Don't miss out on joining nearly 1,500 of your colleagues and peers at higher education's premier planning event of 2010, SCUP–45. The Society for College and University Planning's 45th annual, international conference and idea marketplace is July 10–14 in Minneapolis!

Here's your SCUP Link to "University Centers"

"If you think the politics of a single university are interesting, try getting 14 together and see what happens!"

There appear to be many routes to the creation of a "university center." University centers are an attempt by community colleges to bring 4-year offerings locally, to its students. Once a student completes the associate's degree, they may lack a life situation that permits them to move and attend a 4-year institution. So, partnerships develop where universities, sometimes many universities, use community college space (or space, even a campus, built and designed for the purpose of partnership) to bring class offerings to local students. Veteran SCUP leader Arnie Gelfman's home institution, Brookdale Community College, has been a driving force behind such a partnership in New Jersey for quite some time.

According to the Association for Consortium Leadership (ACL) survey, there are at least 64 such partnerships, formally labeled "higher education center" in the US. The kinds of arrangements made, and how and by whom decisions are made, can be interesting.