By Elizabeth Redden
In pitching a new B.A. in architecture program to a state oversight body for approval, Kean University made an unusual promise — that it would limit the number of in-state students to 25 each year. The rest are to be recruited nationally and internationally — the program has links to China — so as to minimize competition with other New Jersey institutions.
The fact that Kean, a public university in New Jersey, is starting a new academic program with a cap on in-state residents was first reported Sunday by the Bergen County Record.
“We are a state university for the state of New Jersey,” said James A. Castiglione, an associate professor of physics and president of the Kean Federation of Teachers. “Our mandate, our mission is to provide an affordable education for the children of the citizens of New Jersey. That’s what we’re here to do, and to take the state subsidy and the state appropriations meant for that purpose and redirect it elsewhere is utterly at odds with our mission.”
The New Jersey Institute of Technology had initially opposed the introduction of an architecture program at Kean on the grounds that it would be duplicative of its own. NJIT, whose main campus is located less than 10 miles away from Kean’s, has since dropped its opposition and the Kean program gained approval from the Presidents’ Council, which is made up of New Jersey college presidents.
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