LONGMEADOW – The world is constantly changing. Over the past 125 years, Bay Path University has adapted to the needs of the area and grown from a co-educational business school to a secretarial school for women, a junior college and eventually, a university. Today, Bay Path is still finding ways to offer students an education for the changing world.
History

“We began as a co-ed business institute because that’s what the need was,” Bay Path University President Sandra J. Doran said of the university’s origins. “A career-focused education, that’s what we’ve always been.”

The university’s first incarnation, Bay Path Institute, opened its doors in 1897 on the corner of State and Dwight Streets in Springfield. The co-educational business school had an emphasis on management, accounting, teaching and finance. In 1920, the school moved to a new location on Chestnut Street.

After World War II broke out, more professional jobs opened to women. Businessman Thomas Carr bought the institute in 1945, changed its focus to educating women for office work and renamed it, Bay Path Secretarial School for Women. It was also under Carr that the school moved to its current campus in Longmeadow and, in 1949, was chartered as a junior college offering associate degrees. In the 1980s Bay Path added bachelor’s degrees.

In 2000, Bay Path became a university with the addition of graduate programs, including four doctoral programs. Just over 20 years later, half of Bay Path’s students are enrolled in graduate programs and three-quarters of graduate students attend online.
Ways to Learn

Bay Path offers “a really diverse mix of educational opportunities,” Doran said.

In 1999, the former president, Dr. Carol Leary, saw that education is not a one-size-fits-all experience. Under her tenure, the One-Day-A-Week college for adult women was established for those whose work and family life prevented them from attending college on a traditional schedule. By 2014, technology had become an integrated part of daily life. The American Women’s College, programs taught wholly online, built off the concept of meeting students where they are. Currently, 1,000 students are enrolled in the American Women’s College.

Having an existing curriculum for remote learning and the technology that comes with it was essential to Bay Path’s ability to adapt when the pandemic broke out and in-person learning shut down, causing the university to move all its classes online.

“The systems were in place, our faculty were ready to teach, but it wasn’t without difficulty,” Doran said, acknowledging the challenges of students working on degrees while also helping their school-aged children with remote learning. She praised them for getting through a trying time and still excelling in their programs.
With in-person learning available again, so is what Doran called, “a more traditional,” college experience. There are more than 700 in-person students, many of whom live on campus. If the university were a vehicle, Doran said the campus is its “engine.”
Located in Longmeadow

For residential students, Doran described Bay Path’s Longmeadow campus as “a safe haven for their educational journey.” Being in a small town allows students to focus on determining their career paths and receiving the educational resources they need, she said, adding, “It’s just the perfect place to learn.”

Bay Path University’s 48-acre campus is rated the second safest-campus in the United States by Niche, a college ranking site.
The Next 125 Years

In June 2021, Bay Path University adopted a strategic plan, a document that will help guide the university in the coming years. Doran said the goal is to adapt to the times and “reimagine how we’re going to continue to serve women.” While graduate studies are open to both men and women, Doran said the university has no plans to open undergraduate courses to men.

“The work world is not always as friendly to women as we’d like,” Doran said. “Our students say things to us like, ‘Through Bay Path, I gained confidence, a support system and mentorship.’” She added that Bay Path gives women “time and space to develop,” and “care and nurturing,” which she said lead to “better careers, richer lives and brighter futures.”

Melissa Weinberger, media relations and content director for Bay Path, said the education received at the university can lead to “life-changing” careers for women. “A degree in a woman’s life is transformational.”

Doran said the future of Bay Path is partly in its past. There is a renewed focus on career preparation in the form of internships. Doran said paid interns are more likely to secure higher paying jobs in their field.

“In the next two years,” Doran said, “every student who wants an internship, but their business doesn’t have one, we’ll pay for it.”
Doran described a new wave of internships in which students participate remotely to solve global problems. Employers submit a problem to a Riipen, a platform that matches businesses with interns to crowd-source solutions. Students from around the world work on it throughout a multi-week program.

“We’re finding students want more than one six-week internship collaboration,” Doran said. Bay Path is one of the first higher education institutions in the area to participate in the Riipen.
These experiences with companies from around the world translate into skills that can be used here in New England. The university’s students are a part of the area’s “talent ecosystem,” Doran said, because 75 percent of them are local to the region.

While the president described departure of companies from the area as a challenge for Bay Path and its graduates, she went on to frame it as an “opportunity to reimagine what the future of business will be,” and “ask ourselves, ‘Do we have the right majors for our area?’” Doran said the university conducts listening tours with local businesses to identify needs and develop new certificate programs. One of the latest certificate programs focuses on cybersecurity.

The university has also made investments in its healthcare curriculum, especially at its two satellite campuses. Both the Concord Campus and the Philip H. Ryan Health Science Center in East Longmeadow house graduate programs in psychology and mental health counseling and education. The East Longmeadow campus also offers graduate programs in physician assistant studies and occupational therapy.

Rather than opening more facilities in the upcoming years, the university has pivoted to investing in technology that aims to help its students succeed, such as predictive analytics.

“We know that students who miss two or more classes and miss a homework assignment are in danger of dropping out,” which gives faculty the chance to learn why, Doran explained. “Technology gives us all the data, but it is the human intervention that is the Bay Path way.”

By intentionally focusing on meeting student needs and culture, Doran said the university is ensuring students are being prepared by being well connected and always willing to adapt.

“There are still few women in C-suites, fewer in management,” Doran said, referring to the executive leadership roles in companies and organizations. The education and mentorship received at Bay Path “provides skills and confidence.” She continued, “It’s incumbent upon all of us to lift everybody up.” In doing so, Doran said, they are creating “strong partnerships for the next 125 years.”