Record Enrollment, Endless Accolades, and a Transformative Merger Announcement: Russell Sage College Looks Back on a Thrilling 2025

As we reflect on 2025, we had so much to celebrate at Russell Sage College. From our largest enrollment in 25 years, to international and national accolades, to the announcement of a historic merger with Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences that’s slated for fall 2027, pending regulatory approvals, the good news didn’t stop.

As we count down 10 of the top stories from this past year, we look ahead to 2026 with excitement.

10. I Can Achieve a Nursing Degree program celebrates a third year: Our ICAN program, which seeks to inspire teens from backgrounds underrepresented in registered nursing and other healthcare fields that require a bachelor’s degree, marked its third anniversary in 2025.

Established in 2023 with a grant from the Mother Cabrini Health Foundation and strengthened by support from the Innovation Partnership between Albany County and MVP Health Care, ICAN matches high school students with healthcare mentors and facilitates educational and professional healthcare experiences, including paid employment. The program also provides academic support to guide students through high school, college applications, and a nursing degree.

9. Criminal Investigation Resource Center helps Albany police solve cold case: In October, Dr. Christina Lane, director of the Criminal Investigation Resource Center (CIRC) and a faculty member at Russell Sage, attended an Albany Police Department news conference announcing the closure of a 61-year-old homicide case involving Catherine Blackburn. Lane had already been working on the case at her previous institution with her partner in the center, Dr. Chris Kunkle. When she launched CIRC at Russell Sage in 2024, the Blackburn case was among the first cases Sage students worked on.

CIRC partners with about a dozen law enforcement agencies, both local and out of state, utilizing students as a resource to help keep unresolved cases active. Students, who are often criminal justice or forensic psychology majors, are held to a high standard of professionalism and confidentiality and are eligible to receive academic credit and pay for their work.

8. Bridgerton actor and Russell Sage alum Lucas Aurelio serves as commencement speaker: Ahead of his busy summer filming schedule, we welcomed actor Lucas Aurelio ’18 back to the college as our 2025 commencement speaker. While he was in town, he also visited his other alma mater, Albany High School.

7. Esteves School of Education grads take top state and national awards: If there was an education award to be won in 2025, graduates of our Esteves School of Education took the prize — from top principals and teachers to top school counselors and district leaders.

The Esteves School of Education continued its momentum in 2025, building on a landmark 2024 achievement, when it became the first college in the nation to partner with the Center for Positive Education, ensuring all graduates are trained in essential social-emotional learning and life practices. The college has become a leader in bringing positive education programming to local schools.

6. Campus buzzes with construction, secures funding for renovation projects: With upgrades to HVAC systems, roofing, and building exteriors on both the Albany and Troy campuses, the college wrapped up or continued work on approximately $12 million in renovations in 2025. Projects included Sage Hall, Slocum Hall, the Esteves School of Education, and the Schacht Fine Arts Center — advancing facilities that meet the needs of students, faculty, and staff now and into the future.

Sage Hall, a 59-bed upperclass co-ed residence hall with campus community gathering spaces, is slated to complete renovations in time for a fall 2026 opening. The $10.5 million project was funded primarily by donors and grants, including a significant gift from alumna Donna Robinson Esteves ’70 and $2.7 million in HECAP funding from New York state.

5. Sage becomes first in Capital Region to launch intercollegiate women’s flag football: In February, Sage built on the momentum of the fastest-growing sport in the world, announcing the launch of an intercollegiate women’s flag football team for spring 2026 — the first of its kind in the Capital Region. The launch drew extensive media coverage, highlighting student excitement around the program.

The team was given a strong start by donor Sam Greco ’65, ’11, a Russell Sage College Athletics Hall of Fame inductee, who made a leadership gift to the program.

4. New B.S. in Speech-Language Pathology launches: In February, the college received New York State Education Department approval to launch a Bachelor of Science in Speech-Language Pathology, bringing speech-language pathology education back to the Capital Region following the closure of The College of Saint Rose.

The college plans to launch a graduate program in the field in 2029-2030, pending New York State Education Department and American Speech-Language-Hearing Association (ASHA) approval. This would provide students who complete the undergraduate program with a strong local option to continue their graduate studies — a required step toward licensure — at Russell Sage.

Faculty who joined the college from Saint Rose have already made a significant community impact by operating the Aphasia Center, partnering with nursing and other health professions faculty, and hosting the Moving Message fundraiser. The Aphasia Center’s work was also highlighted by CBS6 in this moving story about a Russell Sage alum and stroke survivor.

3. Russell Sage earns international award, national rankings, unique Carnegie Classification, and Great Colleges to Work For® recognition: Among many accolades in 2025, the college was ranked among the top 25 national universities by U.S. News & World Report for Social Mobility for the seventh consecutive year and ranked 36th nationally for Best Value. Sage’s commitment to inspiring social mobility through education was captured beautifully in this Times Union story about President Matthew Shaftel presenting fifth-graders at Carroll Hill School in Troy with pre-acceptance letters.

Meanwhile, Phi Theta Kappa, the international honor society for two-year colleges, named Sage to its 2025 Transfer Honor Roll for the sixth consecutive year. Only 251 colleges and universities nationwide earned this recognition, and Russell Sage and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute were the only institutions in New York’s Capital Region on the list.

Sage’s distinctive national position was further highlighted in the 2025 Carnegie Classifications, which placed the college among just 58 institutions — approximately 1% of those classified — as a small college with a professions focus and a strong mix of undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral programs.

The college was also recognized for its employee community, earning a place among 76 institutions nationwide in the Great Colleges to Work For® program. Sage received honors in two categories: Supervisor/Department Chair Effectiveness and Shared Governance.

Additionally, the college was named among 21 Grand Gold recipients out of more than 4,400 international entries in the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) 2025 Circle of Excellence Awards. Sage earned its Grand Gold in the Marketing Initiatives category for the Student Sage Award campaign, which included the inaugural Sage Engage event in 2024. The project was supported by the Sparrell Fund, a generous gift from alumna and former trustee and board chair Patricia Sparrell ’78 and her husband, Duncan. Sage Engage returned in October 2025, with an even larger event planned for 2026.

2. Russell Sage posts highest enrollment in 25 years: Russell Sage bucked national enrollment trends in 2025, growing to 3,123 students — a 12% increase over the previous year and its highest total enrollment in 25 years. Fall 2025 also marked the first time in a decade that the college welcomed 400 or more new undergraduate students in back-to-back years. The growth was noted in several media reports, including an article in the Times Union.

1. Russell Sage and ACPHS announce historic and transformative merger: The biggest news of 2025 came in April with the announcement of a merger between Russell Sage and its Albany campus neighbor, Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences.

With an anticipated completion date of fall 2027, pending regulatory approvals, the merger will create the Capital Region’s third-largest private institution of higher education, offering the broadest catalog of programs in the health professions, pharmacy, and biomedical sciences, alongside strong programs in education, business, criminal justice, the sciences, pre-med, pre-health, and the arts and humanities. The combined institution is expected to enroll approximately 4,000 students across campuses in Albany and Troy, New York, as well as online.

In parallel with the merger process, Russell Sage intends to seek regulatory approval to be renamed Russell Sage University. ACPHS will retain its distinct identity as Albany College of Pharmacy and Health Sciences at Russell Sage, with a School of Pharmacy and a School of Biomedical and Health Sciences. The merger will result in a unified institution with combined assets of approximately $246 million, including $115 million in endowment investments.

The merger received extensive media coverage, including this WAMC interview with Russell Sage President Matthew Shaftel and ACPHS President Toyin Tofade and this Charlotte Observer article.