It’s now official. Burlington College is closed, largely due to Jane Sanders, wife of presidential candidate Bernie Sanders.

The Boston Globe reports.

Burlington College closes under unwanted spotlight

Burlington College, once a thriving school for artists, now looks abandoned and bereft. The huge red-and-white sign congratulating graduates remains, but faculty name placards have been pulled from the walls. Empty nails line the corridors, and the front doors are locked.

After 44 years of operation, the college closed for good on Friday. And the timing couldn’t be worse: As they salvage artwork and pack up classrooms, former students and faculty are under an unwanted national spotlight because of their former leader.

Jane Sanders, the college’s president for seven years, is campaigning across the country for her husband, Senator Bernie Sanders, who is running for president. She was the head of the college during a massive land deal blamed by many as the catalyst for closure of the school.

These last two weeks, students have been scrambling to transfer to other colleges and graduates have been rushing to save thesis projects promised to be archived in perpetuity as faculty members apply for unemployment while pulling together resumes for new jobs — all under the glare of a presidential campaign.

“It just has been a distraction,” Carol Moore, the college’s president, who was hired last year, said in an interview on campus earlier this week. “We’ve all been trying to focus all of our energies moving the college forward and to no particular end.”

But people want to talk about the “political race,” said Coralee Holm, the school’s dean of operations and advancement.

“We’re not really concerned about the political scene,” she said, sitting across from Moore in the president’s conference room. “So that’s been a real bummer. Neither one of us was here when Jane Sanders was here, and there’s no real connection, since we’ve been here as far as what’s going on at the institution.”