Julia Jensen: From The Empire State Tribune, in collaboration with Broadway & Exchange podcast, this is Demise Of The Crown. A story about two young reporters, and their college’s fall from prominence.

Colby McCaskill: On July 17th, 2023, The King’s College ceased academic operations. It let go nearly all of its staff and faculty, and it closed its doors. The King’s College had died. The years of operating with a broken business model had surged to the surface in a perfect storm of death of donors, political conflation, desperate business with shady characters, a global pandemic, and the impending shake-up of higher-education. But at the heart of it, in the eye of the story, was a place unlike any other. A place that had survived so long miraculously, and whose demise was nothing if not self-inflicted. 

Julia Jensen: Those at the center of this college will most likely not like us calling their beloved school dead. They’ve done their best to even subvert the story of their closure. But The King’s College’s way of teaching students, its avenue of fulfilling its mission, its ability to hold classes, is no more. The college has closed its doors. It has died. Now, the soul of the college is far from gone. There are people, like the Board of Trustees, that are working towards a resurrection. But at this point, The King’s College, as a college, is closed. 

Colby McCaskill: Through a commitment to the truths of Christianity and a biblical worldview, The King’s College sought to transform society by preparing students for careers in which they help to shape and eventually lead strategic public and private institutions. That was their mission, anyway. But New York City is always changing. Apart from the tides of failing storefronts or the scaffolding that moves with the phases of the moon, the city is expensive. People come. People go. That’s just life here. Often, though, that reality sucks. 

Julia Jensen: Yeah. Especially when the thing that goes is mine. 

Colby McCaskill: The main character of this story, and one of those things that’s ours, that is hardest to let go of, is an itty-bitty college in downtown Manhattan: The King’s College. I came to this college, we call it King’s, a year ago. 

Julia Jensen: I, actually, have gone to King’s for at least a year and a half now. And you gotta understand, King’s is not like a regular college. Not saying that that’s good or bad. Their branding team paints it as a positive, but I mean, it would be a pretty terrible marketing strategy to say: We’re not like other colleges, we’re worse! 

Colby McCaskill: They’ve cycled through the different slogans over the years, their most recent one, and the one that got around campus the most, was: “Don’t just go to college, come to King’s.”

Natalie: I'm not sure who said it first, but we all know it was true.

Brian: Don't just go to college.

Eliza: Don't just go to college.

Anthony: Don't just go to college. 

Tim: Don't just go to college, come to King’s.

Colby McCaskill: The Director of Digital Media and Marketing for the college at that time, one of the brains behind that video, told me that what really stuck out to him was just how surprising this little school was. 

Eric: When I moved to New York from Florida, I was thinking: Oh, we're gonna be some of the few Christians up here, and we're moving to a dark place. And, like, he totally proved us wrong. Just every step along the way. You know, we just saw that God is doing so much cool stuff that he doesn't necessarily stamp his name on. And, you know, King’s, I felt like, embodied that. 

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And I loved that, you know, I still do. So I just really fell, I fell hard.

Julia Jensen: You know, It’s kind of sweet, because, often, if you ask those who knew the college intimately, there’s a little tug of war over what was the best part of King’s.

Evan: Pretty much every single professor at King’s genuinely wants you to succeed and wants to help make that happen for you. 

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Joseph: I want to keep repeating this again and again, King’s students were the best part of King’s. I think it's because it takes a certain level of…is it craziness? Is it boldness? To try to go to a Christian liberal arts school in downtown, in the financial district. But probably because of that, it draws such ambitious, but kind, smart, but questioning students.

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Alexa: Dr. Johnson is a father figure. I know that other professors are father figures. Dr. Bradley is a father figure to so many young men here. The way that they pour into the students is just remarkable and not in their job description.  

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Dru: I’ll also say, when I describe to other colleagues at other colleges and universities, what we teach and what we do and how we do things. They can't believe that either they're like: How do you get away with that?

Colby McCaskill: Like what specifically?

Dru: The demanding curriculum that we actually make students read. And they actually have to—how we do the housing, the student development. A lot of the things that people complain about at King’s, most of my colleagues are like: That's awesome. How are you getting away? We can never do that with students. Parents would never let us get away with it. 

Julia Jensen: This. This place is going to be the protagonist of our story. That’s right. This story is not about one person or another. It’s about a place. An institution. A school. A little college that graduates such remarkable students at such a remarkable rate, taught by such outstanding faculty that it’s almost miraculous that they could all be in one place.

Eric: I don't know. This may be breaking news, but working for a small private Christian College is not the most lucrative of career paths. So for people in New York City to choose to do that. Yeah, I mean, that means something. 

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Sophia: Again, these professors are amazing, right? And we had them all in one place. Like, What? They actually saw each other. They were colleagues. Like, they called each other Tony and Dru.

Evan: The college, their alum base, considering how small and generally unknown the school is, our alumni have been able to punch really, really far up above their way. You know, you have King’s alum at NBC, MSNBC, BernsteinAlliance bank, Charity: Water, Redeemer Presbyterian Church. King’s alum who have worked with Coca Cola, TD Ameritrade, Goldman Sachs. There are a bunch of students who I could name off the top of my head who have their own companies now who are working at really well known successful law firms, stuff where you think, wow, I mean, someone from a no-name Christian liberal arts school in Manhattan works there and they're known and respected quantities in that respective business. You wouldn't necessarily expect that from a college like King’s, but we do it anyway.

Colby McCaskill: So what’s especially sad about you, dear listeners, even hearing our voices, is because this story is not just about a school, but a school in crisis. What we are going to spend these next few weeks telling you about is a wonderfully broken little college, made of wonderful broken people, who have laid claim to the precipice of an awaiting abyss, and who have done a pretty admirable job not falling. If you have no idea what that means, that’s okay. Don’t worry, we’ll get into the specifics of this place, its virtues, its weaknesses, its history, and what that all means for its future.. You might’ve caught it if you were listening closely, though this place is a Christian College. Though, again, not like the ones you’re thinking of. This place is different. Again no judgment, yet, on whether that’s good or not. In my scant year here, I’ve experienced a whole lot of things that defied my expectations of a Christian college.

Julia Jensen: And in this, our goodbye project to King’s, we want to tell you all about it. We want to walk you through this entire institution, give you an inside tour of where it came from, what just happened, and take a stab at why. And, we thought. We thought! We thought what better way to do that than to bring you on a journey with us? What better place to have such an important conversation than on a train? 

Colby McCaskill: That’s right. We’re taking you on a tour through King’s, in the New York City subway. And we hope, and I mean this now, that no matter your background, core beliefs, political affiliation, that we can help you see that the college’s story is not just one of Christian Academia, but of people like you and I. The joy that comes from genuine community. The mistakes we make. And how we deal with those mistakes when they have expansive consequences. 

Julia Jensen: On this week’s commute, we are going to pass through four stations on our locomotive of journalism. First, we bring you into where the disaster becomes real. Next, we hear more about what this means for the students, and for their faith. After that we hear about this giant black hole that we are all now thinking about. Lastly we try to answer a question about leadership. That all comes next. 

Colby McCaskill: One last thing we do want to mention before we board is how this is a story that has a lot of personal weight with us. We lived this. And in many senses we are still living this today. As such, we want to bring you into this story as much as we can, showing you, with as little bias as possible, the story of The King’s College. Of course there are going to be places where we dive into our opinions about the topics we cover. But we’ll do our best to call that out so you can be aware when that begins. Also: as I’m sure you’ll find out, this story spans multiple days, months, years, even decades. We cannot fully give you the entire story diving into every little detail in the time allotted. So, if there is something else you would like to know, you can find our sources linked in the show description and in the transcript itself. With that out of the way, thank you for listening to our show. Stand clear of the closing doors please. Here is episode one: Posthumous. 

Julia Jensen: From The Empire State Tribune, in collaboration with the Broadway & Exchange Podcast, I’m Julia Jensen.

Colby McCaskill: I’m Colby McCaskill, and you’re listening to Demise Of The Crown. Don’t go away.

David: Well, welcome back everyone. It is good to see you all. Quite a turnout today. And welcome to all those who are joining online. We have a number who are zooming into this meeting so welcome back. I hope your break was restful…

Colby McCaskill: This is Dean of Students, David Leedy. He’s a voice you heard earlier, and in the promotional video. Been at King’s for over two decades, came in 2000, and right now he’s welcoming students back to the Spring semester of 2023. This is me recording by the way. If I remember right, I’m sitting on the right side of what we call the City Room. Our biggest classroom. You could kind of call it our auditorium. It’s on the fifth floor of a big office building in the Financial District in Manhattan. It’s where events take place sometimes, or, in this instance, it’s a Welcome Back Gathering. David is at the podium, talking to a packed room of students. We’ve never had a Welcome Back Gathering, so there’s a little bit of curiosity as to what this is all for.

David: Well, I want to note some comings and goings over the break. We had, I think, 27 of our number graduate in December. So congrats to them. They’re not doing any more papers or late night study sessions. So…

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The folks on here. You'll see the second are not necessarily new, but they did start at King’s as employees this past fall. I want you to be aware of their presence and the resources that they represent for all of you, and to encourage you to take advantage of those resources.

Colby McCaskill: This is it? I think. Just like a couple house cleaning stuff and some welcome back wishes? It just feels a little mundane, for an event that’s brand new. Just a bunch of announcements?

David: Okay. Moving on. House GPA competition. I'm gonna start, I'll start with the very bottom and go from there I got results right here. No, I will not start at the very bottom. I will only highlight the top three okay. And then if you have questions about where, if you're not in the top three, where your house placed, you can see Leticia Mosqueda afterwards and she can let you know. 

Colby McCaskill: There’s jargon that you probably don’t know, House GPA competition, soon you’ll hear about Day of Service. Yes, we have specific names for stuff, I can’t get into it all right now or it would take up the entire show. But I promise I’ll spell it out when it’s needed.

David: Day of Service. Epic Annual Event. Rafa, where are you? I’ll be turning it over to Rafa, giving a word about Day of Service.

Colby McCaskill: A student comes up, his name, as you just heard, is Rafa. He’s on the student council, called The King’s Council, and is planning a school-wide volunteer day.

Rafa: Yeah, so if you guys don’t know what Day of Service is, first of all, each one of you has your phones out or in your pockets or something. So I encourage you to sign up for Day of Service right now, as I'm explaining to you what it is. Basically, it's an event we have every year and we partner with five different partners across the city. And basically, we get to serve our city. We literally get to be the hands and feet of our God in our immediate community. 

Colby McCaskill: Then David just goes back to advertising student club events.

David: So we have the Difficult discussion coming up on February 2nd.

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So I encourage you to come to that, and we have a great panel lined up for that.

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We also have our Black History Month address. A week later on February 9th.

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We also have the MPJI spring lecture with Hamill Harris. 

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And then of course, of course, of course, in March, Spring Interregnum. 

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All right. So it'll be a great semester looking forward to it, and doing the semester with you all. Alright, with that, I want to invite President Day to come up and give us some important updates about The King's College.

Colby McCaskill: Finally! Okay, President Day is going to speak, this is what it’s all about. 

Julia Jensen: But before that, I think we ought to explain why there were expectations for this event in the first place. 

Colby McCaskill: Oh, yeah. Right.

Julia Jensen: In November, our student newspaper, Empire State Tribune, we like to shorten it to EST, got a tip of oncoming budget cuts that would cut the faculty size, cap the student population, and shrink the campus. A few hours after the Empire State Tribune published the breaking news story, the college released an official announcement via email. 

Colby McCaskill: Now, yes, budget cuts are not the biggest deal. For students actually, it didn’t even cross their mind that the so-called “Rightsizing” would have any immediate impact. Remember Rafa? Here he is telling me about his reaction.

Colby McCaskill: What did it feel like when you heard about the news in November, about the downsizing? 

Rafa: Was that November? I didn't really care. I thought that whatever happened would take a long time to happen. And so I figured if it was going to take a long time to happen, that means more time for a solution to be found. That means they can probably get everybody out the door to graduate if they need to.

Julia Jensen: Other students and faculty had similar reactions.

Richard: The rightsizing was in, I think November. Which, I was fine with that.

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Parker: I was like: Alright. Sounds good. I wasn't worried about it. 

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But I wasn't worried about it. 

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Colby McCaskill: Did you know in November that this situation was coming? 

Mattilyn: No idea. 

Colby McCaskill: No idea.

Julia Jensen: Part of the reason all these students may not have felt the severity of the situation at that moment may have simply been the ingenious move to spin the decision with a relaxing title. Instead of downsizing, King’s was rightsizing. It wasn’t cutting budgets or dropping faculty, it was reshaping itself to fit the space and the community better. It’s a great example of what we are going to see turn into a trend in this story: King’s routinely downplaying bad news. Perhaps, even at the cost of truth. It’s very political if you think about it. 

Colby McCaskill: But let it be known, ignorance or apathy were not the only responses to this news of upcoming restructuring.

Joseph: Yeah. So this is November ‘22. November ‘22, we were informed in a Faculty Assembly about Rightsizing. The word, I didn't pick up on the word. What I picked up on, actually, personally, and there are many faculty who disagree and had different reactions to this. And I think they're all legitimate. But for me, personally, it was good news. I thought things were so bad, that hearing that the administration was only going to not renew five contracts at the end of next academic year—

Colby McCaskill: Wait, sorry, I just want to back up. So it wasn't good news that they were getting rid of five faculty? It was good news that they were only getting rid of five faculty? Because you thought they were gonna do more?

Joseph: Well, yes. So that meeting, I felt—after that meeting—I felt relieved. 

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I thought that there was going to need to be much more drastic measures taken. And then for me, that meant that everyone had a job until at least May, or I guess July, 2024. 

Colby McCaskill: To some, restructuring, cutting, came as good news! Because it seemed like a worse outcome could be on its way. To others, those not on the inside, it came as incredibly confusing news. 

Evan: It was major whiplash. Because, we heard over the summer, that—or maybe it was right before the school year ended—that we had just renegotiated a 12 year lease at the college's address 56 Broadway, and that there were going to be a ton of new investments into updating the college's infrastructure. And I mean, in the millions of investment that would go into updating facilities, and this, that and the other, 

Colby McCaskill: For those that saw the college’s trajectory already dipping, the news of Rightsizing came as welcome news that things weren’t as bad as imagined. To others, the students who had heard about all the significant upgrades and plans for the future, the Rightsizing was just a complete 180, begging questions about where exactly the college was actually headed. And for those without any recollection about the trajectory of the college, the Rightsizing was not big news, just an update about the changing tides, we need to cap classes and cut some faculty to keep going, very sad, but not a disaster. Either way, another part of this restructuring news that was ambiguous enough to seed curiosity and worry into the community was the campus resizing. King’s does not have that large a campus. It’s the fifth floor, the sixth floor, the lobby, and a floor below the lobby which you have to access from behind the building. All that means is that to begin with, our campus is tiny.

Julia Jensen: When Stockwell Day, the administration official that was attributed for the leaked announcement and signing of the official email, said that we will, quote “adjust the size of our physical campus,” everyone was a bit worried. So, with the prospect of a meeting with, “important announcements for the upcoming semester,” the question of where they would be cutting space from our already tiny campus was top of the list.

Colby McCaskill: In addition to the questions of what a reduced footprint would look like, another thing plagued the student body. A feeling that a big secret was to be revealed. It spread throughout the entire campus as soon as the semester began a day before the Welcome Back Gathering. That feeling, it turns out, was not unfounded. Before the semester had officially begun, Stockwell Day had held a meeting with faculty, revealing some…what do you call it? Concerning news.

Joseph: Yeah. January 12, 2023. 

Colby McCaskill: And that was on Zoom?

Joseph: It was on Zoom. And Interim President Stockwell day came on. And he said—and I don't remember if we prayed first. I think we prayed first. He says: I have an announcement, but we should pray first. And then he said: We are not currently announcing the closing of The King's College. And because I had thoughts that—I mean, academic job cycle is strange, so you have to apply for way in advance. And so I had thought: Well, I have a paycheck until the end of my contract. And then there might be a problem. Or maybe things will rebound, but maybe not. But I have a bit of a runway. And then the first thing that the President—Interim President—said was: We are not currently announcing the closing of the King's College. 

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My reaction was—I think confused? I think I was confused, because the last major update was that only five faculty would be let go. In a year and a half. But now in January 2023, I'm confused why we have millions of—we are millions of dollars short to finish the semester. 

Julia Jensen: Stockwell had also met with the woman you just heard, Mattilyn, Student Body President. Here's Mattilyn again.

Mattilyn: The first time I knew about it was in January when I got back right before school started. Stockwell called me into his office for a meeting and he basically explained all this and he was like: Well, just give me your feedback, like, what are you thinking? And I was really honest with him, I was like, students have had trust issues with King’s in the past because of a lack of transparency. So I just encouraged him to be as transparent as possible.

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I talked to him right before school started and then I think maybe the first week of school, all of the council went over to Joey and Kylie's apartment, and with student development and Dean Leedy spoke to all of us and kind of filled us all in on the situation, and gave us the updates on the budget cuts and just everything that was happening. And that's when words started getting out about everything that was happening because at that point, the whole Council knew. 

Colby McCaskill: Stockwell met with Mattilyn on January 13th, less than a week before the Welcome Back Gathering. And The King’s Council (the student council, remember?) All met on January 17th, that next tuesday. 

Julia Jensen: Oh gosh, now we have to explain houses. Okay. One of the things that makes King’s unique is its, what they call a, House system. It’s marketed on their website as being, quote, “student-led communities driven by a mission to support, encourage, and develop.” You could equate them to kind of like Greek Life except you get sorted in—yes like Harry Potter—rather than having to go through an initiation process. Each house offers a select group community, spiritual outlets, and an opportunity to be involved in competitions.

Colby McCaskill: Don’t worry, they still mess with the freshmen when they first get to be a part of the house, we’re not that lame. 

Julia Jensen: Sure, though, it’s intended to be a way for the students to have a built in connection when they first walk through the doors. Of course, like with everything in this world, it has its flaws, and can often not do its job of inclusion very well. But anyway, each House is named after someone. Their namesake. Such as Susan B. Anthony, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, or Sojourner Truth. Each House also has a president, and three other students that lead. 

Colby McCaskill: The House presidents were among those present when the budget cut specifics were announced at Joey and Kylie’s apartment.

Julia Jensen: With a campus this small, word spread fast. Stockwell had met with the faculty, and then the student body president, to share important—and not so hopeful—news. The whole student body knew of an upcoming cut to campus size, and quite a few other students were aware of the specifics. Anticipation rose to a head when Stockwell began to speak.

Stockwell: Somebody asks you what some of the greatest changes you've seen since getting back here after the holidays. Okay, a lot of good stuff. But I have to say, I'm loving Whole Foods right across here. I'm really liking that. 

Colby McCaskill: Stockwell’s speech starts out pretty unrevealing. He’s joking about how cold Canada is. Yes, he’s from Canada, we’ll unpack why that is later. He’s joking about how weird it is that Whole Foods that opened up across the street can use a scan of your hand to pay for food. Then he launches into a story.

Stockwell: I want to tell you something that happened, this is a true story. And I'll ask for show hands because, for those of you who were involved in this little incident by the elevator just yesterday, so I'm coming into the office area coming towards the elevator, and there's a group of women standing there.

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I haven't heard the first part of the discussion. The first part of the discussion was one of the women showing the rest of them a picture of their cat, 

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I hear one of the young women saying: ‘I used to think he was really cute. But now that I see him up close, and he's all wrinkly. I don't think he's cute anymore.’ Forgive me, but that's all I heard. And that was a showstopper for me. I just come to a stop and they're all looking at me like: What? I said, man I was really stupid. Is that some poor guy you're talking about? And they totally cracked up.

Colby McCaskill: Then, once the story has concluded, he gives the moral. 

Stockwell: But that really is important because honestly, the next day, honestly, almost the second thing I heard over the next couple of days was: We heard you folks have, you know, Thomas isn't here anymore. We heard he got cut because of budget cuts. And what that was the first I'd heard. I checked out. No, it had nothing to do with us at all, like zero, in terms of any restructuring we’re doing. So somebody had heard part of a story.

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I got a call from a business friend of mine, three days ago, and his daughter had — I had talked about King's College and some of the business meetings I was doing, wasn't related to this. And he mentioned that to his daughter, his daughter went online, he got back to me, and he said: Wow. She was really impressed with not just the website, but the process. She went through it. She looked at other places. And she's registered. And I said, Well, that was very cool. He said, Yeah, you just pass that on to your team and your crew. They were impressed. I said: That's great. And then he says to me: She's going to be applying for next year, for September. So are you guaranteeing, is the college guaranteeing they're going to be operational here in five years? And I said: well that’s our plan. He said: No. Are you guaranteeing? and I went: Wait, nobody guarantees stuff. That is our plan. And actually, if that doesn't work out, we even have a plan for that.

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Someone said: So, we had someone just transferred here and someone else is saying, you know, I've got someone transferring in September. Are you guaranteeing operational in September? Well that’s our plan, and nobody guarantees—you want something in writing? That's our plan.  And if not, if that doesn't materialize, we still have plans for that. And people say: Well, how can that be? If you ever get to, and maybe some of you've already done this, attend some of these corporations, especially large corporations who are super sensitive and super hyper on this type of stuff, safety type of stuff.

Colby McCaskill: He begins another story, about how corporations do their due diligence before every meeting by explaining where all the emergency equipment is, before the meeting even starts.

Stockwell: She’ll start by saying: First I want to let everybody know, fire exits are over here. The elevators are here. The stairways are—and she describes, the fire extinguishers are over here. The heart defibrillators, believe it or not, are just over here. And you're thinking: Why are they? Is there gonna be a fire here? Is there some reason we don't know? And they're showing fiscal responsibility and human responsibility. They're saying we care for you so much. We have plans for any eventuality. That's basically what they're doing. And if all we had ever heard, or someone was going to tell me is that all they heard was: They’re telling us where the fire extinguishers are. And that person had left and got out of the building, took off: Their building is going to burn Down! Well, no, no, no, hold on. That's part of their overall planning process. It's what they're supposed to be doing. As a matter of fact, it's what they're called on to do. 

Julia Jensen: Let me jump in here. I think, at this point, he’s essentially saying: Don’t worry, we’re just letting you know this information because it’s useful in case of an emergency, but hear us out before you make any quick judgments. In my opinion, hell-of-a-way to keep attention. 

Colby McCaskill: Then, he begins to explain the reasoning behind any future budget cuts, before explaining what is being cut. 

Stockwell: The King's College has actually sort of had a triple whammy just over the last couple of years. First, one of our most significant donors ever, very, very significant, made a 10 year pledge. Which they beautifully fulfilled. And that was about half of all the donor money that we take in, in a year, every year, for 10 years. And they donated a business—or a building, which is a residence. I don't want to mention the family's name, because you can go down and read the family name on the door. DeVos. So that finished as we knew it would, and there hasn't been a replacement. 

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And then we had the double whammy of COVID. And then, as you know, we've had significant issues related to what we call a recession. 

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There is no question, we are being — we are facing these challenges. Do we have plans? Yes, we do. And are we working? Are we listening? We're even getting ideas from you folks on that? Yes, we are. So we're making our plans—our future plans—based on these realities.

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As we go out to our donors, we need to be showing that we also are fiscally responsible. So you're going to be seeing, and you're hearing David will talk a little bit about some of the things we want to demonstrate that we’re good stewards to. Like the majority of businesses, now the majority of operations across the country are taking steps just to preserve the cash,

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When I say these aren’t huge measures, but we're showing ourselves responsible with the dollars that we're getting. 

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There's another positive aspect here that as colleges are going through all of this stuff, which we are going through now. And some, in fact, are not operational now, this year, that were last year. But a number of colleges and universities are actually reaching out to us. And they're saying: Hey, we'd like to look at some kind of collaboration. And it could lead to a massive sharing of costs, and even maybe some degree sharing. 

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We’re The King's College, we're not saying this proudly, but we have certain distinctives that we will not change, and our degrees will be our degrees. And we are not altering these types of things. But if there's a way we can work together, that's going to be beneficial to each of our universities, to each of our campuses. Let's have that talk. So we're feeling positive. Do we have plans to continue the talks? Yes, we do. Are the talks absolutely going to materialize into something new and fantastic? I don't know. But we have plans to move ahead with that.

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Colby McCaskill: After encouraging prayer, Stockwell then tells us his hope for our campus in an illustration about his son’s premature birth. 

Stockwell: …He was like five pounds, the doctors, everything looked great. And then the doctor called me back later on that night and said: We've got an issue here. And your baby is not assimilating oxygen the way he should be. I'm going to tell you, that's actually quite a big deal. And I said: Well, like you mean he might not make it? He said: I have to tell you, it's a possibility. And I want to tell you for the next 10 days, as he fought for his life in this tiny incubator, to live, I was going: God, I'm not mad at you. I just don't get it. This wasn't part of the plan. What's your will in this? And I finally after 10 days, I went to my pastor, and you know, talking about the situation, and he said: Have you thanked God for the situation yet? And I said: Look, I am not mad at God. I get it. You know, bad stuff can happen and I'm not mad, but thank him? No, I haven't done that. I haven't thanked him. For the fact I can't reach inside, not allowed, to reach inside that incubator. and put my hand on my little son, I have not thanked him for that. I said: I just don't get what his will is. And the pastor said: Look, I don't know specifically what the will is. But I do know what God's will is in a situation like this. And I go: Great, tell me. Which day is he getting out of the hospital? So we turned to first Thessalonians 5:18. He said: In everything, give thanks. This is the will of God, in Christ Jesus, concerning us, that is the number one.

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And I tell you what, I felt like a bit of a hypocrite at first, but I just did it just out of obedience. I thanked God, you know, and then left, and there was no, you know, bells didn't go off, no angels appeared in the room. But when I got home shortly after, the phone rang, and it's the hospital.

…

They said, you know, we can't really explain what has happened here. But your son has begun to assimilate oxygen at a much higher rate just this afternoon.

Colby McCaskill: Be thankful in this time, was essentially what Stockwell said. But he wasn’t done. He begins another story, this one about his friend, a mother named Mercy, who contracted a flesh eating disease and needed to have all four limbs amputated in-order to survive.

Stockwell: The first few times the kids came in to see her in the hospital, they couldn't see her for about a month. They said to her: You sound like our mommy, but you don't look like our mommy. That's how you know what a heavy hit this was. Why am I telling you all this? Because when we went to see her, we were talking to her, what can we be praying for you about? And she said that I'll continue to reflect God's love even while I'm in this place. That blew me away.

Colby McCaskill: Stockwell was blown away by this response, and encouraged the student body to adopt it as well, to be thankful, have a beaming face, draw nearer to God.

Stockwell: And God's will will be reflected because of how I believe you're going to handle his time. Thanks so much for listening.

Colby McCaskill: With that, Stockwell stepped away from the podium for David Leedy to introduce more budget cuts, and bring up a panel of staff and faculty members to answer questions posed aloud by the present students. Free lunch was cut on Mondays. The Stu. U. that lower lobby level that served as the de-facto hangout area with ping-pong and a pool table, was closed. That was the campus resizing area that we all wondered about. Campus hours were cut.

David: And President Day mentioned those. The campus hours Monday through Thursday, will be reduced by two hours. We’ll close at eight. And I know there are two classes, one on Wednesday, one on Thursday, I believe, that go until nine. So the student services will be open and you guys can exit through the main UFT entrance on those days. 

Colby McCaskill: The future of King’s was so vague that multiple students asked for clarification. With what seemed like very little information to share, the responses often didn’t reveal much.

Matthew: Well, obviously, we can't find anybody anywhere, right? But like the faculty — many of us have been here long time. And we've been through some serious ups and downs. And we're here because of the mission, and students, and the experience and the colleagues. So no one would leave the college lightly. But everybody thinks about opportunities and thinks about their situation and what have you.

…

Matthew: I think there's just different departments that have different functions, right? Academic Affairs. Staff is ready to meet with you all and work through whatever issues you'd have with advising and registrar or other kinds of support. We have a great admissions team that's doing their job and bringing students in for next year. So I think we just keep each doing our job and try to have those things complement each other to enhance the current student experience. And think about the next generation follows.

Julia Jensen: Stockwell’s Rightsizing announcement and Welcome Back Gathering speech cemented him in the public consciousness of the student body. But, in case you didn’t really pick up on any sense of severity, you weren’t missing anything. There was no obligatory: WE ARE CLOSING. Or anything of the like. Most of us kind of just moved on.

Colby McCaskill: In fact, this Welcome Back Gathering didn’t say anything in terms of finality. The message had been similar to the November “Rightsizing.” King’s wasn’t really in dire straits, they just needed to cut back. 

Julia Jensen: You heard it earlier, but he explicitly says why these budget cuts are happening.

Stockwell: The King's College has actually sort of had a triple whammy just over the last couple of years. First was, one of our most significant donors ever, very, very significant, made a 10 year pledge. Which they beautifully fulfilled.

Julia Jensen: Fulfilled as in “isn’t still happening”.

Stockwell: And then we had the double whammy of COVID. And then we've had significant issues related to what we call a recession. 

Julia Jensen: It’s financial insecurity. Plain and simple. 

Colby McCaskill: Exactly. Budget cuts? It just gives limited funds. But it wasn’t because of anything King’s did. The story Stockwell is telling, the narrative that is being pushed, is one of victimization of the King’s College. I’ve gotten many questions from people on the outside wanting to know when exactly it became obvious that King’s was closing. That question is a good one, and we hope from this explanation of this first announcement the answer is clear. The King’s College did not announce closure in November, they announced budget cuts. At the very beginning of January, they didn’t announce closure, they announced that they were not closing.

Julia Jensen: This is what was so destructive about this initial announcement way back in January, it was so vague! Really the only definitive thing we got from this was that campus life will be changing, the college is making cut backs, but it is not closing. According to Stockwell’s speech, the college was innocent. The administration, and institution even, were worthy of funds, but unable to get them because of things beyond their control. And, in all honesty, there are a lot of outside factors that contributed to the college’s downfall. And don’t worry, we’ll get into those later. But, as a lot of this series will explore, that innocence that Stockwell alleged was…not the whole story.

Colby McCaskill: It reminds me of that joke that the comedian Seth Meyers had in his 

recent special.

Seth: we’re driving to school, and my dad stops the car, and turns around to my brother and I, and says: Everything’s gonna be fine. Which is a terrifying thing to hear if it never even occurred to you everything would not be fine. It sounds like a positive thing, but in context, it’s very negative. It’d be like if a surgeon, right before you went under, said to you: I hope we meet again!

Colby McCaskill: I cannot stress this enough. Stockwell Day announced first to faculty that they are not currently closing the college, before even explaining why that would be an option in the first place. He then explained essentially the same message to the Student Body President, and later that message got explained to other student leaders. What we heard at the first January meeting was: THE KING’S COLLEGE IS NOT CLOSING, without any kind of detail on why that would even be an option. The question over why was shuffled under the rug. It was outside forces, or Covid, or donor deaths, anything but our fault. And on top of that, he imparted a call to put on a face of pleasantries and thankfulness. He essentially declared himself and the college “not guilty” and then went on to tell the jury that the right reaction is to rejoice in this situation. Two things that, as we tell you more about the story, you might want to revisit.

Julia Jensen: This isn’t the last we are going to hear about Stockwell. Even so, we need to tell you a little bit more about these opening months of what EST has called: The King’s College 2022-23 Financial Crisis. And with that, we’ve arrived at our third act.

Colby McCaskill: So we just heard a few things from Stockwell. We heard that King’s is cutting back, that they didn’t have enough money to keep going the same way they had been. Also, we were told, it was mainly due to things out of their control. And Finally that we, the students, he was talking to us, are encouraged to handle this situation with thankfulness and joy.

Julia Jensen: Importantly, we didn’t hear exactly how much King’s was in need. I mean, with the budget shrinking, it was clear King’s needed money, just how much though? We weren’t told in the Welcome Back Gathering. Though, that silence didn’t last too long.

Kimberly: Welcome, everyone. Glad to be here. I teach in our business and finance program, if you don't know that, but I'm also Dean of Academic Affairs. So that's the hat that I'm wearing today. 

Julia Jensen: The voice you're hearing is Dr. Kimberly Reeve. She’s been at King’s since 2016, and you’ll definitely hear more from her in the coming weeks. But let me set the stage. Right now, it’s January 30th, a little over a week since the student body heard from Stockwell Day. It’s lunch time, around 1 p.m., and she is addressing the student body during what were coined Community Updates.

Julia Jensen: Here she is, telling us more about the money problem.

Kimberly: So I know that there are a lot of rumors going around at King’s, and I wanted to share what is happening. So we do have a funding gap of approximately $2.6 million…

Colby McCaskill: Wait hold on what?

Julia Jensen: What?

Colby McCaskill: 2.6 million dollars?

Julia Jensen: Colby, you were there.

Colby McCaskill: Yeah. I know, it just still boggles my mind.

Julia Jensen: Oh totally. The mind is boggled. 

Colby McCaskill: I mean, with a sum that big, it seems that it doesn't just appear all of a sudden. Right? And also, at the same time, 2.6 million dollars is not that much. Like it is. Like, that’s a lot of money. 2.6 million is a ridiculous amount of money for King’s to just…be out of. But, 2.6 ain’t 20. It’s not an infeasible gap, y’know?

Julia Jensen: Yes. I know. We were both there.

Colby McCaskill: Sorry, sorry, I’ll let you get back to your story.

Julia Jensen: Where was I? Oh, yes. King’s, quite simply, needed 2.6 million dollars.

Kimberly: And that's what we need between now to finish the end of this semester well. 

Julia Jensen: And once again, why was this a problem?

Kimberly: Kind of the odd thing about this is it's really due primarily to timing of funding. 

Julia Jensen: Not, mind you, anything that would be the college’s fault. She goes on, to explain exactly how they plan on patching this gap.

Kimberly: So if we can sell DeVos, that will free up a million dollars approximately. A challenge with that is because King’s is a nonprofit, any sale of property by a nonprofit has to be approved by the New York State Attorney General. Come to my nonprofit management class if you want to learn more. But that takes time. So you know we are considering two contracts at the moment. But again, even if we set everything up on our end, we're still waiting on the state attorney general. And then the second thing that we are waiting on, our CFO has applied for employee retention credits as part of all of the COVID funding the PPP loans as part of that. And that is over $1.5 million dollars. But again, we're now dealing with the federal government and waiting on that money, which is expected to be at least six months. So that's really kind of the gap that we find ourselves in. So I wanted to let you know that we are reaching out to donors in a couple of days, an email appeal is going to go out to alumni. We are really appealing to them because they know the situation the best and we want them to help us bridge this gap so that we can really finish this semester well. 

Julia Jensen: Okay, and there it is again. She keeps saying: finishing this semester quote unquote “well.” But what exactly does that mean? I asked that exact question during a Q&A they held at the next Community Update.

Kimberly: So we are going to start with a question from Julia Jensen. Do we need 2.6 million to finish this semester? Or to finish this semester well? That is a great question. And the answer is… 

Jennifer: To finish well. 

Kimberly: Yeah, so finishing well includes paying all of the rent, paying all of our outstanding expenses. And Jennifer has been moving mountains to manage all of who gets paid and what we can try to defer. So that absolutely is to finish well. 

Julia Jensen: Okay, so finishing well would be making sure that they pay off all their bills for this semester. But this seemed odd to me. Don’t they need that money to even finish at all? Were they really not going to pay rent, much less their faculty and staff? Telling your students that you have 2.6 million dollars required to pay out by the end of this semester- you my friend have already sailed away from ending this semester well. Yes, you can defer payments, you can bargain for payment plans, but it’s simple economics. Something Dr. Pincin, our economics professor, taught us well. To run a school, you have to pay money for things, teachers, facilities, staff. Rent. Water and heat. These things go away when you don’t pay for them. You could feel the uncomfortability looming over the students in the room. Imagine a candy apple. The apple, or the situation may be rotten, but it was coated in a caramel glaze of perplexing hope. The fact that this would disrupt the lives of over 400 students, staff members and school officials seemed lost. It was a technique of downplaying the severity of the situation that we will see continually throughout this story.

Colby McCaskill: Dr. Griffith recounted a similar confusion, because the college was quickly and systematically announcing the instability of its previously reliable systems.

Joseph: So the most startling thing was I think it was at the end of January. And Interim President Day at a faculty assembly said something to the effect of that The King's College could not guarantee faculty salary starting in mid March. He did say that we would need to fundraise money. 

…

And he said when we will fundraise money. But if $0 came in— the administration didn't have money to pay faculty salaries starting in mid March. Now, of course, the semester goes longer than that.

Julia Jensen: Of course, the semester goes longer than mid March, and that’s not the problem here. The problem here is that a system, payroll, that was depended upon for livelihood, was all of a sudden revealed to be unreliable. Telling your employed teaching staff that their job cannot guarantee their paycheck after March is an incredibly destabilizing announcement to make. In the same way, telling the student body that the administration cannot guarantee teaching you into the fall is incredibly damaging. And also, at the same instance that such uncertainty is revealed, he called for the student body to be thankful and rejoice. It’s a strategy employed to try and influence the reaction to startling and grievous news of loss.

Colby McCaskill: In my opinion, no one is better at this technique than Stockwell Day. I wrote an Op-ed, critiquing this speech he gave because I truly feel as though his stories were used to manipulate my faith in Christ into a stifling of anger and sadness in a moment where our college experience was crumbling under our feet. I honestly do believe that his views of joy and thankfulness were genuine, but also, his contradicting allegiances put him into a tough position.

Julia Jensen: Let’s return to him for our last act this episode where we try to get some background on this suddenly pivotal role in our future. He wasn’t simply a part of the administration, he had ideas about what King’s needed to do, and what the student’s needed to act like. The “Why” behind this particular member of the administration is complicated, and something we’ll dive deeper into next time. But for now, before we end, a little backstory on Stockwell, a voice you’ll be hearing from again soon.

Colby McCaskill: On August 14th, 2022, EST, remember that's our student news organization, published a story entitled: President Tim Gibson Resigns from The King's College. The lede read: “Tim Gibson is stepping down from his role as President at The King’s College, according to an email announcement sent out on Thursday, Aug. 11. Mr. Stockwell Day, Chairman of the Board of Trustees, is serving as the Interim President starting immediately.” Stockwell was appointed to King’s’ Board of Trustees in October 2021, and according to the college’s website, is a Canada-US Trade Advisor. His personal website, stockwellday.com, talks about his 25 years of experience as a politician, and political consultant. 

Julia Jensen: In a previous interview Stockwell did with Empire State Tribune just four months before the Welcome Back Gathering, he explained to the then EST Editor-in-Chief and City Editor, how he became Chairman of the Board and eventual Interim President.

Stockwell: I asked to join the board. That happened because I have a consulting company. I’ve been doing that for about a dozen years since I retired from politics and government. One of the companies that I have done work for is Primacorp. 

…

Basically, they have been one of my clients. It was through that and getting to know the people there over the years that I heard that there is an exciting opportunity for King’s College to expand its mission — do you want to be on that board? 

I went, “that sounds exciting,” 

…

That then developed into eventually being asked to take the role of Interim President while they — while we — find another president. It’s not without precedent — it’s happened here before at King’s. 

Paige: Was there any connection with you introducing Primacorp to The King’s College?

Stockwell: No. People I work with that I provide consulting services for, they keep me up to date with what they’re doing here and there. 

Colby McCaskill: Stockwell just commented on a major player in the story of this college, you just heard the name three times: Primacorp. 

Julia Jensen: Primacorp is this international venture capitalist meets for-profit education empire. This is one of the biggest pieces of the puzzle in unraveling the story of King’s. Stockwell stepped up to The King’s College board of trustees explicitly at the invitation of Primacorp, who had already been in conversation with King’s about a merger for at least 8 months. Throughout the following years, the relationship between Stockwell Day, Primacorp, and The King’s College, came under heavy scrutiny, begging questions about the integrity of leaders, as well as the long term-financial well being of institutions. 

Colby McCaskill: See, this is the story of our podcast. A college. A place. A group of like-minded faculty, staff, administrators, and students, that are united in a common passion for higher education rooted in the truths of Christianity. And when that mission’s future became ambiguous, the response from the college was not an announcement of closure. In case you hadn’t noticed that from our episode today, there was no word about closing the school. There was news of financial crisis, of the school needing more funding than they originally imagined. But never in this first month of debacle was the announcement made to close the school. 

Julia Jensen: For us, this story, of our college both not having enough money, and not announcing closure, really became real when we heard that our college needed 2.6 million dollars. Because that raises so many questions that no student should have to grapple with. From the rightsizing email in November in recent memory, the announcement of budget cuts at the Welcome Back Gathering, to this 2.6 million dollar deficit announcement, our time at King’s was steadily growing more and more unstable. And that’s what we want to spend these next six episodes telling you about. We want to tell you the story of how this college went from publicly prominent to dismantling at the seams.

Colby McCaskill: This is a story, about real people, about things changing, about New York City being the backdrop of a story part of that reason, about a college that experienced some acute financial distress, perhaps because it merged with a foreign educational consulting agency. But that’s not the whole story. For some news outlets, that’s been it. For the students on the ground, the faculty members on the inside, the story is much more complicated than that. This is a story, yes, about change, but also about collapse. Collapse of ideals, of sound judgment, of functioning systems. It’s a story that begs for a perpetrator, yet cannot pin the problem on just one person. I’m sorry to tell you that the ambiguity of the future, of trustworthy leaders, and the worry that was established here, doesn't collapse. It only grows. That’s next time, on Demise Of The Crown.

…

Julia Jensen: We’d be remiss if we didn’t acknowledge the wonderful people that put this whole project together. A big thank you to Matthew Peterson, Producer of the Broadway And Exchange podcast. And Angelina Ispir, our social media coordinator.

Colby McCaskill: Myrian Garcia is our Executive Editor. Additional editorial consulting on this episode came from Rafa Oliveira, Evan Louey-Dacus, Paul Glader, and Lisi Clemente. And big shout out to Rob Bruder of Postmillennial Media. Dude. This music is so good. Thank you. 

Julia Jensen: This show was produced and edited by me, Julia Jensen.

Colby McCaskill: And me, Colby McCaskill. Thank you to all who lended their voice and time for this project.

Julia Jensen: Demise Of The Crown is a production of Empire State Tribune and the Broadway & Exchange Podcast.