Hustling Husson | The small college hopes its entrepreneurial approach to the education market will help it make a big splash

The administrative offices at Husson College don't impress. They're in the basement of a tall, stark dormitory that would look at home on the outskirts of Moscow. The offices are largely lightless and grim, and they share the basement with the dorm laundry room.

But announcements from those offices have been impressive: The Husson administration in recent months has announced plans to open graduate schools of pharmacy and law; begun construction of a new student center; and signed educational partnerships with Unity College and Northern Maine Community College in Presque Isle. There also are plans to launch a technical institute and a school of performing arts. All this from a Bangor-based school that three decades ago faced financial difficulties so severe some believed it was doomed.

Instead, Husson has quietly become one of Maine's largest private colleges. Its campus is now home to the New England School of Communications, which operates independently but is wholly owned by Husson, and the Bangor Theological Seminary, which remains independent despite its location on campus. With an undergraduate enrollment of about 1,900 full-time students, Husson is now larger than Colby, Bates and Bowdoin. In fact, this year's incoming class of about 550 is so large that Husson officials believe their freshmen enrollment is second only to Dartmouth College among northern New England's private colleges.

But Husson is not just bigger than Colby, Bates and Bowdoin — it is also very different from those institutions. And Husson credits its recent spate of activity to its entrepreneurial approach to higher education. This is a place where there are no unions or tenure; where administrators talk openly of running the school as a business; where potential programs are weighed for profitability rather than prestige. Husson administrators talk of finding ways to counter the declining college-age population in eastern Maine, use phrases such as "risk tolerance," refuse to take on debt or significantly raise tuition, and talk of helping create a "rising economic tide" in their part of the state. "We're built on the backs of low-income Maine kids, and we have to be thrifty," says school President and CEO William Beardsley. "I know in higher education you're not supposed to talk about market share, but let's call a spade a spade. When you're in a declining market, you have to capture market share."

But two of the school's latest efforts at capturing market share — the opening of law and pharmacy schools — put Husson in competition with existing or planned schools. Some wonder if the school is underestimating the challenges inherent to those plans.

Diversifying to survive
Husson College is on Bangor's periphery, occupying a 175-acre campus that is spacious and green and marked by a circular road that gives the campus its alternate name: College Circle. Husson moved here in 1967, a time of growing enrollment that induced administrators to abandon a scattered complex of cramped buildings in the city center. The campus rose from scratch, and as a result, its architecture gives no hint that the school's roots stretch to 1898, when it was founded as the Shaw School of Business and Penmanship. It became the Maine School of Commerce in 1925, then Husson College in 1947.

Husson was born as, and mostly remains, a pragmatic school designed to provide a solid education to poorer and often rural Mainers. Historically, those wanting a well-rounded, liberal-arts education chose schools such as Bates, Bowdoin and Colby, while affordable Husson reached out to those for whom college was not a given. Husson offered an education in business, and, for much of its existence, the school literally was a business — owned as a for-profit venture by Chesley Husson, the school's president from 1929 to 1970.

Husson incorporated the school as a nonprofit in 1961. Paul Husson, Chesley's son, says the move helped ensure growth and left the campus community convinced that its future was bright. "We had not only become a nonprofit, but we were accredited for the first time," says Husson, who as senior development officer is the school's last link to its family-owned past. "It was the end of my father's presidency, but it was also a beginning."

But the 1970s brought decline for Husson, as they did for many colleges. The popularity of majoring in business sank, the Vietnam War kept some working-class students from campus and the Baby Boom generation passed the collegiate age. By 1980, Husson's enrollment had plummeted to about 500, from a high of 1,400. "Those were difficult years," Paul Husson says. "We were a tuition-driven institution, and finances were very tight."

Some doubted the school would survive. And it may have folded, if not for a move that brought diversity to its curriculum. In 1980, the Eastern Maine General Hospital School of Nursing merged into Husson, giving the college a growing-in-popularity major and an influx of students. Then in 1986, Husson hired Beardsley, a Vermont native with an academic background in forestry who many at the school credit with bringing new energy — and the entrepreneurial approach that still fuels the college's growth. "When he first came, we all thought he was nuts," says Julie Green, Husson's director of public relations, who came to the college in 1980. "His plans were so grandiose. He said, 'You can be this and this and this,' and we were in a malaise."

Seeking profitable niches
Beardsley, now 63, is warm, engaging and clearly proud of his school — particularly its traditional role as a refuge for students who might not go to college if Husson didn't exist. "We feel that the most exciting generation is that kid who's the first in his family to go to college," he says. "We want to be that change agent, and to do that, we have to be highly entrepreneurial."

Husson's pharmacy school plans are illustrative of that entrepreneurial approach. First, Husson determines if there's a market niche for the educational product, and verifies that it can be quickly profitable. Then the school strikes — announcing plans and getting the product on the market quickly, without relying on fundraising or incurring debt that could lead to tuition increases. The approach has led to a steadily growing number of programs at Husson, where students now can earn a doctorate in physical therapy and masters degrees in business, nursing, occupational therapy, criminal justice, school counseling and counseling psychology.

In late October, Husson's Board of Trustees unanimously approved opening a pharmacy school, for which there's a clear need: A 2005 survey by the National Association of Chain Drug Stores found 6,000 pharmacist vacancies nationally — more than twice the number found seven years prior — and declared the shortage particularly acute in Maine.

But with the announcement, Husson fired a starting gun on a race with another Maine school. The University of New England, with campuses in Biddeford and Portland, late last year announced plans for a $30 million school of pharmacy. UNE is looking for financial help either from the state or a city or town wanting to host the facility. "We don't have the resources to go in and build from scratch and get the program started," says Ed Legg, vice president for university relations at the school. "To start up, we've got to have some help, and we've never been mysterious about that at all."

Husson is taking a very different approach. Beardsley says Husson can launch the pharmacy school quickly, with money the college already has on hand and without asking for public assistance. If approved by state and other regulatory agencies, the pharmacy school, with start-up costs of just $4 million to $6 million, likely will be slotted into a building Husson is already planning to build. (The Husson administration adheres to a strict full-capacity rule, which quite simply means space must be fully occupied and heavily used. The philosophy, which helps explain why administrative offices temporarily are found in a dorm basement, mandates that no building will be built unless it opens at full capacity, or will arrive there quickly.) "Our plan is to pay for everything in cash," Beardsley says. "We intend to move into pharmacy without incurring debt."

It's frequently noted at Husson that the school lacks layers of bureaucracy that keep some schools, particularly public schools reliant on legislative support and public spending, from responding rapidly to market demands. "It takes three meetings and we can change our curriculum," says longtime accounting professor Dewey Martin. "It doesn't take 25 committees."

Employing that quick turnaround, Husson administrators would like to open the pharmacy school by 2008. The University of New England, which has been planning and discussing the school for quite some time, also is looking to open its pharmacy school that year, but it's likely the competition from Husson will make the task harder.

What are the odds that UNE could convince lawmakers to offer public support for its school if another institution was going ahead without such help? "Do the words 'zero' and 'nil' mean anything?" says former state Rep. Joseph Bruno, who heads the Augusta-based Community Pharmacy chain. "It's not up to the Maine Legislature to fund programs. The schools need to determine [what is] feasible."

Though he strongly agrees Maine suffers from a dearth of pharmacists, Bruno is skeptical the state soon will see a pharmacy school, saying he fears Husson and UNE are underestimating the cost of opening a school or will skimp with less-than-stellar faculty. Having two pharmacy schools in the state, he says, would be "overkill."

Legg says Husson's plans won't influence his school's approach and predicts UNE's pharmacy school will be very different than one in Bangor. He points out that UNE has Maine's only medical school and is well positioned to open a well-regarded research institution.

Husson officials concede their school will ignore research and will focus its effort entirely on graduating pharmacists who are ready to work. "We don't do things because there's an aura to it," Martin says. "We do it because there's a demand."

Changing the rules
There's much hue-and-cry about skyrocketing education costs. And with good reason: the Lumina Foundation for Education, headquartered in Indianapolis, says college tuition has increased by 50% in the last 10 years, an increase well above the rate of inflation. Schools such as Bates, Bowdoin and Colby have annual tuition and room-and-board costs above $40,000.

Compared to other private schools, the cost of a Husson education remains relatively affordable. At about $11,500 a year, Husson's undergraduate tuition is roughly equal to the amount paid by out-of-state students to attend a school in the University of Maine System. Husson administrators say they refuse to let tuition increases outpace inflation, believing low tuition is key to the school's competitive edge. "We're gambling that there are going to be far too many schools going after far too few students in the Northeast," Beardsley says. "We think if we're priced competitively, we're going to survive."

Husson's proposed law school is likely to have a tuition advantage even over the public University of Maine School of Law, where in-state students pay $15,500 annually in tuition and out-of-state students pay nearly $25,000. Husson plans to keep the school's tuition low by eschewing accreditation by the American Bar Association, which adds to start-up expenses with requirements, for example, that its schools have a free-standing building or large law libraries, among others. "That's the big cost driver for starting a law school," says Rob Kuhn, dean of Husson's business school and the point person for its legal-education plans. "They have extensive capital requirements, many of which have little to do, in my opinion, with a quality legal education."

Many schools have complained about the cost of the ABA's mandates, but almost all do what it takes to earn accreditation. That's because most states, including Maine, require that potential lawyers graduate from an accredited school before they take the bar exam.

Husson, in fact, will soon petition the state Supreme Judicial Court, asking that it allow its law school graduates to sit for the Maine bar. If the court denies the request, Husson will drop its law school plans. (No one interviewed for this story predicted that the court would deny the request.)

Husson is modeling its law school on the Massachusetts School of Law at Andover, a non-accredited school that offers a no-frills legal education and has carved out a niche in a region with a large number of law schools. Husson's school will start as a night school, making use of classrooms that sit empty in the evenings. "What we're aiming for is a good little school that is affordable for people in the area," says Kuhn, a graduate of the law school at Washington University in St. Louis. "We think there's a niche market there."

That niche seems real: Law firms in eastern Maine have long complained of a shortage of lawyers. "So many of the law students think the state of Maine ends in Portland," says Michael Friedman, managing partner at Rudman and Winchell in Bangor. "We have a tough time recruiting people to come north."

But Friedman adds that his firm would be very reluctant to hire graduates from an unaccredited law school. "You have to jump through hoops to get accredited," he says. "At some point Husson is going to realize that the people they are serving want them to jump through the hoops."

Peter Petegoff, dean of the University of Maine law school in Portland, says he doesn't see a Husson law school as a threat, adding its lack of accreditation means "it likely will be a very different law school than ours."

But folks at Husson are betting that if their students pass the bar at high rates, people won't mind that the school lacks an ABA stamp of approval. And in typical Husson fashion, Beardsley predicts the school could begin offering law classes next fall — if Supreme Judicial Court justices allow the rule change.

Even if it doesn't, Husson is finding other ways to boost enrollment. The school — which already operates satellite campuses in a South Portland strip mall, the state police academy in Vassalboro and the Central Maine Power building in Augusta — recently announced a partnership with Northern Maine Community College that will have Husson offering undergraduate and graduate courses in Presque Isle. (Husson already was offering a limited number of classes in Caribou, but that program will cease.)

In October, Husson and Unity College announced a partnership that would allow Unity students to receive a Master of Science in Criminal Justice just one year after receiving an undergraduate degree. The schools announced a similar Master of Science degree in business earlier this year. "Our job is to stay ahead of the Grim Reaper," Beardsley says. "The University of Maine System hasn't added one additional undergraduate in five years. We've added 600. That's our market strength right there."

Increasingly, those students are from outside of the school's traditional eastern Maine base. Ninety students in this year's entering class are from other states, including 10 from distant Florida.

The demographic and educational changes at Husson suggest the school is growing away from its roots as an undergraduate institution established to teach lower-income residents from its region. But faculty members say the changes have made the campus more dynamic and diverse, and that the school now does a better job of exposing its students to the broader world.

And they say the changes, including the potential addition of graduate programs such as pharmacy and law, haven't changed the school's mission. "Preparing people for professions," Kuhn says. "That's been the tradition of the school."