April 30, 2015

Northland International University Closes: Continuation of the Pattern of Demise

Earlier today Daniel Patz announced the closure of Northland International University.

This is the result, predicted result, of Matt Olson’s Experiment with the “new wave” of new evangelicalism.  In the closure letter Daniel Patz wrote, “In the last two weeks, Northland has faced unexpected events that led to this decision.” To any objective observer of what Matt Olson was doing to the former Northland Baptist Bible College, it was clear that the school would not survive Olson’s changes.  The last two weeks event NIU a Gift? Thanks, but No Thanks was the final of many nails Matt Olson and his team had already pounded into the coffin of a once fine, fundamental, Baptistic, separatist school.

In our previous article, May the “Northland Heart” Perpetuate, Dr. Dana Everson called it, “R.I.P Northland Baptist Bible College.”

 
 
LM
 
Related Reading
 

18 comments:

  1. It is a sad day for those of us who admired the missions-hearted graduates of Northland during the Les Ollila era. I am left wondering where the people of conviction are in our fundamental institutions and churches when administrators, board members and staff sense and hear the plot of their leaders to depart from their fundamental heritage.
    I recently wrote a devotional thought based on Proverbs 29:24 that I believe characterizes the silence of those who failed to protest the drift of the leadership and in effect put friendship above principle. I'd rather "sing like a canary" than be a silent Judas. http://heartofashepherd.com/2015/04/29/proverbs-2924-id-rather-sing-like-a-canary-than-be-a-silent-judas/

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    1. Pastor Smith:

      It is a blessing to hear from you, we appreciate your input. To make it easy for readers to reach it, here is a direct link to I'd Rather "Sing Like a Canary."

      Although there was very little public ministry of warning about what Matt Olson was doing to and with NIU I am aware of folks who did try to reason primarily with Olson and others in leadership. Pastor Brian Ernsberger Is NIU Fundamental wrote,

      "For those who always wish to bring up the perennial question, have you contacted Dr. Matt Olson? Yes, I have, on numerous occasions starting back in the fall of 2010 after he had Rick Holland and Wayne Simien. I was summarily dismissed. Dr. Matt Olson was not in the least bit concerned over my concerns and was not at all troubled if the school lost our constituency."

      Dr. Everson noted in his article, May the "Northland Heart" Perpetuate,

      "The fact that the disaster might have been prevented or at least delayed had there been honesty and a willingness at the top level 4-5 years ago (cf. Jeroboam in 1 Kings 12:8) to hear counsel from scores of pastors, alumni, and staff brings to mind images of the Titanic."

      Another well-known pastor, who for years supported NBBC, wrote this to me yesterday morning, NIU: "The Legacy of Compromise and Deception."

      Pastor Ernsberger, in his article, Removing the Question Mark ? on NIU: We're Evangelical said,

      "'Transparency' and 'stonewalling' are not synonyms. Instead, they are more like antonyms, yet Matt Olson and crew would try to have us believe that they are synonyms by the actions that they have taken this past semester [Spring 2013] with the direction change that has been going on for quite some time at NIU."

      A former faculty member, lamenting his alma mater's FUNERAL SERVICE, wrote, "I wept earlier today...because of the beauty of the FORMER temple."

      This closing needed not to happen.


      LM

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  2. I know a former faculty member who has privately assured me that there were many who cautioned, courageously confronted, warned, and pleaded. And these warnings were early on in the process and throughout. These warnings fell on deaf ears. In the realm of the business world there are countless examples of failed corporations. Companies that at one time delivered a great product that easily attracted devoted customers. Somewhere along the way the management of these companies lost connection to their devoted customers and forgot what it was that attracted them. They made wholesale changes to their product for the purpose of some supposed greater gain. Their customer base became outraged, abandoned the products, and the company folded.

    How many times does history need to repeat itself before executives learn to stay in close partnership with those who enable the organization to exist? If the executive wishes to manage the sales of a different product, then he should feel free to tender his resignation and take on a similar position for a different company, one that sells that other product.

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    1. "They made wholesale changes to their product for the purpose of some supposed greater gain. Their customer base became outraged, abandoned the products, and the company folded."

      Exactly the analogy I gave (Oct. 2012) about the restaurant chain Bill Knapp's. See, What Do Pillsbury, Tennessee Temple & Northland Have in Common?

      "Folks in the Midwest might remember the Bill Knapp’s chain of restaurants. Bill Knapp’s (founded in 1948) had a very loyal following of primarily senior citizens. In 1998 the management decided to remake the Bill Knapp’s image. The restaurants were given a modernistic face-lift. The most significant part of the remake was changing the menu to attract the younger generation of families. The menu change was radical, favorites were discontinued and recipes were changed. The chain faltered almost immediately. The base customers did not like the changes and made their displeasure known by not coming in. Once company leadership realized what was happening a marketing campaign was initiated to announce Bill Knapp’s was returning the menu to its original form, but it was too late. The former Bill Knapp’s customers had moved on, never to return. Three months after filing for bankruptcy in April 2002 the chain folded."

      The only difference is that NIU never tried to recover. They were bent on going the new direction.

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  3. I want to add one more excerpt from my article above, written in Oct. 2012.

    For NIU the lesson from Bill Knapp’s, TTU and Pillsbury is the same, “You can’t come in and turn a hard right or left and expect to have your alumni with you.” Does Matt Olson believe he can succeed where others have failed? Matt Olson’s hard left turn put NIU on a trajectory to suffer the consequences, which began with losing most of the alumni. Significant numbers of alumni have already seen enough of Matt Olson’s leftward turn to decide they’re not going with him. The university has already realized a significant decline in enrollment.

    The empty classrooms and barren grounds of Pillsbury Baptist Bible College and the image of a shuttered Bill Knapp’s restaurant illustrate what NIU may very well look like in the not-too-distant future. Whether in secular business or a Christian college you cannot alienate your core constituency and expect them to remain loyal. Without the support of alumni NIU has no reason to expect surviving Matt Olson’s changes, but instead find itself a wasteland with no constituency.

    A wasteland is exactly what Matt Olson turned the once vibrant Northland Baptist Bible College into. Drive through the NBBC campus next winter and you'll see darkened classrooms where students once learned the unsearchable riches of Christ. Barren unmaintained grounds that were once well kept with pride for the glory of God. Locked and boarded up buildings that once thrived with activity.

    Those images will be the lasting legacy of Dr. Matt Olson and his grand plan to uproot NBBC from its historic fundamental Baptist, separatist heritage.

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  4. I see Lou got a mention today on Sharper Iron. In that post, the claim is made that NIU was in decline prior to Matt Olson taking over (which happened in 2002). However, the government publishes online the IPEDS data center tool that displays enrollment information as self-reported by the institutions. Here are the fall enrollment numbers for Most of Olson's tenure. Notice the sharp decline seems to coincide with the changes:

    Fall term / Total enrolled:

    Fall 2013: 327
    Fall 2012: 490
    Fall 2011: 577
    Fall 2010: 616
    Fall 2009: 615
    Fall 2008: 592
    Fall 2007: 651
    Fall 2006: 651
    Fall 2005: 643

    http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/datacenter/Default.aspx

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    1. Thank you for providing the factual statistics. For the SI crowd, that largely cheered on the changes and demonized those who publicly recognized what was coming because of the changes, will mean nothing. For them their unwavering lavish praise for the so-called "conservative" evangelicalism and its star personalities trumps facts. For them it couldn't possibly be Olson's changes, trying to transform NBBC into a "new wave" New Evangelical school, negatively impacted enrollment, and ultimately killed off NBBC.

      Nothing new there.

      Thanks again.

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    2. For those looking in and around at the financials for NIU here is an article I published with actual dollars lost at NIU in one year. An MMartin, commenting at SI, posted

      If we used an annual tuition amount of $10,000, this mean in just two years NIU lost $2.5M in revenue. The actual number is likely higher than that. This had to be why the NIU fund was depleted so fast. It was right around the Fall 2011 time frame when much of Olson’s changes started to take place ort become more known.

      Here is:

      What is the Cost of Change? $2.7 Million Dollars


      Northland International University, under Northland Mission, Inc.
      Fiscal Year: Jun 01, 2010 Ending: May 31, 2011
      Total Revenue - $9,208,432
      Total Expenses- $11,973,992

      As MMartin noted above the losses were staggering, but much higher than his $2.5M estamte for a two year loss. In one year NIU lost $2.7M, and it was clearly in conjunction with the time frame that the radical changes Olson initiated became widely known.

      The evangelicals who run SI want to claim that the school was going away financially prior to Matt Olson’s tenure and radical changes. It is an example of SI’s typical blame shifting when their beloved evangelicalism back fires and brings disaster.

      Incidentally, for the June 2012 – May 2013 academic year, NIU lost $1.66M.

      Matt Olson’s grand plan to remake NBBC into a northwoods citadel for new wave new evangelicalism brought the entire ministry down. That is Matt Olson's legacy!

      Delete
  5. Many of us alumni approached various leadership behind closed doors in humble, entreating ways. Some of us received warm words of understanding that later turned out to be hollow, but bought NIU another 6 months or 12 months of support. Others of us were strongly chided for our daring to question leadership and used as material for ridicule, we discovered later. If you didnt praise the direction, then you were expected to keep quiet or be accused of a bitter, divisive spirit. I counsel every pastor I can to avoid wasting time on Sharper Iron if they want to have an encouraging spirit about them. The biggest lesson I've learned is to care less about what the ones doing the deceiving think of me and more about what those being deceived need to hear.

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    1. Thanks for sharing your experience. Many have shared a very similar outcome when they attempted to entreat Matt Olson and/or his leadership team. “Bitter, divisive,” yes and to that you can add, “loveless, combative, tool of Satan.”

      As for Sharper Iron, I’m with you on that advice. Stay away! On the closure of NIU the usual suspects at SI, the ones who were cheering on Olson’s evangelical agenda are in full blown blame shift mode. This is what they do when their ideology, the “lavish praise” for the so-called “conservative” evangelicalism and its star personalities ends in colossal failure.

      Anyway, for about three years I participated there, but only to reach the lurkers who might be deceived by the SI team and the angry anti-fundamentalists that populate the forums. June 2009 I informed Aaron Blumer I was dropping my membership and participation, which they twisted into a lie to suit their agenda. In any event, to expose the bias, gang-tackling and pro-evangelical agenda of SI I opened a second blog, and named it Sharper Iron: In the Iron Skillet. The Iron Skillet blog gets quite a few hits.

      If you Google Sharper Iron you’ll see that that this blog IDOTG and the Iron Skillet blog appear on page one.

      Finally, on your note, “…lesson I’ve learned is to care less about what the ones doing the deceiving think of me and more about what those being deceived need to hear.

      I learned a long time ago that our detractors, the deceivers with an agenda like the SI gang, will never accept any explanation of who we are, what we believe, do or say, but our friends need to no explanation.”

      Thanks again,


      LM

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  6. For those looking in and around at the financials for NIU here is an article I published with actual dollars lost at NIU in one year. An MMartin, commenting at SI, posted

    If we used an annual tuition amount of $10,000, this mean in just two years NIU lost $2.5M in revenue. The actual number is likely higher than that. This had to be why the NIU fund was depleted so fast. It was right around the Fall 2011 time frame when much of Olson’s changes started to take place ort become more known.

    Here is:

    What is the Cost of Change? $2.7 Million Dollars


    Northland International University, under Northland Mission, Inc.
    Fiscal Year: Jun 01, 2010 Ending: May 31, 2011
    Total Revenue - $9,208,432
    Total Expenses- $11,973,992

    As MMartin noted above the losses were staggering, but much higher than his $2.5M estamte for a two year loss. In one year NIU lost $2.7M, and it was clearly in conjunction with the time frame that the radical changes Olson initiated became widely known.

    The evangelicals who run SI want to claim that the school was going away financially prior to Matt Olson’s tenure and radical changes. It is an example of SI’s typical blame shifting when their beloved evangelicalism back fires and brings disaster.

    Incidentally, for the June 2012 – May 2013 academic year, NIU lost $1.66M.

    Matt Olson’s grand plan to remake NBBC into a northwoods citadel for new wave new evangelicalism brought the entire ministry down. That is Matt Olson's legacy!

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  7. Another commenter SI wrote, “And I think I understand what the leadership meant when they said they weren't changing. They meant the doctrinal foundation….

    That is not the case. NIU was shifting radically in doctrine as well as music. I have numerous examples of how NIU was shifting away from its doctrinal positions in Articles of Faith, Handbooks and the NBBC Position Statement on Contemporary Issues in Christianity. Matt Olson run rough shod of over the schools published doctrinal positions when these were still in force. The alumni and supporting pastors and friends were not going to stand for it. See,

    Is NIU “Unchanged?”

    Is NIU Opposed to the Charismatic Movement parts 1 & 2

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  8. From one of the regulars at SI in response to the declining enrollment numbers starting in 2011:

    "2011 was also when Lou Martuneac "got his jihad on" against NIU, making something like ten posts that year picking at the school, culminating in a four part 'insider's story' featuring a member of the music faculty who had been downsized when they ended the music program. I bring this up because that's when a lot of people started contacting me about what was going on, so it's obvious that people like himself, David Cloud, and others were damaging the school with their blog reports."

    Lou, I bet you didn't know you had the power to almost single-handedly bring down NIU. I cannot express how laughable this SI comment is. EVERY school out here has someone who rightly or wrongly is a detractor who has gone online and expressed concerns about a given school. Why is it that other schools seem to survive just fine but only NIU was brought down by a couple of blogging detractors? Of course the obvious answer, its that it was the changes themselves and failed leadership that brought NIU down, not Lou Martuneac, who merely reported the obvious, and attempted to raise awareness of the problems so the school could be salvaged.

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    1. As for the rant at SI: LAUGH with me. More later, maybe.

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  9. So what has happened the last two years since Olson left? The problem was removed, a new board chairman was installed, along with new board members. What happened the last two years to allow the decline to continue? If the problem was Olson and he was removed, why didn't the alumni return? Why didn't the pastor's once again send their students?

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    1. Fair questions.

      Had the new administration shown any sign of regret, repentance, and immediately reversing course away from Olson's doctrinal and practical compromises, the ministry might have experienced some recovery. Frankly, however, there was no indication that a course correction would happen. Furthermore when I saw that Lina Abujamra was part of the new board, and that she was preaching in chapel, it was obvious there was no hope for any kind of course correction by the new board.

      Moving back chronologically, the changes Olson engineered were radical, swift and with an effort to conceal and deny what he was doing to the school. Northland's faithful constituency were alarmed, felt betrayed, and their appeals ignored. That being so, even had the final administration had reversed course, repented (in sack cloth and ashes) the base had long since departed to new homes for their students and support. That very scenario played out at Pillsbury.

      Make no mistake about it: Matt Olson, and those who encouraged or supported what he was doing to Northland, killed off the school. Through trying to convert Northland into a compromising, hip hoppin' evangelical place, they destroyed the school and the camp.

      In my opinion, by mid-2012 Northland's demise, apart from a modern day miracle, was sealed. Sadly, Northland today and for the future stands as a modern day tragedy.


      LM

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  10. The way I understood the chronology, the NIU board still had some conservatives on it, and they managed to get Olson out. But then there was a backlash among the YRR students and recent alumni who liked the changes. They started a petition to get Olson re-hired, which worked. Then when the remaining conservatives on the board were replaced, and the entire board was all YRR with no seasoned voices, Olson resigned as by that point it was clear that NIU was going to fold, given the youth and inexperience of the new board. This opened the door for Dan Patz, who was just like the board. It is true that the changes begun by Olson were accelerated in their trajectory by his successor. It was Patz who pushed the partnerships with SBTS and it was Patz who invited Lina Abujamra to speak in chapel, and after she preached, the apology was basically, we are against women preachers, but she was a blessing!

    But clearly the last two years of collapse under Patz never would have happened had Olson not taken NIU down that path. Patz only finished the journey. Some fault should be aimed at the board under Olson for acting too late.

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    1. On the Olson, termination then rehire, speculation. Maybe there's some truth to it. Didn't really matter then (the school was finished) or now. All of the above is essentially IMO should've, could've, would've.

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