Twenty years ago [January 1982] the “merger” between the University of Massachusetts at Boston and Boston State College was consummated. With hindsight, we can now ask whether the consolidation of the two institutions was a good thing. The question is especially relevant because fiscal conditions that induced state officials to seek contractions two decades ago are squeezing public education again.
Reorganization began in 1980, when voter resentment of taxes in the midst of a slowed economy culminated in passage of Proposition 21/2, which brought enormous pressure on the legislature to shift revenues to the towns to make up for the shortfall in real estate taxes. Cutbacks in federal funding tightened the state’s finances further. Moreover, independent pressure came from industry, particularly the technology sector, to reduce the cost of state government. The presence of two four-year publicly supported colleges in Boston seemed unnecessary.
The legislature used the outside section of the budget for FY81 to concentrate control of public higher education into a single powerful agency, the Board of Regents. Opponents would have had to reject the entire budget, which would have created a new crisis. The outside section route assured passage of the controversial restructuring.
The FY82 budget reduced the Boston higher education cluster by several million dollars. On August 21, 1981, the Regents voted to achieve consolidation in ten days: approximately 100 BSC faculty who lacked terminal degrees would be fired and the remaining 150 faculty who had doctorates or the equivalent would be transferred to UMass Boston. The consolidation would involve the termination of Boston State College, then in its 130th year, and the expansion of UMass Boston, then only 15 years old.
The union representing the state colleges obtained a restraining order that blocked the faculty dismissals. This delayed the demise of BSC by one semester. A supplemental appropriation facilitated an agreement whereby BSC would cease to exist on January 24, 1982. BSC professional programs (Teacher Education, Special Education, Counseling, School Psychology, Instructional Media, Physical Education, Nursing) would be transferred intact to UMass Boston and approximately 77 faculty in the liberal arts would also move here. The remaining BSC faculty were not to be fired but were to be deployed elsewhere within the state college or community college system. All students at BSC were permitted to transfer to UMass Boston.
The merger brought much pain and sadness. Hundreds of students did not transfer to the University. No one knows how many dropped out permanently. Faculty and administrators who were dispersed throughout state systems were treated like refugees. Some obtained teaching positions; others had to settle for non-teaching posts. Few were welcomed immediately as new resources. Those who came to UMass Boston knew that they too were generally unwanted. The urban campus had long been the stepchild of the University system and believed that the influx of personnel, students, and programs from BSC could only lower its standing relative to the flagship campus at Amherst.
As so often happens in history and public policy, the unexpected occurred. The result was expansion, not contraction. Most BSC undergraduates transferred, accounting for much of a 38% jump in UMass Boston enrollments. An attraction was the broadened undergraduate curriculum that the merger brought. This had been anticipated. Three developments, however, were not planned.
First, UMass Boston became a significant player in graduate education. In 1981, it had less than 100 graduate students. The merger tripled that number because the transferred master’s degree programs gave the institution a new visibility in graduate education.
Second, fear that the merger would diminish the scholarly reputation of the campus sparked a new institutional commitment to research and public policy analysis. Administrators channeled the internal funds to support faculty scholarship.
Third, the reorganization battle prodded the campus to redefine its role as an urban university. Doctoral programs, centers and institutes were established in the 1980s to focus on the harbor and coastal waters, the elderly, ethnic populations, and emerging public policy issues vital to the city and the Commonwealth.
The merger, then, brought new resources and energy to the campus. In 1986 Time Magazine featured UMass Boston as one of nine institutions across the country that it deemed a “best buy” for students. Despite the sorrow it caused, the reorganization produced some of the most dynamic years in the history of UMass Boston. The state benefited substantially because the merger crisis both stimulated and enabled the campus to respond comprehensively to public needs for graduate education, applied research, and policy analysis. In short, a lamentable process, spurred by a fiscal crisis, resulted in a positive public policy achievement.
(Fuad Safwat, Emeritus Professor of Biology, supervised the integration of the Boston State Campus into the university during the spring of 1982. Martin Quitt, Professor of History, came to UMass Boston as a result of the merger.)