Tallahassee campus of Flagler College to shut down in May

Flagler College-Tallahassee is set to close in May after over 20 years of serving the community.

While the college’s Tallahassee campus will close in May, a "teach-out" — in which current students are allowed to complete their program of study during their school's closure — began in fall 2023 and will conclude in December when the final cohort of five students in its education program will graduate.

“It's a bittersweet moment, but I'm also really proud of what our alumni are doing and the legacy that they have,” Tallahassee campus Dean Wayne Riggs told the Tallahassee Democrat. Riggs also serves as Flagler’s Dean of Graduate and Education programs on the college’s main campus in St. Augustine.

The teach-out has also meant layoffs for the Tallahassee campus’s faculty and staff members, where some served in full-time faculty positions and others were adjunct professors.

But regardless of the announced closure, a Flagler spokesperson says the college “remains in strong financial standing.”

“Despite the success of our academic programs, the landscape of higher education has changed dramatically since Flagler offered its first class in Tallahassee two decades ago,” Flagler College said in a statement. “Like other institutions, Flagler College is adapting to meet the challenges of enrollment and the needs of students.”

Flagler College is an accredited, private liberal arts college established in 1968. Its Tallahassee campus was founded in 2000 following the Florida Legislature's move to expand opportunities for 4-year degree seeking students.

The college’s Tallahassee branch shares a private-public partnership with Tallahassee Community College and gave students the opportunity to continue at the local Flagler campus — located on TCC's campus — after earning an associate’s degree from TCC. The local campus has had about 3,200 alumni since its establishment, according to Riggs.

Preventing a ‘gap in talent’ during teacher shortage

Flagler College-Tallahassee has offered teaching pathways with its education program — which graduated more than 900 alumni and 60 teachers of the year — through majors in elementary education and exceptional student education. The campus also had other degree offerings such as business and psychology.

Tuition on the local campus has been $320 per semester credit hour, and the typical program lengths have been four to five semesters.

In 2020, TCC President Jim Murdaugh and former Flagler College President Joseph Joyner formalized a “2+2 Elementary Education Articulation Agreement,” which was designed to address the ongoing teacher shortage locally and statewide as the only public-private partnership in Florida providing a path for a bachelor’s degree in elementary education.

The Tallahassee campus’s intern coordinator, Staci Duggar, worries that the campus closure will affect the local community’s ongoing teacher shortage the most. She says most of the college’s students are graduates from local K-12 schools, and the majority of them become teachers in the community — mostly in the Leon County School District.

“Flagler College is very treasured in Tallahassee, and they do an excellent job of putting teachers into our local schools,” Duggar said.

She is also one of the remaining adjunct professors at the college’s Tallahassee campus and is a grants officer at the Florida State University Office of Research. “It's sad that Tallahassee is losing that resource,” Duggar said.

But with the stability of the Tallahassee campus’s education program being one of Flagler and TCC’s top priorities, the Flagler Board of Trustees made the decision to move the program to the sole oversight of TCC during a February 2023 meeting ahead of the teach-out, according to a Flagler spokesperson.

The transition has been reflected in TCC’s moves in fall 2023 of adding three new bachelor’s degrees to its academic offerings, with two of them mirroring the Flagler Tallahassee campus’s teaching majors.

“We know that the teaching field has one of the most critical shortages of any sector right now,” Murdaugh said. “So when we learned of Flagler’s plans to begin teaching out the programs they offer on our campus, we immediately started the process to seek approval to offer bachelor’s degrees in elementary education, exceptional student education as well as business.”

“There are tremendous needs in these fields, and we didn’t want there to be a gap in talent,” he added.

Related news: TCC adds 3 new bachelor's degrees, putting the college in 'new territory'

Besides the Flagler College branch, TCC has had similar partnerships in the past with Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in 2001, Barry University in 2003, Saint Leo University in 2006 and Thomas University in 2010 — all of which no longer exist.

Flagler’s Tallahassee campus has seen a decrease in enrollment since 2016, according to Riggs, which is one of the reasons behind the college’s strategic response to close the local branch as students’ educational preferences are changing.

“We're being sensitive to that change, and the college is also being proactive by acknowledging that what started in 2000 was good in 2000 but might not be as effective in the 2020s,” Riggs said.

Faculty, former students upset about upcoming closure

The Flagler College-Tallahassee closure in May comes after it has had a three-year graduation rate of 75% to 80%, a maximum student enrollment in the mid-400s and a maximum of 12 full-time professors throughout its history, according to Riggs.

“Everybody’s pretty sad about it,” Duggar said, referring to the upcoming closure. “The college is very beloved in the community. The graduates are happy, principals are happy and our local students come in and go out as teachers ready to teach the next generation.”

The Tallahassee campus’s Education Coordinator Andrea Carlile is one of two full-time faculty currently remaining on the campus. She says the education program had about 15 adjunct professors before the teach-out began.

“It's very disappointing, and we're all very sad to lose our campus and our programs,” Carlile said. “You can walk into almost any school in Leon County and you'll find Flagler Tallahassee graduates because a lot of them remain local.”

Wakulla County native Amanda La Tour — who earned her bachelor’s degree in education from Flagler’s local campus — reflected on the significant role that the professors, small classroom sizes and accomodating schedule played in her life as a mother who decided to go back to school.

“I feel very grateful to have been one of the last classes that Flagler had before closing their doors,” said 32-year-old La Tour, who currently teaches at Riversprings Middle School in Crawfordville. “I hope that future education majors can find a home like we did at Flagler Tallahassee.”

What's next?

• Flagler College-Tallahassee’s spring graduation is will take place Saturday, May 4 at 10 a.m. with 13 students graduating. Bob Boyd, president and CEO of the Independent Colleges and Universities of Florida, will be the ceremony's commencement speaker.

• Before the ceremony, the college will be holding an event for faculty and staff at a private venue on Friday, May 3 to celebrate the Tallahassee campus’s accomplishments and impact over the last two decades.

Contact Tarah Jean at tjean@tallahassee.com or follow her on X: @tarahjean_.

This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Tallahassee campus of Flagler College to shut down in May