Lourdes University in Ohio announces closure amid ‘mounting financial pressures’
Lourdes University in Ohio will shut down due to declining enrollment, rising costs, and an “unsustainable funding model,” the Sisters of St. Francis of Sylvania, Ohio, and the school’s board of trustees revealed this week.
The university will continue operations through the remainder of the 2025–2026 academic year, according to a message addressed to faculty and staff.
The sisters and board announced William Bisset would be stepping down as the university’s president and that the Sisters of St. Francis have appointed Sister Nancy Linenkugel, OSF, to serve in his place during the transition.
Bisset is the former vice president for enrollment management and student affairs at Marymount University.
“For decades, the Sisters of St. Francis of Sylvania have supported and sustained Lourdes University with extraordinary generosity, faith, and commitment,” the message said. “That support has been both steadfast and sacrificial. However, the sisters can no longer continue to subsidize the university at the level required to sustain its operations.”
The sisters and board said they plan to address how the decision will affect faculty, staff, and students “directly.”
Lourdes University was founded in 1958 as a sponsored ministry of the Sisters of St. Francis of Sylvania, Ohio, as “a liberal arts-based institution inspired by Catholic and Franciscan traditions,” its website states.
Federal lawsuit challenges Colorado ban on state funding for religious schools
A leading religious freedom law firm has filed a federal lawsuit challenging a Colorado state law that bans public funding for religious education.
The lawsuit filed on behalf of Education ReEnvisioned and Riverstone Academy, a Christian school, asks the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado to declare the statewide ban on funding for religious schools unconstitutional.
The suit comes after the Colorado Department of Education denied an attempt by ReEnvisioned to obtain funding for Riverstone.
“Colorado law requires the state to unconstitutionally discriminate on the basis of religion when awarding government contracts,” the complaint argues. “The state constitution and statutes prohibit school districts and BOCES [Board of Cooperative Educational Services] from contracting with religious schools to provide educational services, in violation of religious schools’ free exercise rights as well as the rights of the religious students and parents who would attend that school.”
First Liberty Institute announced the filing alongside law firms Miller Farmer Carlson, First & Fourteenth PLLC, and Dechert LLP.
“Parents have the constitutional right to seek out innovative government programs and be treated fairly when they do,” said First Liberty Institute Senior Counsel Jeremy Dys in a Feb. 16 press release.
Civil rights leader, former Xavier University President Norman Francis dies at 94
Norman Francis, a civil rights advocate who famously became the first lay president of Xavier University of Louisiana on the day of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination, has passed away at 94 years old.
Francis “dedicated his astounding effort to the flourishing of the human community, to full freedom of the oppressed, especially the descendants of the enslaved — it is the love to which we are called as disciples of Christ,” Xavier’s current president, Reynold Verret, said in a Feb. 18 memorial posted by the university.
“The nation is better and richer for his having lived among us,” Verret said.
Prior to Francis’ 47-year tenure as president of Xavier, he served as the university’s dean of men. He was also notable as the first Black law school graduate of the Loyola University New Orleans College of Law.
He was the co-founder of Liberty Bank and Trust Company, one of the oldest Black-owned banks in the U.S. He was also credited with helping bring the NFL’s Saints franchise to New Orleans.
Francis’ family said in a statement following his passing that his Catholic faith “was the foundation of his life, guiding the way he loved, served, and cared for others.”
“We find comfort in knowing that he is now reunited in eternal rest with his beloved wife, our mother, Blanche; his parents; his brother, Bishop Joseph Francis; and sisters Velma and Pauline, and many cherished members of our extended family who have gone before him marked with the sign of faith,” the family said.
Santa Clara University to relocate Jesuit theology school to main campus
Santa Clara University in California is moving its Jesuit School of Theology from Berkeley to its main campus, a decision that has been endorsed by the Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States.
“The decision to move the theologate follows more than a year of assessment and intentional discernment regarding the future and optimal location of the school for student support, academic integration, and future growth,” the school said in a Feb. 25 press release.
The move also comes after the university received a $20 million grant from the Lilly Endowment Inc. to expand its theological formation, which it plans to do through various initiatives, including the launch of a new Pope Francis Institute for Pastoral Flourishing.
The university said bringing the theology school’s faculty, staff, and students to its main campus will “help breathe life into the new Pope Francis Institute for Pastoral Flourishing, an important hub for expanding pastoral formation, synodal leadership, and ecclesial innovation.”
It also emphasized that the Jesuit school, combined with Santa Clara’s existing religious studies and pastoral ministries, “will comprise the largest faculty of Catholic theology and ministry in the western U.S.”
“The benefits to our campus from this move will be immeasurable, from the rich global perspectives shared by JST-SCU students, to the faculty collaborations that will be sparked, to new expertise brought to bear on the challenges facing our world,” Santa Clara University President Julie Sullivan said in the release.
