secular one

The Mount Senario campus opened in 1962, run by the Servants of Mary Catholic order as a four-year private college. In 1975 it became secular and came under a board of trustees. Over four decades it served the educational needs of the Rusk County area.

2. Closure in 2002

The college closed its doors as a private college in 2002. At that point the community lost 230 full-time and part-time students and 75 employees. At its peak the college had employed as many as 200 faculty and staff and served 800 students. Rusk County Development Director Andy Albarado estimated the impact to the community at “$30 million annually when you consider (lost) retail sales, housing and employment.”

3. An education-center attempt

After watching the void the closure left, a group of investors with local roots, led by businessmen Jeff Hause and Bill David, bought the campus intending to keep serving the area’s post-secondary needs as a regional education center. The idea was a hub of partners: no single program could draw enough students in a rural region, but a variety of offerings might draw from a wider geography, with each partner helping bring students to the others. The vision also included art and theater, and promotion of natural resources and renewable energy. After renovation of the education building and residence hall, Mount Senario Education Center opened in the fall of 2009.

4. What this domain is now

This site preserves the education center’s own pages as a public record of the campus, its buildings, and its history. It is an archive, not an operator. It is not enrolling anyone, and it does not hold college records — for those, see transcripts. For the archived source of everything above, see the original About page.

Keep reading

Campus buildings and floor plans → · Education partners (archived) → · Things to do around Ladysmith (archived) →