SUNY & Purchase College to Replicate the Baccalaureate and Beyond Program, a Collaboration of Community Colleges & Four-Year Institutions

Albany -- The Baccalaureate and Beyond Program has been an immediate success for Purchase College and its six participating community colleges. As a result, officials from the college will hold a planning conference November 4 at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Albany to determine how the program can best be replicated across the state so that more students can experience its benefits.

SUNY Provost David K. Lavallee and Joseph Skrivanek, Professor of Chemistry and Program Director of the Purchase College Bridges to Baccalaureate program, will host a meeting of SUNY campus representatives to develop plans to replicate the program so it can be adapted elsewhere. Representatives from 12 four-year institutions and 11 community colleges will attend the conference, which will be held Nov. 4, 2010, at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Albany, NY from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

“The Baccalaureate and Beyond program at Purchase College boasts a 70 percent success rate in four-year degree completion, compared to 17 percent nationally,” said Provost Lavallee. “It is also an excellent example of how SUNY is working to help disadvantaged and underrepresented community college students complete their associate’s degrees and seamlessly transfer to four-year institutions within SUNY to complete their baccalaureate degrees. I am looking forward to working with faculty and staff across the system as we take this successful program to the next level.”

The program was originally designed as a prototype that could be implemented nationally. Since it began 10 years ago at Purchase College, more than 300 community college students in Westchester and Rockland counties have participated in the Purchase College program and successfully graduated from four-year institutions. The program provides a seamless student transfer between participating colleges and academic and financial support for students in the natural and social sciences and the humanities, with faculty members providing mentoring, training, and support at each others’ institutions. 

The conference will aim to identify ways to replicate this program within the SUNY system, initially at three other four–year institutions and nine community colleges. Representatives from 12 interested four-year institutions and 11 interested community colleges will attend. 

Conference participants include: Thomas J. Schwarz, President of Purchase College, Dr. David Lvalee, SUNY Provost, Dr, Pedro Caban, SUNY Vice Provost for Diversity and Educational Equity, Dr. Barry Warren, Associate Vice President for Development at SUNY Oneonta, and Dr, Jeffrey Scott, SUNY Diversity Development Officer, and Dr. Skrivanek. Dr. Scott and Dr. Skrivanek are the conference co-chairs. The Keynote speaker is Dr. Shiva Singh, of NIH, Chief of the Special Initiatives branch in the division of Minority Opportunities in Research. Recent graduate Jonathan Mathis of the Matrix Corporation will describe his experiences in the program at Purchase College.

Discussions will center on the elements of the two-year and four-year transitions and the specific activities required to run the program.  Poster sessions will provide participants with opportunities to learn about the best practices of the current programs. At the conclusion of the conference, Purchase College and the SUNY Provost Office of Diversity and Educational Equity will determine which community colleges and four-year institutions are the best suited for the first round of the project’s replication.

About Purchase College
Purchase College State University of New York is a major institution of higher education encompassing the liberal arts and sciences, professional training in the visual and performing arts, and continuing education and liberal studies, along with the Neuberger Museum of Art and The Performing Arts Center. To learn more about the Baccalaureate and Beyond Program at Purchase College, click here.

About the State University of New York

The State University of New York is the largest comprehensive university system in the United States, educating nearly 465,000 students in more than 7,500 degree and certificate programs on 64 campuses. To learn more about how SUNY creates opportunity, visit www.suny.edu 

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