“Why” is one of the many unanswered questions when it comes to the integration between Husson University and The New England School of Communications (NESCom). According to the Executive Vice President and Academic Dean of NESCom, Ben Haskell, everyone you talk to has a different story to answer this question.

The Senior Vice President of Academics at Husson University, Dr. Lynne Coy-Ogan, explains the integration as being a part of the “interesting relationship we’ve had with NESCom.”

Haskell does want to stress the decision to use the word integration rather than merge. He says integration is a softer word in this day and age, whereas merge has too many negative connotations.

“I think merge was too strong a word. It spoke of something being done to us as opposed to us having a very important role in planning and executing integration because we really are the ones at the top of the list here making this happen in the sense that we know our school the best and if you want this integration to happen successfully we need to be involved in it.”

NESCom is already a wholly owned subsidiary of Husson. In a nutshell, this means that NESCom allows the parent company, Husson, to retain the greatest amount of control, but also leaves the parent with all the costs and risks of full ownership.

Coy-Ogan feels that because many aspects of student life, such as general education courses, shared dining commons, dorms, and athletics, are already so intricately involved, “the trustees saw this as an opportunity to strengthen the accreditation elements and the futuristic opportunities for students.”

Talk of this integration began shortly after Dr. Robert Clark took his position as the new President of Husson University in the fall of 2010. Attempts to reach President Clark for comment were unsuccessful.

One of the major changes that will occur is NESCom’s accreditation agency. Currently NESCom is nationally accredited by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges (ACCSC), but is working on moving towards being regionally accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC). According to Haskell, there are two main reasons for this.

“One reason is that ACCSC has always worked with the private sector vocational schools. We have moved out of that vocational arena and are a degree granting college. The second is for the students sake. They’ve had issues with transfer of credit. Many regionally accredited colleges like Husson University, The University of Maine, Colby College, and College of the Atlantic, pretty much have a blanket policy that they will not accept credits from schools other than regionally accredited colleges. So that has put our students over the years in a real bind if they want to transfer out.”

Haskell, does want to stress that this change, like many of the others will not happen over night.

“We are moving very cautiously through this process so that we don’t adversely affect student’s education, and student’s sense of belonging to one institution or another.”

There are still many changes that haven’t been decided on, most of which are considered ‘back door operations,’ meaning that it won’t have much, if any, impact on student life. One thing that does impact students is the discussion about tuition costs and how to make them equal. According to NESCom’s president, Thom Johnston, the difference in tuition costs between NESCom and Husson isn’t as wide as people think.

“Husson’s institutional financial aid package is more generous than NESCom’s. So the aid offered has a large impact on the effect of Husson’s tuition.”

Haskell says one way they are considering making them equal is raising NESCom’s tuition by a slight percentage every year until the two are on the same level.

Another decision that still needs to be made is what will happen with recruiting for NESCom, and the admissions process. According to Coy-Ogan, NESCom’s admission process will coincide with Husson’s, even if it is slightly different than the other programs.

“Currently the School of Pharmacy has a slightly different admissions policy, so it’s not uncommon for individual schools to have that.”

According to Johnston, NESCom is considering taking a closer look at SAT scores, and looking at prospective student portfolios to see what work they have already done.

Since the discussion of this integration has began, a few small changes have already been made. One of the most recognizable examples would be NESCom students being allowed to play Husson sports as of the fall semester of 2011.

Even in the face of all these changes, there are a few things that will not change for NESCom. One major component is the decision that has been made to allow NESCom to continue to receive the financial backing for its high cost technological equipment.

Another decision that has been made is that the NESCom brand will stay. But according to Haskell, in whatever way that turns out has yet to be decided.

“There has been a lot of feeling that NESCom will be a school within a school. When students come to this school, they will come to New England School of Communications at Husson University. Their degree will probably say that.”

Haskell used the example of Wharton College in the University of Pennsylvania. Wharton is actually part of the university, but it has a very distinct mission and a distinct name. Students who attend Wharton are actually University of Pennsylvania students, but go to Wharton.

There are five guiding principles that NESCom’s president, Thom Johnston, Husson’s president, Robert Clark, Coy-Ogan, and the faculty at NESCom put together and proposed to the Board of Trustees. These guiding principles include student learning, delivering educational excellence, student opportunity, excellence in faculty and staff and resources and technology.

Under the student learning category, they want the commitments made by NESCom to its students to be fully recognized and honored and the interests of the students will be more important than anything else in the design of the integration.

The delivering educational excellence portion states that NESCom will maintain its status as a signature educational program of the University, retaining its brand and name as a school within the University. It also states that NESCom has developed its own unique culture to be recognized and supported by the Husson community.

As for student opportunity, they want the integration of NESCom into the University to strengthen both organizations by providing a broader array of educational and experiential opportunities for all students.

Under excellence in faculty and staff, they want the University to work closely with NESCom staff and faculty to structure and provide development opportunities to facilitate the integration.

Lastly, the resources and technology category states that the University will provide resources adequate with sustaining NESCom’s currency in technology and unique experiential learning environment in order to continue to serve its students and to enhance its brand and image.

Depending on who you talk to, the date as to when this integration will be finalized ranges anywhere from two to six years. According to Johnston and Coy-Ogan, the date being aimed for is the fall of 2014.

Coy-Ogan says “We are up for a 10 year review cycle for NEASC, so we thought if we could wait until we got Husson fully approved it wouldn’t make that process confusing. Otherwise we worried the accreditors would focus so much on the NESCom integration that they wouldn’t have as much time to look at all the growth that we’ve made in our School of Pharmacy and our School of Physical Therapy and those kinds of things.”

Students from both schools have concerns about the integration including student-teacher ratios, increases in tuition, classroom space, and the way students are going to pick their classes each semester.

Along with these concerns come various opinions about the integration. Dennis Rose, a junior at NESCom, believes it’s a great idea.

“It gives students more opportunity to take classes of different degrees and also makes it so we can do any club or sport with no restrictions.” Rose went on to say he couldn’t make sense of the ridiculous extent of pride NESCom students show. “I don’t understand the ego that NESCom students grew to have thinking they are ten-times better than Husson. NESCom is better at media and Husson is better at Criminal Justice.”

Stephen Grima, a sophomore student at NESCom, feels quite differently about the situation.

“Frankly, unless the merge is the only way to keep the doors of NESCom open, I think the whole thing is total bupkis. As I understand it, the only thing that will really change is basically adding ‘Husson’ to the name of the school somehow. Oh, and they are going to raise tuition. Granted, 99.9% of all this isn’t going to affect me or my class, but I don’t like the idea of telling my grandkids, ‘Yeah, I went to a really great school, but it’s Husson now.’”

Grima added that one of his biggest concerns about the integration is the lack of information given to students.

“For something that is going to impact the lives of the current, and all the prospective students, there doesn’t seem to be much information about why it’s going on at all. I tend to resist change whenever and wherever I can, unless there is a convincing argument that I can buy into.”

In response, Coy-Ogan wants to make it clear that students should feel free to ask questions if they have any. “Our students have always been our best ambassadors, and we want this to be seen as a positive thing. So our biggest concern is that people have accurate information and that they are understanding the positives, and they are not seeing this as anyone trying to strip NESCom of its identity or judge that it wasn’t quality or any of those things, because those things simply aren’t true.”

Students aren’t the only one with concerns. Ken Stack, head of Entertainment Production at NESCom, is feeling the pressure with some of the upcoming changes.

“Very personally, dealing with myself, I need to go back to school because I’ve been an actor and a theatre director for 40 years. I have a bachelors degree and here I am running a degree program. Now that will not cut the mustard with NEASC. I need to have a terminal degree in my field, and it is next to an impossibility to get that terminal degree in this area. I have some real fast footwork that I need to do. I need to take a lot of classes, and go back to school and make that happen.”

On the other side, Stack feels that the integration will be whatever the two schools make it out to be.

“It is our job to make it good. It’s going to happen, so let’s make it into a positive change. The important thing for people to realize is that a lot of caring people are going to put a lot of thought into this. It’s frightening, and there will be some things we will lose, but also a lot of things we will gain. We have to look at what the tradeoffs are going to be.”

Cindy Connelley, an assistant professor in the School of Health and Education at Husson, feels that NESCom has always been a part of the campus community. “We have collaborated in the past on projects and this new official merger will continue to bring more diverse ideas and interdisciplinary opportunities. It’s a win-win for both schools.”

According to Coy-Ogan, Johnston, and Haskell, there will be many benefits for both schools once the integration is finalized. Johnston and Coy-Ogan feel that part of the advantage of integrating NESCom with Husson is so that there will be a School of Communications within Husson, giving the university a more well-rounded look. Haskell feels that with this integration will come more student talent and involvement with Gracie Theatre.

According to Coy-Ogan, everyone meets once a week to discuss what their next step will be in making this integration happen.

Haskell wants to make it clear that this integration is about the students.

“Nothing is going to be so bad that students won’t want to come here. In fact, it’s going to be better. We just need to do it carefully, and take the time it takes because it’s a big, big undertaking and yet, again, a lot of it won’t even be noticed except maybe ‘Jeeze, you mean I’ve got to read this whole text book before the semester is over? I’ve got to write four papers? I used to only have to write three!”

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