School of Education Mergers: Institutional Survival or Administrative Madness?

The article focuses on the merger of two teacher education programs and the problems and benefits accruing from the merger. Mergers are common in the field of business and industry and are also common in public education in the form of school district consolidations, but mergers in higher education are rare. There have been some cooperative agreements between financially troubled private colleges, but significant mergers in higher education have rarely been mediated. The Oregon State Board of Higher Education started an experimental inter-institutional administrative merger modeled to create a single School of Education from two of the state's oldest institutions, Oregon State University (OSU) and Western Oregon State College (WOSC). This decision to merge the programs of two schools of education effected in the creation of an inter-institutional organization: The OSU-WOSC School of Education. The merged School, located on two campuses 20 miles apart provides students a choice between two distinct campus atmospheres, while assuring them a single high-quality set of programs. The merger allowed more effective utilization of faculty resources. It's been three years since the merger of the OSU-WOSC School of Education has taken place. In certain situations, higher education mergers can offer greater institutional stability for schools of education, but effective mergers may be possible only in uncommon situations.