D3 News: Eastern Nazarene College begins process of closure
The NAC member institution will close by the end of 2024
QUINCY, Massachusetts—Another Division III institution is shutting its doors, as Eastern Nazarene College, a member of the North Atlantic Conference in Quincy, Massachusetts, announced its closure on Tuesday afternoon. While it appears students who are on track to graduate by the end of 2024 will be able to finish their degree plans at ENC and teach-out plans have been arranged, the athletic programs will cease to exist. Financial challenges are the culprit in this case, as it has been in the previous closures of D-III schools within the last several years. The difficult decision was made by the Board of Trustees over the weekend, according to a story from D3hoops.com.
“Like all small, private, liberal arts colleges, Eastern Nazarene has faced significant financial headwinds in recent years,” the school wrote in a press release Tuesday. “During that time, the Board and multiple presidents have pursued numerous alternatives to closure. While these efforts produced fruit that enabled ENC to continue operating until now, the underlying challenges have intensified. It has become clear that transitioning to a new educational enterprise is the only viable path for continuing ENC’s mission of providing transformational education.”
The decision to close ENC due to financial reasons comes just a month after Birmingham-Southern College notably shut down for the same reason. Wells College also closed this spring, and last year, Cabrini announced it would shut down at the end of the 2023-24 academic year. Based on 2022-23 records from the U.S. Department of Education (ENC’s most recent filing), the college had just 381 full-time undergraduate students.
ENC joined the NAC just last year, having previously been part of the now-defunct New England Collegiate Conference (NECC) since 2018. Prior to that, the Lions were longtime members of the Commonwealth Coast Conference, competing in that league from 1992-2018. The women’s basketball program was established in 1963, with Nancy Detwiler, a future NAIA Hall of Famer, serving as head coach. The Lions—who at that time went by “Crusaders”—had success on the court over the next several decades, and reached the program’s high point in 2000, when women’s basketball made a run to the Sweet 16. A 52-48 win in the CCC title game over Colby-Sawyer sent ENC to the NCAA Tournament with a first-round bye. A second-round win over Stockton at home sent ENC into the sectional round, where Rowan ended the historic season. ENC posted a 26-3 record during the 1999-2000 campaign. It was one of the most successful seasons in ENC Athletics history.
The women’s basketball team was set to enter the 2024-25 season after going 12-12 in 2023-24, including a 7-5 record in their first year in the NAC. The Lions opened the year with four straight wins and finished the season third in the West Division, earning them an appearance in the NAC Tournament. Megan Dixon will be the last head coach in the program’s 61-year history, with a unique—and very unfortunate—footnote that she never had the opportunity to actually coach a game in that role. Dixon, who was promoted to head coach on May 30, spent last season as an assistant at ENC. It was her first collegiate job, after graduating from UMass-Boston, where she helped lead the Beacons to their first NCAA Tournament in program history and holds multiple program records.