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Binghamton University and SUNY Broome Community College are in the early stages of exploring the possibility of integrating the two institutions, the Binghamton Press & Sun Bulletin reported.
Campus leaders have been discussing “increasing shared services” for several months, according to a statement released Thursday by Harvey Stenger, president at Binghamton. Administrators requested that the chancellor of the SUNY system bring the proposal to the Board of Trustees and are awaiting a response.
Stenger noted that SUNY Broome is facing “significant fiscal challenges” after enrollment fell 37 percent since 2011. Enrollment at Binghamton has grown 22 percent over that period, he said. However, Binghamton is “seeing its pipeline of community college transfer students reduced,” particularly from the Broome County area. He believes integrating the institutions would create a clear transfer pathway, lower administrative costs and increase enrollment at SUNY Broome, among other benefits.
“Given these challenges, I believe that an integration of University and community college functions would have positive impacts on both institutions as well as the community,” he said in the statement. “And most of all, it would improve educational outcomes for transfer students, especially those coming from first-generation and underrepresented minority backgrounds.”
The two institutions already have a joint program called Binghamton Advantage in which some first-year students at SUNY Broome live on the Binghamton campus. If students maintain a 3.0 GPA in their community college coursework that academic year, they’re guaranteed admission to the university.
Stenger added that “many more conversations and negotiations” still need to occur between campus administrators to move forward on a more robust partnership.
“Administratively, we will need to establish new practices, rules and regulations,” he said in the statement. “These would include things such as how to report statistics of students from each campus separately, how to integrate administrative staff and systems, how to manage the fiscal identity of each campus separately, changes to our accreditation and others.”
