Emerson College in Boston and financially-struggling Marlboro College in Vermont plan to become one, the schools announced Wednesday morning.
Under the latest consolidation of small colleges in New England, Marlboro's 200 undergraduates can move from the hills of southwestern Vermont to the edge of Boston Common. Emerson is in line to absorb the Vermont college's $30 million endowment and real estate, worth around $10 million.
Those assets are to support an existing academic program at Emerson, where Marlboro's 27 tenured or tenure-track professors will be offered teaching positions. That program is to be renamed the Marlboro Institute for Liberal Arts and Interdisciplinary Studies.
Emerson President Lee Pelton told WGBH News that the deal gives his college some budgetary relief. "We'll be able to use other dollars to support ongoing excellence at Emerson," said Pelton, pointing out that the higher education industry is going through “a market correction.”
Looking forward, Pelton predicted more opportunities will emerge for Emerson to partner with other colleges.
Marlboro President Kevin Quigley said, like many small liberal arts colleges in rural settings, Marlboro has faced acute financial problems that are projected to intensify in the coming years as the number of high school graduates in the Northeast declines.
The college, established in 1946 in the town of Marlboro, Vt., has been offering steep tuition discounts to get students in the door since few middle-class families can afford or are willing to pay its $40,000 sticker price.
Over a year ago, Marlboro began searching for a strategic partner to preserve the college’s identity. The arrangement bears some resemblance to the merger last year of Wheelock College and Boston University, which houses the renamed Wheelock College of Education and Human Development. BU did not hire most of Wheelock's professors, however.
Quigley said students chose Marlboro for the opportunity to direct their own curriculum and work closely with professors. He expects many will make the move to Boston.
"Emerson recognizes for this really to work for Marlboro that the faculty are key, and they very generously have offered, unlike any other potential partner, to accept all of our tenure and tenure-track faculty," Quigley said. “As we look at Emerson, we see a larger, more urban version of Marlboro.”
The two colleges said they hope to officially complete the deal by July 1. Marlboro's campus would close in the spring.
