Towson University to offer four-year degree programs at Harford

Daily Record, The (Baltimore), Oct 19, 2006 by Dori Berman

Towson University will begin offering four-year degree programs at Harford Community College next year, providing Harford officials with a tool to help attract workers associated with the forthcoming military base realignment process.

An agreement signed Monday provides for two partnerships between the institutions. The first, "two plus two" programs, which began this year, allow students to transfer from Harford to Towson, carrying over their major-related course credits. The second partnership creates four-year programs that will allow students to complete Harford's two-year program, then obtain a four-year degree from Towson without ever leaving the community college campus.

Towson will begin offering the first bachelor's degree program, a dual certification in elementary education and special education, in the fall of 2007. More four-year programs will be added later.

"I think we've begun to realize we are becoming a metropolitan university," said William Rueling, assistant to the provost at Towson University. "Towson has obviously got limited space. Imagine if you can actually take full-blown Towson programs and put them at a satellite campus and get the money, and then pay Harford Community College to rent the space. It's a win-win."

The region around the Interstate 95 corridor north of Baltimore is already experiencing growth, and will likely see more when the 2005 military base realignment decisions - known as BRAC - come to fruition in 2010, bringing thousands of new jobs to Aberdeen Proving Ground.

Towson officials view the region's growth as an opportunity to grow the university as well, Rueling said.

"It's not just the influx of, say, 6,000 of these people coming in who are high-level technicians and professionals. They're also bringing families. The infrastructure just for Harford County is going to be changed in terms of roads and schools and housing and for education at all levels," Rueling said.

Harford County is getting more out of the deal than just rent money from Towson.

Having a four-year institution in the county will be a major draw for some of the workers in jobs that will move to Maryland from other bases, said Aberdeen Proving Ground BRAC Manager Karen Emery.

"From the relocation fairs and our opportunities to talk with those that could potentially be relocated to this area, education is a critical part of their consideration," Emery said.

Emery and other officials attended a relocation fair in June at New Jersey's Fort Monmouth, the starting point for many of the jobs relocating to Maryland. Potential new residents were interested in what educational opportunities existed locally, both for their own advancement and for their children, Emery said.

"With this partnership they're able to fine-tune educational needs based on what the employer needs are in this immediate area," she said.