The Navajo County Community College Governing Board held a special meeting on Friday, Oct. 3, to review the newest update pertaining to Anthology’s latest announcement, and what it means for Northland Pioneer College (NPC). Anthology is a higher education technology company designed to centralize and streamline institutional operations and enhance student and faculty experiences. Anthology ERP is a suite of enterprise resource planning solutions that NPC is integrating to use to manage its internal processes.
College President Dr. Von Lawson told the board, “On Monday night at 11:59, Anthology announced that they were filing bankruptcy.”
The type of bankruptcy the company filed was a Chapter 11, which allows the business’s financial affairs to be reorganized and to still be operational for a period of time and has no liquidation of assets.
NPC Associate Vice President Mike Jacob explained that staff has had multiple meetings with Anthology leaders this week, all of which assured that the process of implementing Anthology will still continue with the college. “Of course, there’s going to be some risks that we’ll address here, but just to let you know that we are moving forward as if none of this happened,” he added.
ERP Project Manager Colleen Marsh broke down the future for the college’s contracts, stating that while Anthology’s press release was difficult to interpret, she believes the college’s contracts will be parceled out to several different companies. “There will be at least three different companies, but that’s what I cannot interpret correctly from their press release.” She noted that the new companies will have to honor the agreements made and that they shouldn’t expect any changes to pricing or billing.
In a press release from a company similar to Anthology called Ellucian, it was stated that “Ellucian, the leading higher education technology solutions provider, has signed an agreement to serve as the stalking horse bidder to acquire Anthology’s Student Information Systems (SIS) and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) business as part of its Chapter 11 bankruptcy process.” A stalking horse bidder is a pre-selected, potential buyer who negotiates an initial bid on a bankrupt company’s assets to set a minimum price floor for a subsequent auction.
The college has had struggles working with Anthology in the past, one being the delays in some go-live dates for the system’s implementation.
Following the update on Anthology, the board held an executive session to discuss a personnel issue, but no action was taken.
