(RNS) — Multnomah University was facing the end of its days.
“We have cried, prayed, and walked a difficult path together as a community,” the Christian school’s president, Jessica Taylor, said in a 2023 video. “Without God’s provision, there was no path forward.”
Then, in the fall of 2023, Taylor announced a new “transformative partnership” with Jessup University, a similarly nondenominational evangelical Christian school in Northern California. As part of the agreement, Multnomah would give all its assets to Jessup, including its campus in Portland, Oregon. In return, Jessup would turn the Multnomah campus into a branch location. Jessup would also serve Multnomah students until 2027.
When the partnership was announced, leaders at Multnomah said they were hoping to avoid a “catastrophic university closure,” like the kind that occurred at Concordia University in Portland, a Lutheran school that shut down in 2020. The deal with Jessup ensured Multnomah’s existing students could graduate, and it kept a Christian college in Portland.
“Multnomah University is making a significant step to ensure our legacy lives on for generations to come,” Taylor said at the time.
Jessup’s president at the time of the arrangement, John Jackson, described the partnership of the two schools as a “merger of missions.”
In a podcast interview about the acquisition, Jackson said a traditional merger would have taken too long. “This is not an asset purchase agreement,” he told the EdUp Experience podcast in March of 2024. “This is not even a merger with a strong and weak partner. This is a merger of missions, but through a contribution agreement.”
The partnership was hailed as a hopeful model for struggling Christian colleges. Then things fell apart.
In May of 2025, Jackson announced the Portland campus would close. The school’s seminary would move online. Any remaining undergraduates would have to continue their education elsewhere. The staff and faculty in Portland were fired.
For a group of Multnomah alums and former staff …