bodner089

Offering almost any generalization about branch campuses is difficult, because there is precious little research to support one's conclusions. Part of the problem is that we have no national-level data base on branches. In fact, the interested individual will find very little in the way of descriptive information that can be used to compare one institution's branches to another. The situation probably is less difficult within a given state, since policy makers will almost certainly have restricted the options pursued by various colleges or universities, but even within a state there are significant variations in, say, expectations of faculty or budget oversight. The core problem is that branches developed "under the radar," and to meet some more or less local need. An urban institution may have opened a suburban branch, to make attendance more convenient; a rural institution may have opened an inner-city branch to offer graduate programs to adult learners; a universit...

So, what are the defining characteristics of a branch campus? That's not an easy question to answer, because there is no agreed upon definition. I suppose there is an implication that there must be some "main" campus, hub, or mother ship, in order for a branch to exist. Clearly, there is an implication that the branch is somehow in a dependent relationship to the central campus, at least around curriculum matters. Conversely, institutions in a true system, such as those in North Carolina or California are not "branches," because they do have separate curricula and some independent governance processes, although such institutions can and do develop branches of their own. Jim Fonseca, who is dean of Ohio University's Zanesville Campus, uncovered two formal definitions of branch campuses. According to the Commission on Institutions of Higher Education (CIHE), a branch campus is geographically removed from the main campus, offers 50% or more of an academic progr...

This new blog is intended to provide an opportunity for the thousands of administrators working at branch campuses of colleges and universities to share their thoughts, questions and new ideas. There are more than 2000 branch campuses in the United States and around the world, yet very little literature addressing our issues. It is time that we have a forum to support our work. I came to this idea as a result of my participation over the years with two groups of administrators, dedicated to supporting the development of branch campuses. The first is the National Association of Branch Campus Administrators (NABCA). NABCA is about ten years old, and I invite you to visit our website at http://www.nabca.net/ . NABCA hosts an annual conference, in April, with attendance on the order of 125 individuals. The other group, now more than 35 years old, hosts a conference called the Regional and Branch Campus Administrators Conference (RBCA). It occurs in June, with a focus on leadership issues a...