After 181 years of operations, the Iowa Wesleyan University Board of Directors voted on Tuesday to close the university. IWU will close its doors by May of this year.
IWU is our academic partner, and the 8 semester field school credit units should have come from that institution. Now that the school is closing, we have two concerns: First, will IWU be able to award credit units to CFS students this summer? Second, how will students who may need transcripts years down the road get access to their records?
While we are engaging IWU officials for answers to these questions, our preference is to immediately seek a different academic partner. Given the size of CFS and the revenue we generate for our partner institution, we are cautiously optimistic that we will find a new academic partner soon.
CFS is committed to transparency, so will keep our community informed at all times – via emails and blog posts. If we will not find a new academic partner in the next few weeks, we will make arrangements for students to petition their home institution for the credit units. In such an event, there would be – of course – a reduction in the cost of tuition.
We are surprised and saddened by the closure of IWU, a long serving, eminent academic institution. Alas, that decision has been made and we must move forward. We, at CFS, view every challenge as an opportunity and are working hard to make sure we can get a great new academic partner. Again, we will continue to keep you informed.