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Siena, UAlbany Announce Degree Reciprocity With Other Local Colleges

With higher education becoming more expensive, students looking to maximize their college experiences are getting help from their schools.

Siena College has made two agreements with Albany Law School, effective this fall: students who have received a juris doctorate at Albany Law will be given up to nine credits toward finishing of a master of science in accounting degree at Siena, thus earning the MSA in under one year. Albany Law  President & Dean Alicia Ouellette:  "The collaboration is a continuation of a long-standing relationship that we've had with Siena. It opens the door for students who are really interested in going into the business aspect of law."

With the second accord, full-time Albany Law students can earn a juris doctorate from Albany Law and an MSA from Siena concurrently in four years.

Siena College is also joining forces with the Ellis Medicine Belanger School of Nursing to offer a new dual-degree nursing major. Dr. Lisa Flack is the director of the Baldwin Nursing department at Siena:   "The dual degree nursing program that we're in collaboration with Belanger with actually will give students a seamless program that they can have a four-year college experience, taking classes at Siena College all four years and during years two and three, their sophomore and junior years, they travel to the Belanger School to take their pre-licensure course work and clinical."

By the end of junior year the students will have earned an associate’s degree in nursing and can sit for the state board exams, earning their licensure during that summer.   "And coming back on the fourth year of the program, which is their senior year, they'll be taking all of their upper-division nursing courses, and by the end of that year, be graduating with a bachelor's degree, the bachelor's of science and nursing."

Prospective students will submit one application for a joint admissions decision.

Meantime, SUNY Cobleskill and the University at Albany have signed articulation agreements allowing students to transfer fluidly from SUNY Cobleskill to UAlbany. Susan Zimmerman, the provost and vice-president for academic affairs at SUNY Cobleskill, says this will provide a clear pathway for SUNY Cobleskill graduates with associate degree’s who meet admission requirements in selected programs to continue in parallel programs at UAlbany.  "Let's say that a student might be in a humanities program at SUNY Cobleskill. It's gonna give them the flexibility to consider multiple programs at the University of Albany. So, perhaps moving on to something like anthropology or art or art history, and so, the humanities program for example, might be a little bit open-ended in some of the elective areas, and if students now know what the pathway is into a specific bachelor's program at UAlbany, they can be prepared for that in advance."

Nearly 40 students from SUNY Cobleskill have transferred to UAlbany in recent years, and Zimmerman says this agreement will strengthen the collaborative relationship between the two campuses.  Transfer students at UAlbany make up a third of the incoming class each year, and around half of its graduating class.

Dave Lucas is WAMC’s Capital Region Bureau Chief. Born and raised in Albany, he’s been involved in nearly every aspect of local radio since 1981. Before joining WAMC, Dave was a reporter and anchor at WGY in Schenectady. Prior to that he hosted talk shows on WYJB and WROW, including the 1999 series of overnight radio broadcasts tracking the JonBenet Ramsey murder case with a cast of callers and characters from all over the world via the internet. In 2012, Dave received a Communicator Award of Distinction for his WAMC news story "Fail: The NYS Flood Panel," which explores whether the damage from Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee could have been prevented or at least curbed. Dave began his radio career as a “morning personality” at WABY in Albany.
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