Utica/Rome getting younger

The SUNY Institute of Technology at Utica/Rome has always enjoyed a special reputation as a small campus where upper-division students feel at home while getting a top-quality technical education.

That “small campus” is about to grow, but those working on the change say it will retain its special touch.

The SUNY Board of Trustees voted earlier this year to expand Utica/Rome to four years. Freshmen will join 2,200 upper-division students for the first time in the college’s nearly 30-year history, starting fall 2003.

With the change, Utica/Rome seeks to recapture a market it once claimed almost exclusively: transfer students.

Changes in the SUNY budget mean that upper-division students bring in more funding; in turn, other SUNY campuses are aggressively seeking transfers, said Gary Scherzer, UUP chapter president at Utica/Rome and director of health services management and administration. “As a very small school, we found it difficult to compete,” Scherzer said.

Now, Utica/Rome is relying on the strength of its programs and its proximity to community colleges to draw freshmen.

“It is an exciting time because, having worked on four-year campuses in the past within the SUNY system, I’m very cognizant of the special needs of 17- and 18-year-olds, as opposed to a 19- or 20-year-old,” said Mary Brown-DePass, UUP chapter secretary at Utica/Rome and director of academic success and special programs. “We have to help these students manage their time effectively to get the grades we know they’re capable of achieving.”

To better prepare, Utica/Rome is housing on campus 50 freshmen from nearby Mohawk Valley Community College, Brown-DePass said.

The four-year plan is viewed favorably within UUP and Utica/Rome’s administration.

“This looks like an excellent opportunity to expand the services that SUNY provides to the citizens of New York state,” said Phillip Smith, UUP’s statewide vice president for academics.

Utica/Rome once had the third-largest number of SUNY transfer students — 600 to 700 a year, said Ronald Sarner, Utica/Rome’s executive vice president for academic affairs and a former UUP member.

The expansion, Sarner said, “will attract to the campus students who otherwise would not have looked at us because, in several of these programs, people are looking for four-year programs. That will raise the visibility of the institution, both regionally and statewide.”

The change at Utica/Rome comes at a time when most of SUNY’s University Colleges of Technology (UCTs) — traditionally two-year campuses for first- and second-year students — are adding four-year programs. UUP has been leading the fight to ensure the UCTs get the resources they need to make the change.

— Darryl McGrath