Suffolk Community College faculty clash over Islip teen degree plan

Suffolk County Community College’s push to let Islip teens earn an associate’s degree before high school graduation has opened a rare fight over who gets to define access to college credit in Suffolk County.

Two faculty groups voted last week to censure president Edward Bonahue and the vice president for academic affairs, a public rebuke over what instructors called an egregious lack of faculty involvement in planning the initiative. Dante Morelli, head of the college’s faculty union, said the groups had never previously censured Bonahue, making the action an unusual sign of how deeply the dispute has cut through the campus governance structure.

At issue is more than timing. Faculty leaders have raised concerns about transparency, shared governance and whether a blended high school-college program can be launched responsibly without more input from the people who teach the courses. For students, the proposal could mean a faster and cheaper route to an associate’s degree and, potentially, an earlier start on the workforce or a four-year transfer path. For critics, the risk is that speed could come at the expense of academic standards and proper oversight.

Islip High School said the partnership would be open to students in grades 8 through 11, widening the reach beyond the usual senior-year dual-enrollment model. The district described the plan as a way for students to earn a full associate’s degree while still in high school, a significant promise for families looking for an accelerated college option in Suffolk.

Suffolk County Community College is the county’s largest public higher-education institution and the largest community college in the State University of New York system. It operates campuses in Selden, Riverhead and Brentwood, along with downtown centers in Sayville and Riverhead, giving any change in its academic model broad local reach.

The college already runs a College for High School Students program called the Beacon Program. That option lets high school juniors and seniors at partner schools take Suffolk’s credentialed college courses on their high school campus during regular school hours while working toward graduation. The Islip proposal would appear to go further, moving beyond sampled college credit into a full degree pathway inside the high school years.

That contrast is now at the center of the fight: administrators are promising opportunity, while faculty and union leaders are warning that access without process could weaken the very college standards the program is supposed to expand.