Davis College Partners With Christian School

Students Earn Credits In High School

A video was playing on a big screen in a darkened classroom at the Oneonta Community Christian School, where Dr. Paul Hegstrom was giving a detailed lecture on the human brain.
He explained the role of the axon and dendrites, how they help humans form habits, and how to break them.
“It’s just mind-boggling the way we’ve been created,” Hegstrom concluded.
The main event followed: admissions representatives Will Reichel and Rick Cramer were visiting the River Street school from Davis College in Binghamton through a partnership that is now in its second semester.
UCCS students are now able to take college-level courses – sign language, public speaking, ESL (English as a second language) and introductory psychology among them – and can enter Davis as sophomores, saving a year’s college tuition.
“We don’t want you to graduate with a bunch of debt,” Cramer said.  “We want you to get out there and DO things.”
Davis, described as “a small, close-knit community, ... a family of Christ’s followers, learning and growing together,” is across the Susquehanna from Binghamton University, and graduates often chose to cross over for masters’.
But Cramer didn’t give a hard sell to the dozen juniors and seniors gathered before him, saying only, “If that’s where God’s calling you, I want to help.”
In an interview that followed, Cramer and Reichel, and UCCS Principal Jane Cook, described the collaboration – now also under way with Christian schools in Schenectady and Loudonville, as well as Ross Corners Christian Academy, Endicott – as “a launching pad.”
Since Davis is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education, the credits UCCS students earn are accepted at an array of colleges and universities, not just this one.
UCCS is reaching beyond its current students to homeschoolers.  “OHS students can participate,” added Cook of the sign language course, “and we’re looking to open it to adult learners.”
The affiliation with Davis is also opening up a wider world to UCCS students, the principal said, noting top public-speaking students got to attend a dinner at the Binghamton campus last fall where Mike Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor and prospective presidential candidate, was the featured speaker.

During a visit to the River Street campus, Davis College’s Will Reichel, center, chats with students Melinda McCardel and Zachary German.