Garland Faculty and Students Protest Closure, Simmons Gift

About 60 Garland Junior College students, faculty members, and administrators protested the college's June 30 closing by demonstrating for about six hours in front of its administration building in Boston yesterday.

Garland's board of trustees is attempting to give the nearly bankrupt college's facilities to Simmons College. Garland has run deficits averaging "about $250,000 a year" for the past five years, Sandra Broadrick-Allen, acting president of the school, said yesterday.

"I guess we're just a victim of the times," Broadrick-Allen added. She cited inflation and dropping enrollments as the chief reasons for the school's demise. Garland will graduate its last class of 98 this month.

The two-year college for women notified faculty and students it would not re-open after this year on March 12, too late for many of its 250 students to apply to other schools for the 1976-77 academic year.

In addition, American Association of University Professors rules state a college must give faculty at least a year's notice or severance pay if the college is to close. Garland professors, under the present situation, will receive neither.

Xerox the Resumes

"The only thing they've offered to do for us is to Xerox our resumes for job applications," William A. Simmons '65 said yesterday.

Simmons, an assistant professor of English and acting faculty chairman, added the college may be liable to lawsuit for the benefits, a possibility now under investigation by faculty members.

The protesters, students dressed in black dresses and faculty members in academic robes and mortarboards, carried placards reading "Handed to Simmons on a Silver Platter," and "Academic Genocide."

They emphasized the suddenness of the decision. "What do I tell 20 hysterical students to do about their college careers when I myself found out the college was going to close only an hour before?" Paula Gulbichi, a freshman adviser said.

Some of the students may transfer to Simmons, which will also take over Garland's records. William Holmes, president of Simmons said yesterday that he was "very happy to receive the gift."

He said Simmons was considering hiring some Garland faculty members but conceded, "Things are very tough."

Simmons will use the Garland buildings as a site for its Middle Management school, which will be modeled on the Harvard Business School