Manhattan University and St. Francis College agreeing to the articulation.
By Mack Olmsted, Features Editor
By Fall 2027, Manhattan University could be welcoming a new cohort of chemical engineering students from Catholic institution St. Francis College.
Due to St. Francis College not offering engineering programs, the college’s provost and interim vice president of academic affairs, John Edwards, Ph.D, has led the charge on the articulation agreement from start to finish.
“Access to education and to a larger extent, a professional degree in fields that are in high demand cannot be limited to the four walls or even the sprawling acres of a campus,” Edwards stated in an email to The Quadrangle. “Higher Ed must go beyond its traditional models to provide access to the vast pool of talent available as we compete with the rest of the world by affording opportunities to those who deserve it but until now have been limited by geographic and demographic barriers. St. Francis College is grateful and our students are fortunate to have a partner in Manhattan University to help them make their dreams come true in an authentic college environment. We hope this is the first of other opportunities for our institutions.”
Students who plan on using the articulation program will complete all the general education requirements of math, chemistry, physics, statistics, and religion classes during their two years at St. Francis. After that, students will submit their application in their second year to transfer to Manhattan University, and take one course to help bridge their transition in a summer semester.
Manhattan University is also working to set up articulation programs with different community colleges. As of now, the university has articulation agreements set up with Rockland County Community College and Orange County Community College, and is currently in the process of setting up another with Westchester Community College.
The interim dean of the School of Engineering at MU, Anirban De spoke to The Quadrangle about how he believes the articulation agreement can be beneficial for both institutions.
“We obviously are a well rounded liberal arts university,” De said. “We have a strong school of engineering with strong engineering programs. So we are always looking for qualified students to join our programs. By making this articulation pathway work, they are able to accept those students and tell them we have a four year partnership. They have extremely strong enrollment outreach to different parts of the country, international and so forth, from where they think they would be able to bring up a number of students that would be interested, and therefore it works out very well for us.”
The university’s chair of chemical engineering, Sasidhar Varanasi has high hopes for a successful outcome of the articulation, and is excited about the opportunities that it can bring to Manhattan University.
“This is a very good arrangement, in my opinion, because we can really strike a similar articulation with other universities like Fordham and Pace, where they have a bachelor’s in chemistry, if they are willing to enter into an agreement like this,” Varanasi said. “We can also rearrange their curriculum for the first two years, so that their own chemistry students can also transfer for junior and senior years at Manhattan University. This can also benefit students in financial aspects, there’s a lot that can come out of this [articulation].”