http://www.bu.edu/today/2017/bu-wheelock-strategic-merger/
“Boston University has agreed to enter into formal discussions with Wheelock College, with the goal of merging Wheelock with Boston University. Wheelock College is a private college known for its focus on education and located on the Riverway, about one mile from the Charles River Campus.”
Thoughts?
From the comments on that thread and the comments on Boston media sites son facebook it seems that acquiring Wheelock will cause BU’s reputation to tank.
Those comments should make Wheelock students feel so welcome! :((
In 2015-16, BU granted 9,819 degrees. Wheelock granted 353 degrees. Absorbing a tiny institution like Wheelock – which nobody outside of Boston has ever heard of – will have zero impact on BU’s national reputation.
BU will teach out a small number of existing Wheelock students, and will institute higher admission standards going forward. In four years, few people will even remember that Wheelock ever existed.
And BU will also absorb Wheelock’s $50,000,000 endowment, and its land and buildings, which are surely worth even more than that. This is like a 9-figure gift to BU. Yet people are asking: “OMG, what does BU get out of this deal?”
Total land grab. Nicely played.
The principal objection from the BU side seems to be that people admitted under Wheelock’s relatively lenient standards would be getting BU degrees. In theory, there is a way around this objection: BU could announce that the merger is pending, but will not take effect until, say, the 2021-22 academic year.
That would give Wheelock time to teach out their existing students, who would all get Wheelock degrees. BU would simply provide whatever financial support was needed to ensure that Wheelock remained viable during the transitional period. Any new students admitted during the transitional period would have to meet BU standards, and would ultimately get BU degrees, since they would graduate after the merger took effect.
@Corbett That would be tantamount to saying to Wheelock “Give us your endowment and campus but we don’t want you, your students aren’t good enough for the illustrious BU name”.
@TomSrOfBoston Yes, that’s basically correct. On the other hand, it would ensure that Wheelock students get the opportunity to finish their programs and to earn a degree with the Wheelock name – which is, after all, what they initially enrolled to get. None of Wheelock’s current students enrolled with the expectation of getting a degree from BU.
It could go either way – existing students could get taught out by Wheelock and get Wheelock degrees, or they could get taught out by BU and get BU degrees. I’m only pointing out that BU could, in theory, try to negotiate a Wheelock teach-out if this is necessary to overcome the chorus of objections from the BU community.
@Corbett When Boston College took over Newton College of the Sacred Heart circa 1980 all Newton College alumni became BC alumni retroactively. Same when BU took over Sargent College back in the 1950’s.
The article states that Wheelock had several other merger offers. If the commenters are anything but a tiny vocal minority of BU people it may be time for Wheelock to look elsewhere.