University of Bridgeport merges with Vermont’s Marlboro College

The University of Bridgeport has announced that it is merging with Marlboro College, a private liberal arts institution based in southern Vermont.

The merger is expected to be completed by the spring of 2020. Marlboro will become known as the Marlboro College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Bridgeport, while the Connecticut school”™s College of Arts and Sciences will be renamed The Marlboro College of Arts and Sciences.

Marlboro College was founded in 1946 and its combined enrollment for undergraduate and graduate programs is fewer than 500 students. Unlike traditional colleges, its students pursue a customized plan of concentration based on their academic interests, which culminates in a major body of scholarship. The University of Bridgeport was founded in 1927 and has 5,400 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students.

“At a time of hypercompetition and swift change in higher education, our two unique institutions are demonstrating a new paradigm for colleges and universities of the future,” UB President Laura Skandera Trombley said in a statement. “In strategically combining the shared values, strengths and resources of the University of Bridgeport and Marlboro College, we are proactively ensuring an extraordinarily enriched academic experience for current and future generations of students.”

“This partnership of two mission-driven schools embodies a remarkable complementarity, joining UB”™s strengths in engineering and the health sciences with Marlboro”™s strengths in the arts and sciences and self-directed learning,” Marlboro College President Kevin Quigley said in a statement. “It links our beautiful campuses in the Green Mountains and on Long Island Sound in innovative ways that will expand educational opportunities for all of our students, better preparing them for meaningful work and lives of purpose.”