DOCUAENT RESU ED 129 152 HE 008 239 AUTHOR Bugliarello, George; Urrows, Henry TITLE Planning and Evaluating an Academic M rger and Making It Fork. 'Final Report to the Carnegie Corporation of New York. INSTITUTION New York Polyt chnio Inst., N.Y. PUB DATE 15 Apr 76 NOTE 205p. AVAILABLE FROM Polytechnic Institute of New York, 333 Jay Street, Brooklyn, New York 1120-1- EDRS PRICE MF-$0.83 HC-$11.37 Plus Postage, DESCRIPTORS *Administrative Organization; Educational Administration; *Engineering Education; Foundation Programs; Grants; *Higher Education; *Mergers; *Organizational, Change; Professional EduCation; *School Organization IDENTIFLEPS *Polytechnic Institut--f New York ABSTRAC In 1973, the Polytechnic institute of Brooklyn and .he Oew York University School of Engineering and Science merged to form the .Polytechnic Institute of New York, acquiring the largest gtaduate engineering enrollment in the U.S. Activitils carried.out under a Carnegie Corporation of New York grant are suzmarizedin this report. It is shown that the.merger represented a waique event in American higher education, but that the lessons to be learned--both Itom the lengthy and traumatic period before the merger and its aftermathcould be of assistance to trustees, students, faculty, and administrators of other institutions contemplating merger. It may also be of some interest to government agencies and legislatorswho oversee higher education institutions, tofoundations, and to others concerned with educational leadership who have not had direct experience with merger. Appended are texts of agreements, excerpts from interviews, the report schedule required by the State Department of Education, and a bibliography. (LBH)_ Documents acquired by ERIC include many informal unpublished materials not available from other sources. ERIC makes every Ofort to obtain the best copy available. Nevertheless, items ofmarginal reproducibility.are often encountered and this affects the quality of the microfiche and harddopy reproductions ERIC makesavailable via the,ERIc Document Reproduction Service (!DRS), EDRS is not responSible for the quality of the original document...Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that- can be made from the original. *********** ******************************************************* HHHIOMflLi C ID) NAK Final Report to the Carnegie Corporation of New York by George Bugliarello and Henry throws Project Coordinator: Harold Margolin DEPARTMENT CJV klIALTM' EDUCATIOAWEI.,reigNE NAYIQH4L NTITNT OF ECIUCATiON ,cFc`c o_ 01)(ifltttt c- TAY Ai Pt- RO , AZQ CW .TE r? N fFAILV REWwt- kif c A NA )NAL W;TI nt f,r1.'C A TIC)P, r:IN fltt PO PLANNING AND EVALUATING ANACADEMIC MERGER, AND MAKING IT WORK Final Report to the CarnegieCorporati n of New York by George Bugliare.Ua and HenryUrrows Preject _dinator: Harold Margolin Polytechnic Instiite of New York Apra 1, 1976 CONTENT ord 1V Ackno ledgment vii BEFORE The Parties to Merger The Struggle, to Save SES Earlier FIB St uggle s The Negotiations 45 AFT_ T,MATE OF MERGER Proble_ s 57 Opportunities 67 ON MERGERS College N rgers 95 Needed: a predictive index 2 Appendix. A.Texts of agreements B.Excerpts from interviews t C.Report Schedule required by State Department of Education 190 D.Bibliography 193 Glossary of A c r onyrr AAUP American Association of University Profesors - ACEE Advisory Com e on Engineering Education CUNY City University of New York FTE full-tie equivalent NSF National Science Foundation NYU New York U-"iversity PIE = Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn SED State Education Depar'inent SERI Solar Energy Research Institute SES School of Engineering and Science SUNY = State University of New York Polytechnic Institute of New York, 333 J reet, Broo ;lyn, New York 11201 212/643-2500 George BugHarello, PresideM Polytechnic G 3D LLlTiNG AN ACADE4IC MERGER AND XAKIUG IT WORK Final neieCorporation of New York E R R A 11p 1. Page8,Footnote line __, should begin: The Sprit-10- ol 2. Page 25, Paragraph 2, lines 3 and 4: inis atio s intention to find more space ough Page 95, Paragr line 6: on state tax income. The Association o American 'C011eges6 has issued.. 4. Page 106, Paragraph , line 2: perturbation than among those whose .. 9, Page 109, Faragraph 4, line 4: entities. There should be a periodic moni7 . Page 110, first line: After the merger Polytechnic mounted a major effort to inform the community Page 110, Paragraph 5, iine 3: re indebted paragraphsin eighth to k 8. Page 114, penultimate average GRE score Page 183, first line: Lessons learned in aftermath of merger New York Cily: 33:: Jay Street, Brooklyn, New York 11201 Long Paland: Route10, Farmingdale, New York 11735, FOREW.ORD In 1973 the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn andthe New York University School of Engineering and Science merged toform the Poly- technic Institute cf New York.The resulting new institution acquired the largest graduate engineering enrollment in the UnitedStates, the largest engineering enrollment in New York State, and-thelargest total engineer- , ing enrollment of anymember of the Association of Independent Engineer- int:, colleges.* In the P'all of 1973 the -arnegie Corpora ion of NewYork made a grant of S350, 000 to the new Polytechnic Institute ofNew York fOr the eval- uation of the new institutioi that arose out of the mergerand for the plan- ning of its future. This report summarizes the activities carried out underthe grant. It follows a series of progress reports that should beconsidered an inte- gral part of our account.In writing this final report it became clear that the merger that led ;to formation ofthe new Polytechnic represented a unique event in American highereducation, but that the lessons to be learned- both fromthe lengthy and traumatic period before the merger, and its aftermath -- cou:d be of assistance to trustees,students, faculty, and administrators of other institutionscontemplating merger.It may also be of some intexest to government agencies andlegislators who over- see higher educationel institutions,to foundations, and to others concerned with educational leadership and who have not haddirect experience with the complex and difficult factors that attend a merger. Unlike mergers in the business world, academic mergershave attracted little attention.The lack of information is aggravated by the myth that academic mergers are easy to carry out.Thus we hope that a detailed history of one merger with enough facts aboutits aftermath to spell out what lessons were learned should be of some valueto others. *The members of the Association are: CaliforniaInstitute of Technology, Carnegie-Mellon University, Case-Western Reserve University,Clark- son College of Technology,Cooper Union, Drexel University, Harvey Mudd College, Illinois Institute of Technology,Lehigh University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, PolytechnicInstitute of New York, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Rice University,Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology, Stevens Institute of Technologyand Worcester Polytechnic Institute. 7 -iv- Without doubt, asrouh[in higher educatidn reaches'epidemio proportions ,the thought of merger will recur with increasing frequency. In New York State-alone,13E) of 259 colleges were said 411 late February 1974: to be'ape ra tirw deenlv in the red. " Across the nation aSeptember 1975 stu-nmarv listed 56 private colleges that hadclosed since 1972 while only twelve mergers took place in the same period. Even though the March 1973 merger agreement that resulted in the new Polytechnic Institute of New York appears_to us tohave been con- ceived with stipulations so unrealistic they were equivalent tomadness, in its potential importance to the metropolitan New.-york community it was also a considerable opportunity.There was madness in imagining that a new Polytechnic couldsubstantially expand the obligations inherited from precursors and yet become able to balanceits- budget in only two years. It was an opportunity because in the metropolaanNew York area excel- lence in engineering education and finding solutions tothe enormous tech- nological problems affecting the region are sorely necessary. This report is not a study of academic mergers on thescale of the study the Academy for Educational Development ismaking for the Car- negie Corporation.Rather, it is centrally concerned with the aftermath of one merger, the one at Polytechnic.Ln assessing it, we have found it es- sentill to clarify in considerable detail its antecedL., In the process, we have sought to isolatequestions affecting institutions created by mer- ger.An-iong these questions are: What were the good and bad features of merger thatshaped the outcome? These have centrally affected currentplarming for Polytechnic. For years to come, we will live with the resultsof decisions taken during the process of merger. Put another way, if we had it to do over again,what should and could we have done differently? What are thedifficulties in making a mergt_r work? What concepts emerge out of our experience? What constraints exist that prevent or impede doing what is best forthe institution's stu- dents and faculty, and its potential for publicservice?In having gone through the fire, what have we learned that can conceivably benefitothers? Neither of the co-authors took part in the merger negotiations nor the events that led up to them.In respect to these eventsthis is an 8 e'xer ise in hindsight.Where our sources or we assert that decisions other than those that were made would have been better, wedo not know if under actual conditions of nez;otiation these opdons werein fact avail- able. Financial stringency will cOntinue to hamper highereducation as far as we can foresee Institutions must now anticipateanothet-over-all do4nturn in enrollments, hard, competition fOrresearch support from tra- dit;.onal source*, and soaring costs for sophisticatedequipment and ade- quate work space.These adversities promise to intensify as societyt.s need and demand for hett r answers to its techno ogicaldifficulties p-ow more insistent. Merger is one extreme answer. How institutions merge can make a lot of difference in_hoW:well theysucceed in performing essential ser- vices under always less than ideal conditions.