Feeling like it’s time to go back to school?
Your timing couldn’t be better.
Metropolitan College of New York is back in the Bronx.
MCNY hosted an open house on Tuesday, March 13, for prospective students, elected officials and members of the media, to celebrate the opening of its Bronx Extension Center located at 529 Cortlandt Avenue.
The new campus will provide added convenience for prospective and current students who live and work in the Bronx.
The MCNY Bronx Extension Center will offer associate, bachelor and master degree programs including an associate of arts, bachelor of professional studies in human services, associate of science, bachelor of business administration in business or health systems management, master of public administration and an accredited alcohol and substance abuse counseling program.
After closing its previous Bronx Extension Center in 2006, and experiencing tremendous success at the Manhattan Campus, MCNY college president Vinton Thompson said he felt its was time to get back to the Bronx.
“We had an extension center in the Bronx from about 1992 to 2006, and we closed it in the summer of 2006,” Thompson said. “I believe that we made a mistake in judgement when we closed the center, as we were quite successful there. The reason for the closing at the time was that our lease had expired and we had a hard time negotiating a new lease that met our needs.”
Thompson said he feels it is important to re-establish the college in a place where the school was previously successful.
“We have a tremendous base of alumni who are evidence of the good work we did when we were in the Bronx,” Thompson said.
Thompson said he feels one of the challenges going forward will be finding another space to meet the future capacity needs, as he anticipates a large enrollment at the Bronx Extension Center.
“We are planning an enrollment of about 400 students in the Bronx,” Thompson said. “I personally think we have the potential to serve 500 students in the Bronx, and we are looking for a facility to accommodate that.”
Thompson said he feels with all of the redevelopments the Bronx, and the south Bronx in particular have gone through over the last few years, it has tremendous potential and is a perfect place for the Extension Center.
“I think the Bronx as a whole has been underserved in education,” Thompson said. “I think there is a hunger for the kind of education that we can bring and I think our programs are the kind of programs that will serve the people in the community and in the Bronx well.”
