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Friday, April 25, 2008

Merger Could Keep College of Santa Fe Afloat


Associated Press
      SANTA FE — The College of Santa Fe is discussing a possible partnership with a Georgia-based art school to help the financially strapped Santa Fe school.
    College of Santa Fe president Stuart Kirk said college officials have been talking with the Savannah College of Art and Design for more than six months, but any partnership plans are preliminary.
    "The fact is that small, private schools whose student bodies are less than 700 or 800 students are not sustainable," Kirk said. The Santa Fe school has 550 full-time students and 1,200 evening and weekend students.
    It announced in November would eliminate some programs and shift its focus toward art to deal with dwindling student numbers and financial difficulties. Kirk said at the time that Savannah College could serve as a model because it, too, had a strong arts program and an athletics program.
    The Georgia school has grown from a few hundred students to 9,000, Kirk said.
    Increasing enrollment is the only way for small schools to become financially stable, and becoming partners with another school could help do that sooner, he said.
    Bruce Chong, dean of communications at the Georgia school, said Savannah college officials have talked about mergers with other schools in an effort to expand to the West.
    The Santa Fe and Savannah schools are getting to know each other, and "there are probably more similarities than differences," Chong said.

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