A college in the city
The College of Saint Rose's legacy in the City of Albany
News broke yesterday that my alma mater, The College of Saint Rose, will close its doors at the end of the 2023-2024 academic year. I’m devastated.
I won’t wade into any details or politics, from which I am thankfully far removed. I also won’t use this space to reminisce about everything the College has meant to me and my family, even though that’s all I can think about. We are a Saint Rose family through and through. I’m not going to try to predict the next use of the 40 acres that the College will leave vacant, or even wax poetic about what housing opportunities might emerge. I haven’t thought much about any of that yet.
Saint Rose served as a model — flawed at times, but better than most — for an institution so thoroughly becoming part of its surrounding neighborhood. It is a part of the street grid, of the community, of the city in a way that most schools could never be. Many of its office buildings and dormitories are repurposed houses, from sprawling Victorians with wrap-around porches to simpler stock throughout the neighborhood. It launched dozens, hundreds, thousands of civic leaders who move through the world more thoughtfully, more compassionately and more committed to justice because of their time in the classrooms and sanctuaries and meeting rooms of the College of Saint Rose. The College was a part of Albany, and the City of Albany was a part of it.
Saint Rose’s founders, the Sisters of Saint Joseph of Carondelet, asked the question, “Who is our dear neighbor?” Through their statement of faith, they answered: everyone.
Everyone.
Everyone.
Everyone.
Years ago, Saint Rose launched a marketing campaign centered around the concept of home.
The College was a home for me not just during my four years of undergrad, but for many years before that going to basketball games as a kid and visiting my mom at her office. And in the years since graduation, attending meetings as a community partner and then stopping by to visit my sister at her office. And it was a memory of home, welcoming Saint Rose students to build homes in their city. Just last week I shared photos from my early days with Habitat. Every single one of those experiences was from my time at Saint Rose.
The College of Saint Rose introduced me to the city that I fell in love with.
I didn’t find my footing right away. There were a lot of commuters and students who went home on the weekends, so it was hard to find my place. It wasn’t until I became a part of the College’s community service office and began to explore the city right at our doorstep that I found belonging. That’s when I realized I was part of someplace bigger. That’s when I saw who my dear neighbor was: everyone.
In the not so distant future, we will have to figure out what comes next. What fills the physical space left by the College’s closure, how to chart new paths in its absence. I’m not ready to do that yet. Saint Rose was home for so many of us. It has been part of the fabric of this city for more than 100 years.
For now all I know is that I would be honored for Habitat to be part of a solution to ensure that the College of Saint Rose’s legacy continues to be one of home for our dear neighbor.
I wrote this next piece as part of an essay a few years ago, and I hope to live into it in the months to come.
I want us to love it here, wherever here is for you. I want to wake up and know that we are in a place we love and that we are showing it our love. I want to be eager and earnest and enthusiastic to explore. I want to defend it against the naysayers and lead the city's booster club and preach to the choir. I want to know its every street. I want to have a list ready with the best pubs for an after-work drink or the perfect veggie burger or the best park to lay out a blanket in and look at the clouds. I want to know its history, its people, its legends and its folklore. I want to be involved, to listen, to speak and to show up. I want to plant roots and let them grow and spread across town. I want to bloom here.
I am someone who, from time to time, dreams about running away. To the woods, to the sea, to wherever will get me farthest from the so-called real world. I dream of running away and building a small utopia.
Here's the problem: the world needs us. The world needs us to stay engaged. Your city needs you to show up to community meetings, to pick up that piece of trash on your morning walk and to check in on your neighbors after a storm.
"If I had no choice about the age in which I was to live, I nevertheless have a choice about the attitude I take and about the way and the extent of my participation in its living ongoing events. To choose the world is... an acceptance of a task and a vocation in the world, in history and in time. In my time, which is the present."
-Thomas Merton
Are there any Saint Rose folks out there? Hi, I’m thinking of you. Share a nice memory below if you’d like.
Many years ago — a decade I’m guessing — I waxed poetic about my Saint Rose experience in the history/political science department.
A few years ago, for the school’s Centennial celebration, I swooned again.
A sad moment for Albany, a bad one for the future.