Feature Article
Concept of Educating Working Adults Turns
into the College for Professional Studies
A
s the 1960s were known
as a time for social experimentation in
America, the 1970s had Siena Heights
experiencing its own period of educational “counterculture.”
In 1970, then Siena Heights College
had named its first lay president, Dr.
Hugh Thompson, and was transitioning
from all-female student body to a coeducational one. If that evolution wasn’t
difficult enough, Thompson brought
more of a business and career-focused
educational approach to campus, ruffling
feathers of some liberal arts-focused
faculty and staff of the time.
Thompson’s vision included starting
associate’s degree programs that had a
fingerprint more like a two-year technical college, not a private, Catholic,
four-year institution. Yet some of these
programs not only survived, but grew
and evolved. Soon, the unique Bachelor
of Applied Science degree was born.
That degree became the “seed” that allowed Siena Heights to plant campuses
around Michigan. First, in Southfield,
then spreading to places like Benton
Harbor, Battle Creek and Monroe.
Even a separate college—the College
for Professional Studies—was eventually
created to manage the growth of these
off-campus programs. Currently, more
than 60 percent of SHU’s graduates
now come from a site other than the
Adrian campus.
Ironically, the program that some
people initially wanted to reject has
become one of Siena’s distinctive educational cornerstones because of its unique
way of bringing the Dominican, liberal
arts tradition to a once-overlooked
segment of students.
By Doug Goodnough
As SHU adult degree completion celebrates its 40th anniversary of opening
its first off-campus site in Southfield, Reflections is taking a look back at how it all
got started, and where it is at today.
“Most liberal arts schools don’t have
these associate’s degrees, but Thompson came out of a career (orientation),
instead of a more traditional liberal arts
orientation,” Bukwaz said. “Business
was going to be big.”
The Community College
of Lenawee County
The Beginnings of the BAS
When Hugh Thompson
(left) arrived as president of
Siena Heights, he noticed
there was not a two-year
degree option in the county.
He saw that as an opportunity to increase not only the educational
programs Siena Heights offered, but to
add needed students.
“One of the things that became real
clear when I got here, was (Thompson’s)
vision of Siena,” said Norm Bukwaz, who
arrived on the Adrian campus in 1974 to
teach sociology. “There was no community college in Lenawee County, so Siena
was still going to be Siena in the way it
has always been, but it was also going to
be Siena in another way: the community
college of Lenawee County.”
New associate degree programs were
created in concentrations such as fashion merchandising, hotel and restaurant
management, electronic engineering
technology and criminal justice.
With all these students graduating
with applied associate’s degrees, there
was a growing demand to offer a fouryear option. Bukwaz said the educational
leaders of the time, led by Director of
Community Education Dr. John Miller,
developed the Bachelor of Applied Science degree concept.
“They h