ALLEGANY, N.Y. — Synergy may soon become a key term between St. Bonaventure University and Hilbert College.
St. Bonaventure President Sister Margaret Carney, O.S.F., said Wednesday the two institutions have inched closer to a “strategic alliance” after a June 14 meeting between their respective boards of trustees. Talks continue and could result in a memorandum of understanding between Bona and Hilbert officials by summer’s end.
If the plan later becomes policy, she said, cooperative curriculum additions and streamlined operations could stabilize enrollment — and dollar signs — for the two private Catholic institutions.
“We’ve exchanged a lot of data and documentation with each other during the feasibility, or due diligence, phase,” Carney said. “We were trying to see if there’s anything further that either board needs from the other institution in order to … give the green light that we’re going to start actually constructing a model for an alliance or a merger or whatever it’s going to turn out to be.”
Any finalized action, however, could take up to two years, she added.
There are still questions. And the schools have received $425,000 in grant funding from the Oishei Foundation and $20,000 from the Western New York Foundation to help answer them.
“It won’t be long before we have a clearer picture of what the legal structure is that we will attempt,” Carney said, citing the memorandum of understanding as the next step. “That is simply a formal declaration by both sets of trustees that they intend to continue this process and, in a sense, move the process to a more binding set of agreements.
“Right now, we’re not in any legal obligation to each other.”
Enrollment is the key.
Carney noted St. Bonaventure, with approximately 2,300 students, and Hilbert, a school of about 1,100 students located in Hamburg, have seen enrollments fall. She blamed a declining population in Western New York and a saturation of Catholic higher education in the Diocese of Buffalo. The diocese has seven such institutions that largely recruit from the same pool of high school graduates.
St. Bonaventure’s enrollment goal is approximately 500 new students per year, Carney said.
“We have been under goal about the last four years,” she added. “What’s going on is a declining demographic of college-age students in Central and Western New York. So both campuses — and not just our two campuses — are under great stress to meet enrollment goals.”
It’s also a nationwide trend.
A survey of 103 leaders in higher education this year revealed 37 percent were “very concerned” about maintaining enrollment levels, according to U.S. News & World Report. In addition, 58 percent cited “inability to pay tuition” as a top factor in declining enrollments at their schools.
How far off has St. Bonaventure been from its enrollment quota?
A drop of 15 students could be considered “far off,” Carney said. “Somebody might say, ‘Fifteen students, what’s the big deal?’ But 15 students translates into an exact amount of money that you will realize over the four years. I would say we’re off far enough that we’re having to be very conservative financially in the coming year.”
It’s too early to tell what effect a Bonaventure/Hilbert partnership would have on financial figures like tuition and staff salaries, she said.
While the “detailed content” of the feasibility studies is still confidential, Carney said. “They’ve revealed there is no reason not to do this.
“It’s sort of like you buy a house and you find out if there are termites in it,” she said. “We’re in the stage that is making sure there is nothing that would threaten the welfare of either institution if we go forward and join together.”
Joining together — in whatever form that may take — would likely mean one central administration.
“You’re not going to have two presidents. At the upper level, you streamline what you need,” she said. “(The University at Buffalo), with 30,000 students, has one administration. We have two administrations for less than 4,000 students. Streamlining the administrative superstructure of the two schools is part of the savings.”
She couldn’t yet comment on how the structure of the two administrations may be altered.
As the Bonaventure and Hilbert administrators continue to discuss details, they’ll use a set of guiding principles, Carney said.
“Respect for the uniqueness of each institution is one,” she said. “We are not into caste systems. Both institutions have something exceptional that they are doing in the world of Franciscan higher education. We bring both of those sets of qualities together and 2 + 2 = 5 now.”
She said the potential two-campus option would allow undergraduate students at St. Bonaventure to enroll in Hilbert’s criminal justice or pre-law programs, for example, while Hilbert students may take courses in St. Bonaventure’s renowned journalism school. The institutions already have a partnership in place for several graduate-level programs.
There could be additions.
“By looking at programs that we can do better because we have two sets of faculty with two different sets of expertise,” Carney said, “we can design some programs neither school could operate alone, to which students would enroll … Suddenly you might have another 25 students enrolled. That’s the name of the game.”
