Feature Article
One on One With . . .
Editor’s Note: Norm Bukwaz is the assistant
to the Dean for the Graduate and Professional Pro-
grams and Director of the Bachelor of Applied Sci-
ence Degree Program for more than 45 years. He
will be honored with the Honorary Alumni Award
during Homecoming Weekend 2019. Reflections
Magazine sat down with him to discuss his distin-
guished career at Siena Heights.
How did you first come to Siena Heights?
I decided that I wanted to come back to Michi-
gan. I was in Illinois, and had taken a one year
appointment. Siena Heights had an opening and
at the time I thought I was going to be forever-
after a sociology professor. I came to Siena in the
fall of 1974 and taught one year in the sociology
department. And I also coordinated the internship
programs for the whole division of the Social Sci-
ences and the Humanities. That connected me to
administrators that forever after changed the types
of things I did for Siena.
How did you go from a sociology
professor to what you are doing now?
It’s an interesting question. Nobody plans on
administering off-campus programs. When I got
involved with the internship program, I became
fairly close (with the director of cooperative educa-
tion). Well he was leaving … so I decided when
I asked ‘Do you want to administer that for a
year?’ and build that into the role… I was asked
if I could possibly build that into the role because
that involved a connection with a Detroit school
called RETS electronic school. … Before long the
university continued to do thinking about reaching
out into the larger community. In 1975-76 I started
working with taking courses to the Metro Detroit
area. We originally offered courses at a number
of corporate sites. That was a result of our being
asked by students who were driving 70 or 80 miles
to Adrian to take an evening course. (They asked)
what if you were able to get a bunch of students,
would you be willing to bring classes to us? That
was sort of the beginning of that.
What change did former President Hugh
Thompson bring to Siena Heights?
I didn’t report directly to Dr. Thompson, but
I worked reasonably closely with him from time
to time on projects. He came at a time when the
school was struggling financially. There were ques-
tions about where it ought to go. The prior presi-
dent, Sister Petronilla, had really already opened
up some thinking about coeducation, reaching
22 | Reflections Summer ’19
From the Centennial Archives: 1977—Norm counsels an adult student at the new Metro Detroit location.
into the community. But Dr. Thompson came and
he had a vision that Siena Heights needed to
move from where it was as a historically women’s
private college to a college that met the needs
of today and Lenawee County. … Things I would
attribute to Dr. Thompson, most of which are still
relevant, (are) the off-campus programs developed
during that time. The Bachelor of Applied Science
(degree), which has become one of the dominant
programs of the institution, was developed at that
time. The coeducational dimension of the institu-
tion greatly increased, reaching out to the commu-
nity with the commuter programs. Dr. Thompson
quickly got the idea (because) there was talk that
maybe Lenawee County needed a community col-
lege. … To ward that off, he felt that we probably
needed to serve the community and offer some
of the kinds of programs that community colleges
would be offering. He actually came up with 12
to 14 associate degree programs. Some are still
around as bachelor’s programs. … He changed
a lot of things and he changed them quickly.
He had a very strong emphasis on career educa-
tion. He envisioned Siena having a great business
program. In his vision of growing the school and
the enrollment, he wanted males to be a part of
the picture. … In the summer of 1974, they were
just starting the program in criminal justice. …
That fall we had 35 local and regional police of-
ficers taking classes at Siena Heights. There was
a lot of career-oriented, practical things that Dr.
Thompson was thinking about. … And certainly
the addition of intercollegiate athletics was some-
thing that was going to bring males to the institu-
tion. … He was sort of a no-nonsense (leader).
He had been a coach. He had a business-type ap-
proach. He looked closely at all the data. … If you
look in retrospect, he had a very significant impact.
Yes, he rubbed some people the wrong way. He
might have been a little more sensitive in some
areas. He had some very good aspects and some
things we didn’t appreciate so much.
What exactly is the Bachelor of Science
Degree? How can you explain it?
The problem with the short answer is that it
takes more than a short answer. The best way to
look at the Bachelor of Applied Science, is to think
of the two kinds of students at community colleges
that want to go on for a bachelor’s degree. That’s
what all schools know, is the two plus two. You
go two years to the community college, and then
you go on to some university to do the third and
fourth years, where you get the major. The whole
other world of the community college are the oc-
cupational, or AAS degree programs that prepare
people for a career. … You’ve got all of these
people completing technical degrees entering
the workforce being pretty talented people as
time goes on. But the programs that they took
are called the non-transfer programs. We learned
quickly through a variety of connections that we