JWU Denver Closing

More sad news as the Providence Journal has a story out that Johnson & Wales will be closing their North Miami and Denver campuses in 2021. This obviously means that this will be the last volleyball season for JWU (Denver).

JWU (Denver) moved from NAIA to DIII in 2018 and was promptly admitted into the SCAC giving them 9 teams (St. Thomas put them at 10 teams a year later). They would have been a full DIII member in 2022 but that is no longer possible.

Johnson & Wales main campus is in Providence but they operate a number of other campuses nation wide. The story indicates that Johnson & Wales is looking to expand their offerings as they are typically thought of as a culinary and hospitality school. It also went on to say that the coronavirus pandemic wasn’t the deciding factor but it did accelerate this decision. Students at the two campuses will be allowed to transfer to another Johnson & Wales campus.

I’ve written in the past that this pandemic could create havoc in DIII with school closings and my fear is that canceling the fall season could accelerate this. It should be noted that the school just hired a new volleyball coach, which would seem to indicate they intend to play this season. With that said, it wouldn’t be surprising if the school now has other plans since finances seem to be an issue.

I’ll update this post as more information becomes available.

Update: I reached out to JWU to ask about the fall season. Alan Bilsborough (Director of Communications & Media Relations) responded that they haven’t had a chance to plan for Fall athletics. I would assume this is due to the virus more than anything else.

Update: I also reached out to the SCAC and the commish (Dwayne Hanberry) was nice enough to respond. There are no real concerns although they didn’t get a lot of advanced notice. Volleyball will be fine. At some point they will get with the membership and evaluate their long range goals and how to move forward.