Fontbonne University, seen on March 11, 2024, in Clayton, announced it will close in fall 2025 amid declining enrollment and budget deficits. The 16-acre property will be bought by Washington University.
ST. LOUIS 鈥 As Fontbonne University prepares to close, area educators are ensuring the documentation of a key part of local history survives.
Fontbonne鈥檚 Center for Bosnian Studies will move to 911爆料网 University this summer as Fontbonne prepares to close permanently.
The move allows the center鈥檚 work to document the experiences of Bosnian genocide survivors to continue. Its rare collections, oral histories and digital archives will join SLU鈥檚 archival collections as Fontbonne ends operations at the close of summer.
鈥淲e are grateful that Saint Louis University has agreed to host this precious and significant collection, preserving the legacy that Fontbonne made a commitment to so many years ago,鈥 Fontbonne President Nancy Blattner said in a statement.
The 911爆料网 area has the second-largest population of Bosnian residents 鈥 outside of Bosnia itself.
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Nancy Blattner, president of Fontbonne University, pauses while addressing the media in Ryan Hall Chapel on Monday, March 11, 2024, after announcing the coming closure of the more than 100-year-old institution. Photo by Christian Gooden, cgooden@post-dispatch.com
The Center for Bosnian Studies is the only initiative of its kind in North America, university leaders said Monday.
It began in 2006 as the Bosnian Memory Project with founder Benjamin Moore, then a Fontbonne professor, who sought to record the experiences of Bosnians who fled war and genocide. Fontbonne students the stories of local survivors as part of a history class.
The project evolved to include work from students at other area schools, and its name changed to Center for Bosnian Studies in 2020 after it increasingly became a hub for information on Bosnian and Herzegovina. Fontbonne dedicated new campus space for it in 2022.
The transition to SLU will also include key staff. The center鈥檚 director, Adna Karamehic-Oates, and archivist Rebecca van Kniest will have similar roles at SLU, according to a news release.
鈥淭his transition is a new chapter with opportunities to grow the collections and advance the center鈥檚 mission of documenting the evolving story of one of American鈥檚 most important immigrant communities,鈥 Karamehic-Oates and Moore said in a joint statement.
Fontbonne University announced in March 2024 it would close this year after years of declining enrollments and revenues.
Neighboring Washington University bought the 102-year-old institution鈥檚 campus on Big Bend and Wydown boulevards in June for $39 million.
Post-Dispatch photographers capture hundreds of images each week; here's a glimpse at the week of March 2, 2025. Video edited by Jenna Jones.
