Blinn-Schulenburg’s Immediate Future Unchanged by Master Plan Adoption

Blinn College’s longterm future in Schulenburg remains uncertain.

At last week’s Blinn College Board of Trustees meeting, the college’s long term facilities masterplan was formally adopted, with no set direction for the Schulenburg and Sealy satellite campuses but rather retaining three options:

• Stay the same

• Evolve

• Close

“What role do Sealy and Schulenburg play in the long term for the district?” a representative from Gensler, a design and planning firm the college hired to create the masterplan, rhetorically asked the board during last Tuesday’s pre-board meeting budget workshop. “We’re not making a recommendation, you don’t have to make a decision today, you can make one next year or five years from now, but it may be something you want to have on your radar.”

Much more of that budget workshop was focused not on Schulenburg or Sealy (which have been targeted as underperforming in terms of enrollment and campus utilization) but on the larger Blinn campuses in Brenham and Bryan, and on a proposed new campus in Waller.

After the presentation it was opened up for questions for the board members.

One board member pointed out that Blinn does not lose money on either the Sealy or the Schulenburg campuses, “but there is a cost to oversight and administration ... from an administration standpoint, what are we doing there and what we could be doing somewhere else.”

Another board member said it might be a good time to “reengage” the Sealy and Schulenburg communities about helping to financially support the campuses.

Bottom line, Tuesday’s meeting didn’t determine the future of the Schulenburg campus.

“It was essentially a data gathering exercise, getting information to make decisions in the future,” said Blinn Communications Director Richard Bray. “It doesn’t tie the board down to any decisions ... It was accepting the data we received. Having more information is always better.”