Friar
Junior Member
Posts: 318
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Post by Friar on Jul 10, 2014 21:24:33 GMT -5
Time to start a new thread. Question - what ideas or suggestions do you have to make the university more attractive to increase enrollment?
Please, all comments/ suggestions should be positive in nature. No negative comments. This is to help our beloved university. Think new majors, facility improvements, sports programs, etcetera.
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Post by dadster81 on Jul 10, 2014 22:28:34 GMT -5
While I agree with the posters on the aspect of critical thinking, etc. there are alot of other colleges that do alot better in that area than SBU, and the gap (I think) is too wide to close. And attending Bonas, even with their good scholarship program, is around a $100K investment. So I say become a school that offers Majors in job areas, knowing that the students will also have a good dose of other subjects to make them a well rounded person. To parents, the $100K investment will be a much better value if their children have a good chance of job placement.
As mentioned in the other string by other posters, if you look at the "hottest" job growth fields, SBU does not alot of them.
- Nursing. While you can become an RN with an Associates Degree, more states are considering requiring a BS in the very near future. Trivia question - which NYS college has the highest amount of graduates passing the nursing board? Monroe Community College - something like 99%. You would think with hospitals in the area, they would love to have a nursing school in the Southern Tier/Northern PA area. - Graduate Degrees for Physician Assistants and Nurse Practitioners - definately the wave of the future in health. - Computer Science and Management Information Systems majors - we only offer minors. - Supply Chain Management - Technical Writing - maybe this falls under Mass Comm - Engineering - we used to offer a 2 year program - is this still available?
Majors to get rid of that at least to me have no value or future job employment - Sports Management (its fifteen minutes of fame left town about 8 years ago), Sociology (never understood what its value was 30 years ago), Classical Languages (igpay atenlay?)
Lastly, Monroe Community College did a great job developing their school to make sure that most of the credits they offer are accepted by most of the 4 year schools in the area. Has Bonas thought about working with JCC (or the northern PA community colleges) to make sure their credits are accepted at Bonas? Adding students for two years is alot better than no years.
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Post by route16 on Jul 10, 2014 22:39:05 GMT -5
Sociology (never understood what its value was 30 years ago), What will the basketball players take? Kidding. Love the JCC point.
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Post by brownindian11 on Jul 10, 2014 23:38:16 GMT -5
I'm doing my masters online in homeland security management through Long Island University. If Bonas offered a similar program I'd be happy to direct my GI Bill money to them. Cyber Security is a real concern in both the private and public sector and could be an attractive graduate program.
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Post by B02 on Jul 11, 2014 5:36:10 GMT -5
Junior college recruitment is the way to go. As a high school teacher, I see more and more kids taking the community college route due to finances. Bonas should be spending more time targeting that demographic than the 4 year kid, because I would say 1 out 2 maybe 2 out 3 kids are going the community college route first.
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Post by class70 on Jul 11, 2014 6:10:06 GMT -5
Cattaraugus County sits atop the Marcellus Shale, an enormous deposit of natural gas. PA, WV, and OH have developed their oil and gas fields to create thousands of jobs and billions of dollars in income. Leverage this asset and the new business facility. Aggressively recruit energy firms active in the Marcellus such as Chesapeake and Range Resources to endow chairs and studies in market-based solutions to Southwestern NY's secular economic decline. If funding can be found for a petroleum engineering program, which another poster has proposed, add it. Energy is an industry that's fundamental to our national economy and is closely tied to the name and history of Olean NY.
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Post by 123Rob on Jul 11, 2014 6:27:34 GMT -5
Ding Dingdingdingding. We have a winner!! Tell him what he's won, Johnny!
Seriously, the fracking debate is a good and worthy one. Bona's should be at the center of it. We need to be good stewards of the Earth, but I am not convinced that allowing fracking would be bad. I also do not think it is responsible of Andy Cuomo and the disfunctional NYS Senate and Assembly, to sit on studies and not allow fracking on at least a limited basis while the people of Southwestern NY are starving for the jobs and development. What a fabulous educational tool to learn from the debate as we produce teachers that hear and present all sides of an argument, journalists that present verified facts without editorializing and business leaders that balance profits with a social conscience. Can you imagine? Golly, it sounds...well, it sounds almost Franciscan. And as Class70 states, let's ask for assistance of the companies that will be our neighbors. I am sure they will want to not only provide jobs in the area but to be good neighbors and help out the institutions already in the area. Look at all the Pegula family has done at PennSt and Houghton. Why not us?
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Post by Pinnum on Jul 11, 2014 7:27:23 GMT -5
I don't know much about the healthcare industry so I am not qualified to comment on those additions.
However, I do know a lot about engineering and the oil and gas industry. I have a large family and even larger extended family and we work heavily in the oil and gas industries.
The reason SBU has never developed Engineering and has used the joint programs with the likes of Detroit Mercy has never been a lack of jobs in engineering but rather a lack of demand at SBU and the cost of launching such programs.
You don't just launch one program in engineering. And I am not even sure which program you would recommend if you're just trying to get in on the Shale boom (which has been around for a while now so its already late to the game). There are so many different disciplines that are used in the oil and gas industry. Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering, are popular majors along with Petroleum Engineering.
But it is a lot like developing a social science. You don't just have a sociology department. It would be crazy to just invest in a stand along sociology department (unless you're a niche like the NEW School) so you also have Political Science, Anthropology, Philosophy and other classes that you can cross list and use to complement each other. This is also true for Engineering, you need to fill courses that cross list with Chemical Engineering, Computer Programing, Environmental Engineering, and Supply Chain Management with your Civil, Mechanical, and Petro.
Basically, you're asking the school to launch a whole new college of engineering and to completely change SBU's focus. This would, in fact, be more costly than launching a law school (though it would likely have much better job placement). The salaries that would be required to attract math and science professors would be great, as would the labs that would need to be built.
It is just not a realistic proposal and even crazier when you want to propose that a for profit company pays for the investment in an industry that is so transient. They are better off working to corner the Lehigh, Case Western, RPI, RIT, Clarkson, and Buffalo grads to complement the Rice, Tulsa, and Colorado School of Mines grads they already secure.
Honestly, I think SBU would struggle to fill the seats in upper level engineering courses. The best bet would be to develop 3+2 programs with engineering schools.
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Post by derhut on Jul 11, 2014 7:36:38 GMT -5
Class of 70 hit the nail on the head--NY State has long handicapped themselves with totally inept government and leadership..WNY has gotten the shaft for a long, long time...Take a gander at North and South Dakota along with Wyoming...not enough people to fill the job slots, not enough housing to accommodate those who are working...oh, to have those problems..one can debate the harm to the environment...but it seems to me if the appropriate authorities are doing their jobs properly in regards to oversight [EPA, etc] things could develop rather nicely. Cattaraugus County has a nasty history of pollution issues due to weak local government...the atomic site and leftover waste problems in west valley, the multiple brownfields in Olean...the problem with lumber company pollution in Allegany...heck, they had to move the AL High School building way up the 5 mile due to water pollution just south of the school--someone has to show some leadership and some backbone and get the ball rolling..
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Post by dadster81 on Jul 11, 2014 8:10:14 GMT -5
I don't know much about the healthcare industry so I am not qualified to comment on those additions. Honestly, I think SBU would struggle to fill the seats in upper level engineering courses. The best bet would be to develop 3+2 programs with engineering schools. I agree with Pinnum on his points - rebuild our 3+2 program. Too expensive and too late in the game to start from scratch. Be the less expensive option than 4-5 uears at the schools he named (outside of UB). On the other hand, we already have the backbone (pun intended) courses in place for growing our health care majors - biology, chem, etc. These courses are needed for any patient related job. An interesting fact for people looking into enter these fields - if you previously went to college, then later decided to get into the health care patient area, schools will NOT accept any science course that you took if it is more than 7 years have passed since you took the course. My wife learned that the hard way, and had to retake several science courses to become an RN.
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Post by gdub2009 on Jul 11, 2014 8:21:15 GMT -5
- Computer Science and Management Information Systems majors - we only offer minors. We do have a Computer Science Bachelors degree. We used to have an MIS degree because I have one. I guess demand went away for that major for whatever reason. Bonas is now offering Bioinformatics which is something we need to build on. Any programs with technology I feel would be beneficial. If Bonas could somehow jump on the Data Science train, I feel that could help. Anything with Math, Stats, and Computer Science is huge right now. Companies have all this data but they have no idea how to make sense out of all of it. For nursing what I would do is pair with JCC and make a Bachelors program for students finishing their Nursing degree program. Soon a Bachelors degree will be required. The students can take the rest of their courses at SBU to get their Bachelors in Nursing. I would also try to set up some more 3+2 programs with schools in our conference. You could set up a Engineering program with Dayton. I know they are one of the Catholic schools which has an engineering program.
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Post by sbu6507 on Jul 11, 2014 8:28:09 GMT -5
Majors to get rid of that at least to me have no value or future job employment - Sports Management (its fifteen minutes of fame left town about 8 years ago) Not sure where the repeated bashing of Sports Management on this board is coming from. I have a Masters in it (not from SBU) and am currently employed by one of the "Big 4" North American Sports Leagues, so it probably hasn't been a total waste of time. Many of my colleagues also have graduate or undergraduate degrees from a Sports Management related program (including several from Canisius) and virtually all of my classmates from my Masters program are working in the Sports industry across a wide range of disciplines. The two best Sports Management programs in the country are at Ohio University and UMASS. They are major programs for each University that have alumni in numerous senior management positions across the industry. SBU's program is actually called "Sports Studies" which probably has too broad of a focus. If I am a prospective student looking to get into the business side of the Sports industry then I am likely not going to be interested in a program that dedicates so much time to areas like Sports Medicine and Sociology. Bottom line is, despite what some on this board think, Sports Management continues to be an attractive field for prospective students and doing away with it all together would likely prove to be unwise. Instead the University would be wise to look for ways to improve the current program in order to offer at least two areas of focus (One for Business, One for Sports Medicine) so that students are not forced to spend half their time in courses that will have no impact on their career moving forward.
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Post by Pinnum on Jul 11, 2014 8:39:59 GMT -5
Majors to get rid of that at least to me have no value or future job employment - Sports Management (its fifteen minutes of fame left town about 8 years ago) Not sure where the repeated bashing of Sports Management on this board is coming from. I have a Masters in it (not from SBU) and am currently employed by one of the "Big 4" North American Sports Leagues, so it probably hasn't been a total waste of time. Many of my colleagues also have graduate or undergraduate degrees from a Sports Management related program (including several from Canisius) and virtually all of my classmates from my Masters program are working in the Sports industry across a wide range of disciplines. The two best Sports Management programs in the country are at Ohio University and UMASS. They are major programs for each University that have alumni in numerous senior management positions across the industry. SBU's program is actually called "Sports Studies" which probably has too broad of a focus. If I am a prospective student looking to get into the business side of the Sports industry then I am likely not going to be interested in a program that dedicates so much time to areas like Sports Medicine and Sociology. Bottom line is, despite what some on this board think, Sports Management continues to be an attractive field for prospective students and doing away with it all together would likely prove to be unwise. Instead the University would be wise to look for ways to improve the current program in order to offer at least two areas of focus (One for Business, One for Sports Medicine) so that students are not forced to spend half their time in courses that will have no impact on their career moving forward. Undergraduate programs should be more broad while graduate studies are intended to be focused. Your situation with a graduate degree does not apply. Sports is merely a subset for the entertainment industry and with my work in the sports industry I would much rather hire a grad with more diverse skills that hasn't pigeon holed themselves. You show me some who has studied marketing and understands marketing well and they can quickly pick up how to adapt their skills to market ticket sales or lead initiatives that provide a good ROI for sponsors and they will have a great chance of getting an offer. But that is just as I would expect them to be able to adapt their skills to other industries. Someone who knows marketing can develop strategies for marketing for any industry. However, you give me a sports management undergrad and I am likely to see what other resumes are in the pile since I want someone who has a broader knowledge base. I could go on with examples but in my experience with many sports organizations is that the undergraduate degree is not very well respected. The fact that there are undergrads with these degrees working in the industry is not a testament to the degree but rather the numbers game since most of these people are solely focused on the sports industry so they apply for a lot of the openings. Some of them are bound to get hired and some do well. But despite me not caring too much for those with the degrees, I still have hired Sports Management undergrads. The most recent hire was my office's secretary and he did a pretty good job too!
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Post by firstdev on Jul 11, 2014 8:44:03 GMT -5
Good thread Friar: Here are my suggestions for additional majors: - Catholic graduate law school - Engineering (in conjunction with Detroit Mercy, a similar 2 plus 2 program existed in the '60's and '70's). Setting up our own Engineering major would be prohibitively expensive. - Nursing - Physician's Assistant - Computer Science - Forensic Investigative Accounting - this major is in deep demand, especially considering the great scandals that have rocked the financial sector over the last 20 years - World Com, Enron, Adelphia, Lehman Bros, Goldman Sachs, Wa Mu, Bank of America, Countrywide Mortgage - need I go on? - Classical Languages - Latin and Greek - time to explore the very beginnings of our modern society, the cornerstone of civilization as Dr. Malcolm V.T. Wallace would say.
Forget fracking - most upstate rural localities and homeowners depend on well water for municipal supply systems, fracking would be a great danger to these supplies and would impose huge, ugly industrial footprints on the beautiful vistas in the Enchanted Mountains. Not to mention the toxic and radioactive wastes generated in this process, with no end point. No thanks.
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Post by dadster81 on Jul 11, 2014 8:58:18 GMT -5
Not sure where the repeated bashing of Sports Management on this board is coming from. I have a Masters in it (not from SBU) and am currently employed by one of the "Big 4" North American Sports Leagues, so it probably hasn't been a total waste of time. Many of my colleagues also have graduate or undergraduate degrees from a Sports Management related program (including several from Canisius) and virtually all of my classmates from my Masters program are working in the Sports industry across a wide range of disciplines. The two best Sports Management programs in the country are at Ohio University and UMASS. They are major programs for each University that have alumni in numerous senior management positions across the industry. SBU's program is actually called "Sports Studies" which probably has too broad of a focus. If I am a prospective student looking to get into the business side of the Sports industry then I am likely not going to be interested in a program that dedicates so much time to areas like Sports Medicine and Sociology. Bottom line is, despite what some on this board think, Sports Management continues to be an attractive field for prospective students and doing away with it all together would likely prove to be unwise. Instead the University would be wise to look for ways to improve the current program in order to offer at least two areas of focus (One for Business, One for Sports Medicine) so that students are not forced to spend half their time in courses that will have no impact on their career moving forward. You are right, my 15 minutes of fame may have been too harsh. I was basing my statement on the collapse of several sports leagues (NFL Europe, Arena Football, etc) that the # of jobs was decreasing as more schools added this program. Also the few folks I know with this major (none from SBU) could not break into the field, and work in other areas. So I was looking at the future job growth. Maybe it si better than I thought.
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