The College Voice

Issue date: 3/9/09 Section: News

The fate of Mercer's award winning Aviation Program remains unclear. Students, faculty, and members of the public came out to show their support of the program at the February 19 board of trustees meeting. Although the program has faced termination for more than a year, the board still did not vote to end it.

President Donohue cites the high cost to maintain the program as one of the reasons for its possible closure. "It is an expensive program. We have to house that fleet; we pay rent at the airport; we pay special insurance for the airplanes, and we pay a very expensive maintenance fee to keep the airplanes flight worthy."

A further concern is the condition of the school's fleet. "Our goal is to find a stream of income that would allow us to replace the airplanes because our aircraft is all quite old and heavily used," says President Donohue. Most of the planes were built in the 1970's; the most current model is from 1982.

The aviation program's current tuition is also being assessed. "We've contacted other colleges across the country, most of them community colleges, who run aviation, and one of the things that we discovered is that our charges are lower than theirs," says President Donohue.

President Donahue also cites the low graduation rate as another factor. "One of our problems is too many students were just learning to fly and not getting a degree and when it's a college program the point is that they're getting a degree."

Although the graduation rate is considered a major concern, a restructuring of the program's prerequisites has not been offered as a possible solution to the flight program's predicament. Other options also being considered are teaching flight for another school lacking flight time, and submitting grants to upgrade and replace aircraft.

Students currently enrolled in the program believe that its closure would end the possibility for others to become pilots. Judy Galayda, the flight team's captain, says, "Other schools are far and expensive." Further, Mercer County Community College is the only flight school presently available in New Jersey.

Aviation professor Joseph Blasenstein, comments on the program saying, "Every day, I can't wait to come to work. What we have is a staff that lives and breathes aviation." Among other accomplishments, the Flight Team continues to compete and win numerous awards in their competitions.

In order to keep the program going, President Donohue says the goal must be to produce a business plan that would allow Mercer to run the program without a big operating loss every year. "In addition to the Board following closely with information, we have invited some key leaders in aviation to serve on the special advisory committee…to make recommendations of things to consider," Donohue says.

A final decision regarding Mercer's Aviation program is scheduled to be made at the March 19 board of trustees meeting.

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