Feature Article
Norm Bukwaz
had, we learned that they had very important
transfer needs. And the emergence in the mid-
70s of the Bachelor of Science Degree probably
best could be seen as a program that was going
to meet the needs of practicing professionals in
a variety of technical, allied health, public safety
and specialized occupational areas. Those people
didn’t have the greatest transfer options, because
the mentality of four-year institutions is if you’re
going to transfer, plan for it. Do two years at the
community college, fine, and then you come to us,
take the courses prescribed, and then you get your
four-year degree. Well, AAS graduates through our
BAS program were able to meet the transfer needs
that they had, which ordinarily emerged after they
completed their applied technical program, became
practicing professionals, were highly successful
and began to see opportunities for promotion.
But they were hearing, ‘You need a bachelor’s
degree.’ So we developed a program that met
those needs and done very, very well with it and
we’ve been very proud of it historically.
How did the community college
partnerships develop?
Because we were taking classes to Metro
Detroit, we ended up with the conclusion, once
we had a grant, that we would open a permanent
center there. So we began to develop relationships
with community colleges once we opened a perma-
nent center in Metro Detroit. At the same time, in
the 1976-77 period, Dr. Thompson had a relation-
ship with Dr. Molter, who was the chancellor of the
Ohio Board of Regents. Hugh thought we could
bring a program here and partner with Lourdes
Junior College. … Because there was sort of a void
in upper level Catholic higher education in north-
west Ohio, we were able to develop that partner-
ship. That went reasonably well and lasted from
1977 to 1985. … The community college partner-
ship concept really came about, I can remember
exactly, in 1982. Jim Ebben, who was the dean of
the college at the time, and he got the letter and
it was a request from Lake Michigan College invit-
ing schools who had some experience serving
working adults if they would be interested in con-
sidering bringing a program designed for working
adults to the campus to be offered in its entirety on
the Lake Michigan College campus. … We were
one of six schools who responded and said we
were interested. … Quite frankly, we were the only
ones they considered. … I hired Deb Carter to be
the first director. We hired her on a half-time ba-
sis. Deb succeeded me as the dean of the College
for Professional Studies and she had a wonderful
career there. I think the important thing with the
Lake Michigan program, is that it worked so well,
that we sort of took that as a prototype program.
It wasn’t too long that we had options and repli-
cated that at Monroe County Community College,
then at Kellogg Community College in Battle Creek,
and then at Lansing Community, then at Jackson
Community College and so on. … The concept of
bachelor’s degree completion is really what was
much more applicable than the traditional two
plus two approach.
Talk about the start of online education
at Siena Heights.
As time went on, and as we moved into the
late 1990s, our chief administrative officer in the
metro Detroit program, Steve Goddard, was for
sure the driving force. He said, ‘We need to get to
online education.’ Metro Detroit was always sort
of the innovative center. We took courses to Mary-
land, to California. We worked off of Metro Detroit.
That’s where we did the innovative, shorter term
courses. The eight-week format and other kinds of
things. So we were used to sort of working from
the Metro Detroit base to try some other kinds of
things. Steve pushed me, and we talked with Dr.
(Rick) Artman, who was president at the time. …
We talked long and hard about it, and how’s this
online going to work? … We had connected with
eCollege. … Sister Pat McDonald said we might
want to look at them as a platform for our online
learning. We made that connection. The early
online (program), we wanted to be somewhat
cautious. So we did blended online (classes).
Our experience was, students quickly told us,
‘We’re busy. We’re flying all over in our jobs.
Totally online makes sense to us.’ We got North
Central Higher Learning Commission approval
to deliver our programs totally online. … Jim
O’Flynn really became our lead faculty for distance
learning programs, and he was tremendous. He
was innovative and he helped train a whole gen-
eration of faculty that followed him. … And Lori
Timmis did some tremendous work administering
the programs in its early days until she became an
associate dean.
What impact has the College for Pro-
fessional Studies had on Siena Heights?
We’re out in the hinterlands or cyberspace.
The vast majority of the people employed by Siena
are involved with operations here in Adrian. So it’s
always been a challenge. We want them to know
what we’re doing. Deb (Carter) was real good as
we were continuing to grow and emerge in keep-
ing CPS in front of the community. Yet it’s one thing
to be in front of the community, but it’s another
thing to know all the details and nuances, which is
probably not realistic. We often sort of lament and
wish that people had a greater understanding of
what we do. But I think people know and see the
results. In terms of CPS’ impact, we have been a
solid financial contributor. Serving adult students,
whether it be at the centers or online, you don’t
have the all of the kinds of expenses, the trap-
pings, of a main campus. We need the main cam-
pus and the faculty and the team to support us,
but historically, for every dollar that we spend in
CPS, we bring back two. … We’ve been extremely
critically important, I believe, in the financial viabil-
ity (of Siena Heights). Siena Heights has graduated
26,000 students with a bachelor’s degree. Thirteen
thousand of those have received a degree through
the College of Professional Studies. And we started
a little later in the game. So one out of every two
Siena Heights graduates with a bachelor’s degree
has graduated from an off-campus program.
What has Siena Heights meant to you?
It will be 45 years that I’ve been here at the
end of this summer. I thought I was going to teach
sociology. I never in the world would have dreamed
that I was going to be driving all over Michigan
setting up off-campus programs and things of
that nature. It’s given me and given many people
here the opportunity to try some things. And if the
things sort of fit and were good for you, then you
could build a career from that. … To me, I should
be pretty darned appreciative. … I owe the univer-
sity a great deal. … I’ve been the administrator of
the (BAS) program all those years. How did a so-
ciology professor end up administering a program
for technical, health care and public safety profes-
sionals? In a way I was a missionary. I had to do a
lot of selling. I had to work with administrators on
community college campuses and organizations,
telling them ‘We’ve got a great program.’ You go
out and tell the story. u
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