The University of Connecticut is on the cusp of a “major” expansion of its Stamford campus, in the words of a senior administrator, with Gov. Dannel P. Malloy thought to be pushing new UConn President Susan Herbst to make his hometown the focus after years of expansion in Storrs.
Jud Saviskas disclosed the plans at a Stamford meeting of the Fairfield County Public Relations Association, without providing additional details. Saviskas is director of graduate and undergraduate programs for the school of business at UConn Stamford.
If Malloy is planning a major expansion, the question becomes whether he will move promptly ”“ he has already made education the focus of the legislative session starting this week.
Kip Bergstrom, one of Malloy”™s lead economic development officials who was also in attendance, did nothing to dispel the idea of major things afoot for UConn Stamford. Bergstrom provided nothing more concrete, however, than a vision of seniors at UConn spending their senior years in Stamford, using it as a springboard to internships at companies in Fairfield County or New York City.
“It”™s not a branch ”“ it”™s a perch,” Bergstrom said. “It”™s a perch on ”¦ New York City.”
Whereas New York has sought to promote economic development by leveraging off of strengths at its individual SUNY campuses ”“ for instance, information technology at Stony Brook or chip fabrication at Albany ”“ Connecticut has made comparatively limited use of its branch campuses.
Some think it will take nothing less than the creation of a dormitory campus to take full advantage of UConn Stamford”™s proximity to the Manhattan, perhaps drawing students across the border with no interest in attending school in backcountry Storrs but willing to consider one closer to the Big Apple ”“ particularly those interested in business, digital media and a few other fields of study. Adjacent to the school, Stamford-based RMS Construction is building a major new residential complex; UConn owns land across the street from its main building as well that could accommodate additional housing or academic buildings.
“We need for UConn to take its Stamford branch and turn it into a real university,” said Jim Fagan, managing director of the Stamford office of Cushman & Wakefield, speaking at a Stamford meeting of BOMA International late last month. “I think that would do more for this market than anything.”
Many feel that under longtime UConn President Philip Austin, Storrs administrators felt threatened by the potential of the Stamford campus to become a magnet and so siphon off money and even minds from the flagship campus that was undergoing a construction boom.
One individual who asked not to be identified by name recalled a meeting with Austin”™s replacement Michael Hogan not long after his arrival, with Hogan lasting just a few years on the job before abandoning it to become president at the University of Illinois Champagne.
“He said, ”˜You have pretty much maxed out Storrs,”™” the individual recalled. “The way to grow the school is to grow the branch campuses, and Stamford is a prime example.”
For her part, Herbst to date has done little more publicly than pledge to increase connections between UConn and Fairfield County businesses, an effort being led by Saviskas. It is a topic he knows about, having previously led a human-resources consultancy and later working for Fairfield University.
While area business leaders see Fairfield University as a relatively strong local school ”“ albeit hardly the Ivy-league institution enjoyed by other mid-size Northeast cities such as New Haven and Providence, R.I. ”“ they do not see Fairfield University fostering particularly strong ties to Stamford and by extension New York City, despite its Dolan School of Business having offered classes in Stamford.
Cornell University is a most significant recent example of a Northeast school committing to building a major new campus, as it pushes ahead with a planned high-tech school for Roosevelt Island in New York City in partnership with the Israel Institute of Technology, known as Technion.
On a smaller scale in New Haven County, Quinnipiac University is planning a new medical school with a 2013 opening date.
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