Queens University Charlotte and Elon University in North Carolina will merge, with Elon expected to operate Queens University “in partnership with existing and legacy leaders,” the universities jointly announced in a news release.
The two schools are both private institutions, with Queens having about 1,800 students and Elon having about 7,300 students.
This is a significant merger in the changing American collegiate landscape, and one of the biggest ones yet in a decade of college and university closures and mergers. It also has ramifications for collegiate swimming.
Queens has a highly-successful collegiate swimming program that won 7 men’s titles and 7 women’s titles at the NCAA Division II Swimming & Diving Championships between 2015 and 2022. In 2022, they began the process of moving to Division I, and next season will be their first as a fully-fledged Division I program.
Elon does not have a varsity swimming program, though they do have an active club team. Elon sponsors FCS football, while Queens does not have varsity football.
“We are definitely stronger together,” Elon President Connie Book told The Charlotte Observer. “This bold decision by our universities ensures that in 100 years, the founders’ missions can continue to thrive. This is a decision that creates strength and it’s built on educational opportunity as the necessary seed for a community’s future.”
The conversation began with plans to create a graduate program partnership after the departure of former Queens President Daniel Lugo as the school looked for growth opportunities. In exploring that, they decided that it made more sense to merge the two schools.
“We met in March with the strategic growth committees and started with this conversation around collaboration, and we were very excited about the Elon culture with Connie’s leadership and Elon just being an impressive university,” Queens Acting President Jesse Cureton said. “They’ve been the North Star for Queens for quite some time, we thought, ‘If we were interested enough to talk about partnerships, we should be interested enough to do something much bigger than that.”
The schools said that not much is expected to change in the next two-to-three years. The Queens Board of Trustees will remain active for four years, while current Queens students are enrolled, and then 10 members of that board will join the Elon Board of Trustees to create a single 47-member board.
Students at each school will be able to immediately take courses and pursue degrees that are only available at the other institution. Elon, for example, already has a graduate law program in Charlotte, while Queens has a music therapy program.
The school hasn’t decided what the name of the Queens campus will be, though they both said they would honor Queens University. Queens is a 168-year old institution, while Elon has existed for 136 years. They also said that there will continue to be separate athletics departments at both campuses, though the details of the merger are expected to be worked out over the next year. There is some question as to whether NCAA bylaws would have to be adjusted to allow that in Division I, though it has happened previously in Division II.
Queens saw a 13% enrollment drop in 2024, while Elon reported an 11.6% decline in enrollment for fall 2025. Elon cited the “demographic cliff” caused by the falling U.S. birth rate at the start of the Great Recession in 2008.
The combined university is expected to have around 10,000 students and a combined $600 million endowment and be more resilient to anticipated cuts in state and federal funding.
Queelon!
I heard it’ll be called Queens University North Carolina Charlotte-Mecklenburg at Elon Campus. Go Royal Phoenix!
Send
that will make good bookstore merch
And so it continues. Budgets are tight in small private institutions. Fewer kids being predicted to enroll in college in the years to come won’t help to some issues already at Queens financially. In general, mergers like this are often a last gasp of air before going under, but I really do hope I am wrong, especially for a school with a collegiate swim team. However, merging private schools, two school 2 hrs apart, that don’t have many natural connections – hard to see that going smoothly… Really do hope I am wrong…
Rutgers has 3 regional campuses with their own teams
So does the University of Wisconsin system and the ones with swim teams– D1: Madison, Green Bay, Milwaukee, DIII: Oshkosh, Whitewater, Eau Clare, Stevens Point, LaCrosse. University of Minnesota also has multiple campuses with swim teams, as does the University of California system.
I like your enthusiasm, however, not sure what this looks like with private schools that are already financially not great (Queens). Maybe there are some people on this thread with some experience with mergers like this, but this is just not a good sign related to the general health of the university.
And they are separate institutions. The main campuses in New Brunswick are D1 in the Big 10. The Newark and Camden campuses have separate leadership and are in D3. The situation is similar to the various “State University” campuses in NY State that are separate institutions. The NC merger is taking 2 different institutions and merging into one.
All of the state schools in Ohio are technically part of the same system (I found this out when I was trying to get my teaching license). Ohio University is technically University of Ohio – Ohio University. Cleveland State is University of Ohio – Cleveland State University.
Like others have said, they are completely different institutions—your diploma is from a specific school, and there generally aren’t cross-listed classes. The law schools at Camden and Newark merged, but the undergrads are separate.
No impact on sports…both campuses will maintain their athletic programs.
https://twitter.com/sportsmatters/status/1967961297011741003
While there might be more important questions, this is a swimming forum after all. Do we think Elon will pick up the swim and dive program? I assume they would want it on the main campus, but I don’t know if they have the facilities to support it.
I hope the swim team moves to Elon’s campus. Due to the current school sizes, I could see Elon becoming “main campus.” The sports facilities there are nicer than most would expect. Steph Curry’s sister, Sydel, played volleyball there and donated to add Volleyball renovations to the Schar center. As for swimming, Elon is currently renovating it’s student fitness center. The new development is planned to have an olympic sized pool which would be an upgrade from Queen’s 33-meter pool. I imagine a new pool and being on a bigger campus is a lot easier to recruit with. https://www.elonnewsnetwork.com/article/2024/09/new-healtheu-center-features-new-amenities
Elon’s school of health sciences graduate program is also opening a second site for Physician… Read more »
Elon is currently building a 50 meter pool.
The Queenslon Royal Phoenixes
Royal Phoenix does go hard. Queenslon…not so much.
I didn’t even realize this was something that could happen.
It’s happened pretty frequently for U.S. colleges and universities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_university_and_college_mergers_in_the_United_States