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This story was produced with the Border Belt Independent, which is part of The Assembly’s statewide network of local news outlets.
Ruth Letizia wept as the St. Andrews Pipe Band played the final notes of “Amazing Grace.”
Graduation day was supposed to be a happy occasion. But to the dozens of St. Andrews University alumni who attended the school’s 127th and final graduation ceremony on Sunday, it felt more like a funeral.
The small private school closed the next day after years of financial difficulties.
To Letizia, the sound of bagpipes reverberating off Lake Ansley C. Moore on campus represented community and fond memories of her beloved alma mater. The same sounds played at her own graduation in 1989—when the school was still St. Andrews Presbyterian College—and at her wedding a few years later, when she married the man who helped her move into her dorm room.
“Where else do you hear this?” she said. “It’s such a special sound, and it always reminds me of this place.”
Many alumni, faculty, and community members say there is a quirky magic to St. Andrews, a place with Scottish roots that preached free thinking and Presbyterian ministry in rural southeastern North Carolina since 1958. But now the institution that shaped the minds and memories of more than 12,000 students is gone.
After decades of financial turmoil and a loss of accreditation in 2007, the school merged with Florida-based Webber International University in 2011. The merger wasn’t enough to fix the struggles. On April 25 of this year, the school announced that Webber’s board of trustees decided St. Andrews would close for good at the end of the school year.
“The financial realities of maintaining operations in Laurinburg have become unsustainable,” the school wrote in a statement.
On the day of the announcement, St. Andrews President Tarun Malik—who joined the school in March 2023—told the faculty that the university had been “on our knees” for months asking for financial help. Enrollment declined over the past several years, and a continued drop projected for fall 2025 was the final nail in the coffin.
The school had 832 students in the 2023-2024 school year, according to the latest data available from the National Center for Education Statistics.
“We explored every viable path forward,” Nelson Marquez, president and CEO of Webber International University, said in a statement. “But the persistent financial and enrollment challenges facing St. Andrews could no longer be mitigated through internal solutions alone. This was a deeply painful but necessary decision.”
The school was also roiled by lawsuits over sexual assaults. In 2021, a student who said she was assaulted by a soccer player sued St. Andrews and Webber, claiming the school’s actions in the wake of her assault created additional harm and trauma. Two other former students sued St. Andrews in February, alleging that it knowingly admitted a convicted sex offender who assaulted them on campus in 2022 and 2023. Lawyers for the university say the school and its administrators should not be blamed for the trauma caused by another student.
Sunday brought a mix of emotions: Parents of new graduates hugged their children in exuberant congratulations while alumni embraced their long-ago classmates with mournful sorrow.
“The bells may no longer ring, and our buildings may grow quiet,” Malik told the crowd. “But the spirit of St. Andrews endures—steadfast, proud, and eternal.”
Kate Gamez-Tovar, the senior class speaker and a biomedical sciences major, said that as a member of the final graduating class, she and her classmates had a responsibility to carry on the values of St. Andrews.
“We don’t just survive challenges,” Gamez-Tovar told her graduating class. “We turn them into moments of connection. That’s what being at St. Andrews taught me. This university is more than just a classroom, a textbook. It’s a community.”
‘An Indescribable Loss’
The weather seemed to echo the mood. Heavy rain greeted attendees as they awaited graduation proceedings next to the lake. Then, just as Malik began introducing the ceremony, the sun poked through. Near the end, it briefly rained again.
Beacham McDougald, a 1977 graduate of St. Andrews and a lifelong Laurinburg resident, called it “tears from heaven.”
“Nobody can come up with words right now,” McDougald said. “All we can do is hug each other. It’s an indescribable loss to the people who loved this place and to the community as a whole.”
After more than 100 diplomas were conferred, Malik encouraged everyone to look forward and focus on the school’s lasting legacy.
“This is certainly not the end of our story,” he said. “You are the living embodiment of all that St. Andrews has stood for—wisdom and humanity—and you are carrying these ideas forth into the world.”
Faculty and staff have been in a frantic race to preserve materials and archives of the university while cleaning out their offices, lecture halls, and science labs. Students didn’t take final exams this semester to ensure grades were submitted before the university shuttered.
“This university is more than just a classroom, a textbook. It’s a community.”
Kate Gamez-Tovar, senior class speaker
The future of the 198-acre campus is uncertain. The land has been owned by Scotland Development Corporation since 2011. The university entered into a sale-leaseback arrangement whereby it sold its St. Andrews campus to the development corporation in exchange for monthly rental payments of $60,000, property records show.
“To be honest, I haven’t even had time to process my feelings about all this,” said Rooney Coffman, director of logistics and photography at St. Andrews, who has worked at the school since he graduated in 1966. “It’s just been go, go, go to get it all put away in time.”
Coffman has seen the highs and lows of the university over his 59-year tenure, and he documented much of that history through his camera. The photos and lab materials he stored at the school are now housed in two 10-foot-by-30-foot storage lockers.
“We have 50-some years of tools, books, miscellaneous things,” he said. “It’s a first-class mountain that we’ve had to figure out and get out of the way in just 10 days. A massive job is an understatement.”
The Closing Ritual
On Monday morning, about 70 faculty members and alumni gathered on campus for a closing ceremony under The Grove, a small forested area with Southern live oak trees. McDougald, who has owned a funeral home and crematorium in Laurinburg for more than 45 years, said Sunday was St. Andrews’ wake, and Monday was the committal service.
Attendees sang hymns, said prayers of mourning, and gave impromptu eulogies for the university. They shared stories and fond memories of their time on campus, spoke the names of faculty and roommates they’d remember, and shared how they would carry on the legacy of St. Andrews.
The Rev. Timothy Verhey, a pastor and chair of the liberal arts department at the school, organized the ceremony. He said it was meant to be a full-circle moment, with language included from the school’s groundbreaking ceremony in 1959 and first convocation in 1961.
“We needed some kind of ritual to mark the closure,” he said. “People are born and we celebrate them; people live and we walk beside them; people die and we mourn them. We wanted to do the same thing for St. Andrews.”
Martha Mabry, who graduated in 2006, said she will always remember the first moments of her freshman year general education class. Her professor, Howard Reichner, had put a desk near the door to the classroom. Every student wiggled their way past the obstruction.
“Why didn’t anyone bother to move the desk?” she recalled Reichner saying to the class. “It’s a small thing to do. It makes your path easier, the path of everyone behind you easier.”
Mabry said it’s a lesson she will always carry with her. “I hope we all remember Howard’s words: ‘Do your best to make the path easier for those who are coming behind you,’” she said.
Mabry said she believes the lessons and values of the institution will live on for generations to come.
Bill Caudill, director of the Scottish Heritage Center and the St. Andrews Pipe Band, said providence led him to Laurinburg and kept him there for more than 35 years.
“There was a divine mission here,” said Caudill, a 1989 graduate of the school. “A lot of us are thinking about the uncertainties, but we’ve all been so truly blessed to be part of this institution—to take from it, and to give back to it.”
After more than a dozen people shared their memories, the ceremony concluded the same way graduation did: with a bagpipe rendition of “Amazing Grace.” This time, Caudill stood alone playing the notes, tears rolling down his cheeks.
“We’re hurting right now,” he said. “But I hope you see how lucky we are to have had such a blessed connection to this place.”
Ben Rappaport is a reporter at the Border Belt Independent. A graduate of the Hussman School of Journalism & Media at UNC-Chapel Hill, he previously worked for the Chatham News + Record.