At Binghamton University, the air is fresh with excitement and promise. If you’ve taken a walk down the Spine this week, you’ve almost certainly encountered the scent of Welcome Back barbecue smoke, sounds of construction equipment and the nervous and eager faces of the class of 2020.
BU has gone to great lengths in advertising just how impressive this new class is. They boast the selectivity of the applicant pool, broadcasting the high SAT scores and GPAs of admitted students. The success of these students bodes well for the school’s Strategic Plan, which aims to make BU New York’s premier public university. Doing so means expanding the University’s campus facilities, its resources and student enrollment at a rapid rate.
As the University continues its path toward premier, the school will undoubtedly undergo change. BU has made it a goal to enroll 20,000 students by 2020, a plan commonly known as the “20 by 2020” plan. Overall, the changes taking place seem to offer positive benefits to the quality of research and academia at the University. They translate well into messages that show a commitment to prestige.
But as an Editorial Board, we hope that amidst these changes we do not lose what makes Binghamton such an incredible place. Despite being a large research university, Binghamton offers a fantastic undergraduate experience due to its professor-to-student ratio. If the school expands enrollment too quickly, it is possible that this focus may be lost as BU chases the prestige of becoming a graduate-focused research university.
What we do not want is a school that gets too big for its britches, so to speak. We saw the University Counseling Center’s forced transition from full-service to a referral system in reaction to an increasing student body coupled with limited access to funding. While this change was done out of necessity, we do not want to see instances of shortchanging also pop up in areas of academia that could limit the undergraduate education BU offers.
In order to ensure that changes like these do not become common occurrences, the growth of the University must be tempered with practical measures of oversight. This could include monitoring the professor-to-student ratio, making sure that the percent of classes taught by teaching assistants doesn’t rise too sharply and continuing to address the lack of counselors available for advising. Binghamton University has built its reputation on the strength of its undergraduate teaching, and it would be a shame to see this sacrificed for the sake of expansion.
We look to the future of our school with excitement, as the next four years promise to bring novel opportunity to both current and future students. However, this opportunity will only be provided if the growth is made in a responsible and sustainable manner.