UConn\u2019s\u00a0Board of Trustees will hear a presentation next week that will propose\u00a0closing\u00a0its Torrington campus,\u00a0which is the University\u2019s smallest location\u00a0and has struggled with declining enrollment despite efforts to recruit and retain undergraduates there.<\/p>\n
The proposal to close\u00a0the\u00a0campus after the conclusion of the 2016 spring semester is based on\u00a0the enrollment trends, its\u00a0inability to provide an experience equivalent to other UConn campuses, scarce resources to address capital needs, and the proximity of the UConn Waterbury campus.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven the ongoing fiscal challenges in the state, and the resulting effect on the University, we have been carefully examining how we can maintain academic quality in an era of increasingly scarce resources,\u201d said UConn Provost Mun Choi\u00a0in a message to the Torrington campus community. \u201cAfter careful consideration, we\u2019ve decided that one of the options we must pursue is the closure of UConn\u2019s Torrington campus.”<\/p>\n
The Academic Affairs Committee of the Board of Trustees will hear\u00a0a presentation from the university\u00a0regarding the potential closure of the campus\u00a0at its meeting on Wednesday, March 30 in Storrs.<\/p>\n
Any decision on the future of the campus must be voted on by the full board,\u00a0which\u00a0would have the option of\u00a0taking\u00a0up the issue at its April 27 meeting.<\/p>\n
The campus, which opened in 1965, has struggled with enrollment for several years as the number of college-bound high school seniors in northwestern Connecticut has declined.<\/p>\n
The entering freshman class over the past five years has ranged from 53 to 62 students, which is\u00a0about one-fifth\u00a0the size of the University\u2019s freshman class at its next smallest regional campus and a 15 percent decline since 2011.\u00a0 Total fall enrollment at Torrington over the same time period has ranged from 177 to 249 students, which is a fraction of the enrollment at any of the University\u2019s other regional campuses.\u00a0This\u00a0limits\u00a0the interaction with other students that is crucial to a qualitative learning process.<\/p>\n
This spring, enrollment at the campus has dropped further, to 136 students \u2014 of which only 88 are full-time.<\/p>\n
In addition, only one tenure-track faculty member is teaching in Torrington, resulting in minimal opportunity for students there to take classes with full-time instructors.<\/p>\n
Further, the campus\u2019s physical infrastructure cannot provide the science labs necessary for college level courses, which relegates students to take these courses elsewhere \u2013 predominantly at Northwestern Community College or UConn Waterbury, which is located approximately 30 minutes away\u00a0and has state-of-the-art facilities and a larger contingent of tenure-track faculty and researchers.<\/p>\n
Specifically, \u00a0UConn Torrington currently needs at least $8.6 million in capital improvements over the next 10 years.\u00a0These costs do not include any additional costs that would be expended to update labs, classrooms, and other research and academic spaces to support the needs of students and faculty.<\/p>\n
If University decides to close campus at end of this academic year, all currently enrolled students will be given the option of attending any regional campus or the Storrs campus. Recently admitted students for fall 2016 will have the option of attending any regional campus.<\/p>\n
Those students who would choose to transition to the nearby UConn Waterbury campus would be part of an incoming freshman class there of approximately 325\u00a0students and would become part of a total student body of more than 1,000 students.<\/p>\n
The\u00a0University would offer counseling sessions at the Torrington campus to help students make these decisions, and work with high school guidance counselors to ensure they\u2019re aware of options available.<\/p>\n
Closure of academic programs for undergraduate students at Torrington is not expected to affect the robust agricultural extension facility and programming located on the campus. The University would cooperate with the City of Torrington and other state agencies on suitable new uses for the land and buildings that comprise the academic campus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
UConn\u2019s\u00a0Board of Trustees will hear a presentation next week that will propose\u00a0closing\u00a0its Torrington campus,\u00a0which is the University\u2019s smallest location\u00a0and has struggled with declining enrollment despite efforts to recruit and retain undergraduates there. The proposal to close\u00a0the\u00a0campus after the conclusion of the 2016 spring semester is based on\u00a0the enrollment trends, its\u00a0inability to provide an experience equivalent […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":58,"featured_media":79526,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2456,2233],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[117],"class_list":["post-110767","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-campuses","category-university-news"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-23 15:35:09","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110767","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/58"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110767"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110767\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110769,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110767\/revisions\/110769"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/79526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110767"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110767"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110767"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=110767"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=110767"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}