Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Lauri Anderson, chair of Finlandia University’s English department from 1976 to 2015, speaks at a service of commendation Sunday night for the university.

HANCOCK — Hours after Finlandia University’s last graduating class walked the stage at Hirvonen Hall, alumni, faculty and community members returned to say farewell to the university.

The service of commendation featured music from Spirit of Superior Handbells and Copper Country Choral, as well as remembrances from people who’d been touched by the university, whether two years or six decades ago.

In March, Finlandia University announced it would close at the end of the school year due to falling enrollment and mounting debts.

President Timothy Pinnow told the story of the first year of what was then Suomi College, when President J.K. Nikander made the driver pull over on the drive back from South Range so he could pray on the roadside that the college would make it through the week.

It’s happened a few more times in the 126 years since then, Pinnow said.

Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Carolyn Dekker, an associate professor of English at Finlandia University, speaks at a service of commendation Sunday night for the university.

“I thought it only appropriate that during one of the breaks today, I took the chain of office that the president wears out to South Range and pulled alongside the road, said a prayer for all of us as we move forward,” he said. “Because today now is about moving Finlandia from a noun to a verb. Finlandia now becomes an action in the world. It won’t have a place, it won’t have buildings, but it will still have people.”

Speakers Sunday attested to the joys and uncertainties of life at a small college. On one hand, the perennial rumors of closing, and building renovations always a year away. On the other, a close-knit, idea-filled atmosphere that bonded people for life, sometimes through marriage.

Lauri Anderson was a longtime English department chair for the university, working there from 1976 to 2015. He’s still kept an office after retiring, and would come by a couple of times a week to talk to people in the humanities department.

He was glad to see so many people Sunday — not just as celebration, but to remember the richness of the school’s past.

His students have gone on to remarkable things, he said. One went on to lead the Keweenaw Bay Ojibwa Community College. One who grew up in Minnesota went on to teach in an English department at a college in Kyrgyzstan.

Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Past and present Finlandia University pastors Soren Schmidt, Sarah Semmler Smith and Bucky Beach perform a blessing during Sunday’s service of commendation for the university.

Finlandia helped him become a guest writer throughout the Midwest and East Coast. And it provided even more literal help; he printed many of his books using Finlandia’s printer.

He remembered the university as a strong liberal arts college where people constantly expanded what they taught. And he remembered the activity of the music and theater programs, and the Finnish-inflected Lutheranism that ran through the faculty up through the administration.

“It’s been a very important part of forming the person that I am,” he said. “…Goodbye, Finlandia. There’ll be a kind of emptiness inside me, the kind of emptiness that I get when I see my immigrant grandparents’ farm, which is now nothing but forest.”

In a written message, 2013 graduate Cameron Goude said Finlandia had helped him become the best version of himself. As captain of the hockey team, he learned discipline. From the student senate, he learned collaboration. He also experienced the Finlandia ideal of servant leadership through a university trip to Tanzania, where he spent three weeks working with secondary students.

“This experience was life-changing, as it opened my eyes to a different culture, way of life,” he said. “It taught me the importance of empathy, compassion, understanding different cultures and different perspectives.”

Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Phyllis Frendendall, professor emeritus of art and design who taught at Finlandia from 1991 to 2020, speaks at a service of commendation for the university Sunday night.

Phyllis Frendendall, professor emeritus of art and design, taught at Finlandia from 1991 to 2020.

She oversaw the university’s renowned student and alumni fashion shows, which starred many designers who went on to to establish design businesses.

One year, the power went out, and they watched the lights come back on block by block until the show resumed.

At another show, another of Sunday’s speakers, Carolyn Dekker, walked the runway with her dog.

They’d laid out a beautiful Mylar runway, Frendendall said. The crowd was impressed. The dog was terrified.

Garrett Neese/Daily Mining Gazette Finlandia University President Timothy Pinnow speaks at a service of commendation for the university Sunday night.

Undeterred, Dekker swooped down and walked the length of the runway in a blue gown carrying a 60-pound dog.

“It dawned on me when I was reflecting on this, that I can imagine she did this for more than one student, who had frozen in place by some academic or life-freezing Mylar moment,” Frendendall said. “She scooped them up and helped them until they found their feet again. Suomi College/Finlandia has been that for students and faculty for 126 years. So now we’re each going to go forth and continue our important work where we are able, to serve and lead to honor the legacy of this precious place.”

Although the university is closing, there’s still a chance “the heart of Finlandia can keep beating” in Hancock, Frendendall said. The Finlandia Foundation is working to preserve the important Finnish-American resources at the university, which include the Finnish American Heritage Center and its archives, the Finnish-American Reporter, the North Wind bookstore, the university gallery and the Finnish-American Folk School.

“Suomi College, Finlandia, is the only school founded by Finns in America,” she said afterward. “It’s an educational institution rooted in Hancock. This is where the deep academic history is, and it’s also a magnet. Any Finns coming to this country, I would say, end up here in some way — passing through, or they have relatives who were here.”