Mount Ida Officials Could Be Subpoenaed To Testify Before Senate

NEWTON, MA — Mount Ida college officials who did not attend an oversight hearing Wednesday on the acquisition of the Newton school by the University of Massachusetts Amherst may face subpoenas.

The Senate Committee on Post Audit and Oversight invited Mount Ida President Barry Brown and chief financial officer Jason Potts to testify, but neither showed. Students and parents, faculty and staff did though.

Plans by the University of Massachusetts-Amherst to purchase the assets of Mount Ida College generated controversy, and prompted a vote of no confidence from the faculty council at UMass, which said Meehan and the trustees should have let the UMass campus know of the plan before it was finalized. They also demanded UMass Amherst officials stop the purchase.

Mount Ida, a small liberal arts college in Newton, announced last month it would shut down at the end of the school year following failed merger talks with Lasell College another liberal arts college in Newton.

UMass-Amherst would use the 74-acre secluded campus for career prep programs.

The hearing came just days after the 119th and final commencement at Mount Ida, an institution that has been around for more than a century.

The senate committee convened to hear testimony about the shutdown after pushback from families and students. Students told legislators that they were given no warning of the school's financial troubles before its closed abruptly.

"I can tell you I feel hurt to be considered a land acquisition. I a human being," John Driscoll a student at Mount Ida told the committee, saying more notice would have helped.

Committee members asked why the trustees did not give more notice since financial troubles at the school were not new.

Carmin Reiss, chair of Mount Ida's Board of Trustees, told the committee that Mount Ida lost half its entering class in 2012 and the college never fully recovered. She said the way the trustees looked at it was that if the college more people in on the fact that they were having financial trouble, it would have made things worse. She said the board regretted that the closure of the school caused pain to students and families.

"We probably could have taken better care of our students," she said.

Marty Meehann of UMass told legislators if his institution didn't step in, Mount Ida would still be closing.

Yesterday after an accelerated investigation into the sudden deal and closure the Attorney General concluded it would be worse for Mount Ida students if UMass hadn't stepped in to take care of students.

Mount Ida said about 90 percent of students have a path forward and many faculty have new jobs.

Previously on Patch:

• Mount Ida Sale Approved, AG Healey Starts Review Of Top Brass
• Mount Ida Closure Leaves Newton Students, Parents Scrambling
• No Merger For Two Newton Colleges After Pushback
• UMass Acquires Newton College, Mount Ida To Close
• Newton's Mount Ida In Talks With UMass: Governor
• Two Newton Colleges Consider Merger
• Husson Offers Mount Ida Students Half-Price Tuition

Have you signed up for the daily free friendly Neighborhood Patch newsletter yet? You should probably get on that. And While you're on it do you follow Boston Patch on Facebook ? You should probably get on that, too.

File Photo by Jenna Fisher/Patch