Trinity Christian College is closed but this couple is making sure it doesn't disappear
A husband-and-wife team has sought to digitally preserve a recently shuttered Christian college so that alumni can continue to revisit the campus even after it's closed.
Ashley Nwaokolo and Shalom Nwaokolo, founders of Egents Innovations, are working to create a virtual experience of Trinity Christian College of Palos Heights, Illinois.
The virtual experience of the closed campus was named “Perduras,” which is Spanish for “you endure.” The official launch date for the website is Oct. 4.
In emailed comments to The Christian Post, the couple said the name was inspired in part by Ashley Nwaokolo, who did a semester abroad in Spain through Trinity Christian College while a student at Northwestern College.
“When an institution closes, the assumption is that its physical presence ends with it; the campus is sold, the buildings are repurposed, and the place simply ceases to exist for the people it shaped,” they said. “Perduras is a direct answer to that assumption. You endure. The place endures. The connection between the community and the place that formed them endures beyond the walls.”
The couple told CP they were “not claiming to build something eternal,” but rather they “are building something that outlasts the physical structure, so that the history held within those walls doesn't disappear when the walls come down.”
A journey of 200,000 steps
Last November, Trinity Christian College leadership announced that the college, which had nearly 1,000 enrolled students, was closing due to financial issues after more than 65 years of operation.
“We know this news is difficult to hear. It’s certainly difficult to share,” said Acting President Jeanine Mozie in a statement at the time. “The board has worked faithfully and tirelessly to consider every possible option in the face of significant and rapidly evolving financial challenges. However, there is no sustainable path forward for our beloved institution.”
“Students who are not eligible to graduate this spring can complete their academic year at Trinity, then transfer to another school. Trinity has secured teach-out agreements with three highly regarded local and regional institutions that offer similar academics, out-of-pocket cost, and mission.”
The Nwaokolos told CP that news of the college's closure “landed differently than a headline” because of Ashley’s positive experiences with the study abroad program and because it parallels the closure of her father’s alma mater, Westmar College, in the 1990s.
“He was left with no physical place to return to or share with his children and grandchildren,” they said. “When Trinity announced its closure, we immediately recognized that the same irreversible loss was about to happen to its community.”
“We felt called to use the resources God entrusted us with to ensure that Trinity’s heritage and history were not lost. So, we contacted Trinity's administration, proposed our preservation vision, and were formally authorized by its leadership in April.”
In the final months that Trinity Christian College was in operation, Ashley and Shalom took two trips to campus to capture the whole 60-acre property. As a professional drone pilot, Ashley used a drone to capture exteriors, while Shalom walked through the interiors of the college’s 18 buildings.
“There was no margin for error because we couldn't go back for a second visit after the campus was sold,” they explained. “So, every room, every corner, every hallway had to be captured because we had no way of knowing which detail would be the one that matters 20 years from now.”
The couple said they've taken a combined 200,000 steps while capturing details of the campus and have collected more than 100 GB of high-resolution imagery.
‘Fundamentally different’
This isn't the first property the Egents Innovations founders have created a virtual experience for, as they have been creating self-guided virtual tours of entities like hospitals and colleges since 2020.
Last year, they launched a virtual experience for the Veterans Community Project Village in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, a charity that provides tiny houses for veterans facing homelessness.
However, the Trinity Christian College project “was fundamentally different in category and scale,” the couple said, as their previous projects have centered on “a living, operating place — a facility, buildings, campus, or place that would still be there tomorrow.”
“Trinity was a place in its final days, and the decision to close had already been made,” they said. “We were no longer helping people decide whether to engage with a place that will still be there. We were preserving the place and what it meant to the people whose lives had been shaped there.”
“We captured it while there was still life on campus — posters on the doors and walls advertising upcoming events, twinkly lights in the outdoor commons, the dining room where people were still dining. Capturing that essence of life changed everything about how we approached it.”
Another key difference between this and earlier projects was that the Trinity Christian College effort required building a new platform, since the college wouldn't be maintaining the digital walkthrough.
“The virtual experiences we create through Egents typically live on the website or platform of our clients,” noted the Nwaokolos. “In contrast, since Trinity was closing, its history, heritage, and identity deserved a permanent home engineered specifically for preservation. That's why Perduras exists. It wasn't part of the original plan. The work itself revealed the need.”
‘Endurance beyond the walls’
According to the couple, even though Perduras hasn't officially launched, they've already heard from alumni who said they felt “relief” that they'll be able to revisit the college through the virtual platform.
“It was about relief. The relief of knowing the place isn't gone,” they told CP. “That's what we hope every visitor feels. Not awe at what we built, but gratitude that what they loved still exists in a form they can return to.”
“That the place they thought they lost is still there, virtually. We hope that they can walk through the chapel, stand in the hallway where they had a conversation that changed their life, find the room where they studied for their first exam or prayed through a difficult season.”
In the long run, the couple hopes that former students “can walk through the virtual experience with their children and grandchildren there and say: this is the place that shaped me. This is where I became who I am.”
On a broader scale, they added, Perduras will end the assumption that “when an institution closes, the campus disappears and there's nothing anyone can do about it.”
“We want people to leave perduras.com knowing that assumption is no longer true,” they said. “Closed does not have to mean erased. There is endurance beyond the walls.”
