Editor’s Note: Norm Bukwaz is the assistant to the Dean for the Graduate and Professional Programs and Director of the Bachelor of Applied Science Degree Program for more than 45 years. He was be honored with the Honorary Alumni Award during Homecoming Weekend 2019. Reflections Magazine sat down with him to discuss his distinguished career at Siena Heights.

How did you first come to Siena Heights?

I decided that I wanted to come back to Michigan. I was in Illinois, and had taken a one year appointment. Siena Heights had an opening and at the time I thought I was going to be forever-after a sociology professor. I came to Siena in the fall of 1974 and taught one year in the sociology department. And I also coordinated the internship programs for the whole division of the Social Sciences and the Humanities. That connected me to administrators that forever after changed the types of things I did for Siena.

How did you go from a sociology professor to what you are doing now?

It’s an interesting question. Nobody plans on administering off-campus programs. When I got involved with the internship program, I became fairly close (with the director of cooperative education). Well he was leaving … so I decided when I asked ‘Do you want to administer that for a year?’ and build that into the role… I was asked if I could possibly build that into the role because that involved a connection with a Detroit school called RETS electronic school. … Before long the university continued to do thinking about reaching out into the larger community. In 1975-76 I started working with taking courses to the Metro Detroit area. We originally offered courses at a number of corporate sites. That was a result of our being asked by students who were driving 70 or 80 miles to Adrian to take an evening course. (They asked) what if you were able to get a bunch of students, would you be willing to bring classes to us? That was sort of the beginning of that.

What change did former President Hugh Thompson bring to Siena Heights?

I didn’t report directly to Dr. Thompson, but I worked reasonably closely with him from time to time on projects. He came at a time when the school was struggling financially. There were questions about where it ought to go. The prior president, Sister Petronilla, had really already opened up some thinking about coeducation, reaching into the community. But Dr. Thompson came and he had a vision that Siena Heights needed to move from where it was as a historically women’s private college to a college that met the needs of today and Lenawee County. … Things I would attribute to Dr. Thompson, most of which are still relevant, (are) the off-campus programs developed during that time. The Bachelor of Applied Science (degree), which has become one of the dominant programs of the institution, was developed at that time. The coeducational dimension of the institution greatly increased, reaching out to the community with the commuter programs. Dr. Thompson quickly got the idea (because) there was talk that maybe Lenawee County needed a community college. … To ward that off, he felt that we probably needed to serve the community and offer some of the kinds of programs that community colleges would be offering. He actually came up with 12 to 14 associate degree programs. Some are still around as bachelor’s programs. … He changed a lot of things and he changed them quickly. He had a very strong emphasis on career education. He envisioned Siena having a great business program. In his vision of growing the school and the enrollment, he wanted males to be a part of the picture. … In the summer of 1974, they were just starting the program in criminal justice. … That fall we had 35 local and regional police officers taking classes at Siena Heights. There was a lot of career-oriented, practical things that Dr. Thompson was thinking about. … And certainly the addition of intercollegiate athletics was something that was going to bring males to the institution. … He was sort of a no-nonsense (leader). He had been a coach. He had a business-type approach. He looked closely at all the data. … If you look in retrospect, he had a very significant impact. Yes, he rubbed some people the wrong way. He might have been a little more sensitive in some areas. He had some very good aspects and some things we didn’t appreciate so much.

What exactly is the Bachelor of Science Degree? How can you explain it?

The problem with the short answer is that it takes more than a short answer. The best way to look at the Bachelor of Applied Science, is to think of the two kinds of students at community colleges that want to go on for a bachelor’s degree. That’s what all schools know, is the two plus two. You go two years to the community college, and then you go on to some university to do the third and fourth years, where you get the major. The whole other world of the community college are the occupational, or AAS degree programs that prepare people for a career. … You’ve got all of these people completing technical degrees entering the workforce being pretty talented people as time goes on. But the programs that they took are called the non-transfer programs. We learned quickly through a variety of connections that we had, we learned that they had very important transfer needs. And the emergence in the mid-70s of the Bachelor of Science Degree probably best could be seen as a program that was going to meet the needs of practicing professionals in a variety of technical, allied health, public safety and specialized occupational areas. Those people didn’t have the greatest transfer options, because the mentality of four-year institutions is if you’re going to transfer, plan for it. Do two years at the community college, fine, and then you come to us, take the courses prescribed, and then you get your four-year degree. Well, AAS graduates through our BAS program were able to meet the transfer needs that they had, which ordinarily emerged after they completed their applied technical program, became practicing professionals, were highly successful and began to see opportunities for promotion. But they were hearing, ‘You need a bachelor’s degree.’ So we developed a program that met those needs and done very, very well with it and we’ve been very proud of it historically.

How did the community college partnerships develop?

Because we were taking classes to Metro Detroit, we ended up with the conclusion, once we had a grant, that we would open a permanent center there. So we began to develop relationships with community colleges once we opened a permanent center in Metro Detroit. At the same time, in the 1976-77 period, Dr. Thompson had a relationship with Dr. Molter, who was the chancellor of the Ohio Board of Regents. Hugh thought we could bring a program here and partner with Lourdes Junior College. … Because there was sort of a void in upper level Catholic higher education in northwest Ohio, we were able to develop that partnership. That went reasonably well and lasted from 1977 to 1985. … The community college partnership concept really came about, I can remember exactly, in 1982. Jim Ebben, who was the dean of the college at the time, and he got the letter and it was a request from Lake Michigan College inviting schools who had some experience serving working adults if they would be interested in considering bringing a program designed for working adults to the campus to be offered in its entirety on the Lake Michigan College campus. … We were one of six schools who responded and said we were interested. … Quite frankly, we were the only ones they considered. … I hired Deb Carter to be the first director. We hired her on a half-time basis. Deb succeeded me as the dean of the College for Professional Studies and she had a wonderful career there. I think the important thing with the Lake Michigan program, is that it worked so well, that we sort of took that as a prototype program. It wasn’t too long that we had options and replicated that at Monroe County Community College, then at Kellogg Community College in Battle Creek, and then at Lansing Community, then at Jackson Community College and so on. … The concept of bachelor’s degree completion is really what was much more applicable than the traditional two plus two approach.

Talk about the start of online education at Siena Heights.

As time went on, and as we moved into the late 1990s, our chief administrative officer in the metro Detroit program, Steve Goddard, was for sure the driving force. He said, ‘We need to get to online education.’ Metro Detroit was always sort of the innovative center. We took courses to Maryland, to California. We worked off of Metro Detroit. That’s where we did the innovative, shorter term courses. The eight-week format and other kinds of things. So we were used to sort of working from the Metro Detroit base to try some other kinds of things. Steve pushed me, and we talked with Dr. (Rick) Artman, who was president at the time. … We talked long and hard about it, and how’s this online going to work? … We had connected with eCollege. … Sister Pat McDonald said we might want to look at them as a platform for our online learning. We made that connection. The early online (program), we wanted to be somewhat cautious. So we did blended online (classes).
Our experience was, students quickly told us, ‘We’re busy. We’re flying all over in our jobs. Totally online makes sense to us.’ We got North Central Higher Learning Commission approval to deliver our programs totally online. … Jim O’Flynn really became our lead faculty for distance learning programs, and he was tremendous. He was innovative and he helped train a whole generation of faculty that followed him. … And Lori Timmis did some tremendous work administering the programs in its early days until she became an associate dean.

What impact has the College for Professional Studies had on Siena Heights?

We’re out in the hinterlands or cyberspace. The vast majority of the people employed by Siena are involved with operations here in Adrian. So it’s always been a challenge. We want them to know what we’re doing. Deb (Carter) was real good as we were continuing to grow and emerge in keeping CPS in front of the community. Yet it’s one thing to be in front of the community, but it’s another thing to know all the details and nuances, which is probably not realistic. We often sort of lament and wish that people had a greater understanding of what we do. But I think people know and see the results. In terms of CPS’ impact, we have been a solid financial contributor. Serving adult students, whether it be at the centers or online, you don’t have the all of the kinds of expenses, the trappings, of a main campus. We need the main campus and the faculty and the team to support us, but historically, for every dollar that we spend in CPS, we bring back two. … We’ve been extremely critically important, I believe, in the financial viability (of Siena Heights). Siena Heights has graduated 26,000 students with a bachelor’s degree. Thirteen thousand of those have received a degree through the College of Professional Studies. And we started a little later in the game. So one out of every two Siena Heights graduates with a bachelor’s degree has graduated from an off-campus program.

What has Siena Heights meant to you?

It will be 45 years that I’ve been here at the end of this summer. I thought I was going to teach sociology. I never in the world would have dreamed that I was going to be driving all over Michigan setting up off-campus programs and things of that nature. It’s given me and given many people here the opportunity to try some things. And if the things sort of fit and were good for you, then you could build a career from that. … To me, I should be pretty darned appreciative. … I owe the university a great deal. … I’ve been the administrator of the (BAS) program all those years. How did a sociology professor end up administering a program for technical, health care and public safety professionals? In a way I was a missionary. I had to do a lot of selling. I had to work with administrators on community college campuses and organizations, telling them ‘We’ve got a great program.’ You go out and tell the story.