INDIANAPOLIS (Network Indiana) — Marian University is expanding, again.
Ancilla College in northern Indiana is merging with Marian University, as part of an ongoing business model to add more smaller campuses.
Marian acquired St. Joseph’s College after it closed in 2017, to create St. Joe Indy, a two-year college based in Indianapolis. However, Ancilla’s president says this partnership was planned.
“St. Joe Indy was conceived as a result of an institution of higher education that had difficulty,” Michele Dvorak said to Inside Indiana Business. “In this case, it just so happened that during this planning and this time of finding out about who would be a potential really good partner, these two institutions emerged as going together and that there was a real in-sync kind of look to it and feel to it.”
Dvorak added that, in the past, Ancilla has always been a two-year college that offered more than 25 associate degree programs.
“When our students got to graduation, they said ‘we so wish Ancilla had a four-year. We would stay,'” she said. “With this partnership with Marian, alumni and our present student population, and potential students in the area, really have an opportunity now to get a four-year degree.”
Ancilla College of Marian University will start operations on July 1, 2021. Dvorak says in the months leading up to that date, both schools will work to create a seamless transition for students.
