MEC Stakeholders Breakfast Celebrates Achievements and Future

MEC President Rudolph F. Crew held a breakfast meeting with some of the College’s important stakeholders last Thursday to thank them for their support, provide an update on MEC’s progress, and to sketch a vision for the future. The meeting in the Dining Hall of AB1 included community and business leaders, elected officials and members of the clergy.

Dr. Crew thanked attendees for working in lockstep with him to create an institution that meets students where they are and prepares them to successfully compete in a global society. The Stakeholders Breakfast was an opportunity to reach out to long-time supporters, as well as to potential partners with innovative approaches to education.

The President presented data points on College achievements and also mentioned several new or future initiatives. He pointed out the opening of the School of Education this semester, an upcoming Bachelor degree program in Fine Arts, a revitalized Religious Studies program, as well as continued global outreach through initiatives like the Caribbean Consortium.

Other potential areas of program expansion cited included Cyber Security, African-American History, and Engineering.

A larger capital footprint will be achieved through construction of a new academic building, at an estimated cost of approximately $283 million, said Dr. Crew. The new building, with capital funding from public and private partnerships, will help take the college to the next level and accommodate the goal of increased enrollment. The building could also serve as a performing arts venue.

“The growth of the enrollment here never means in any way subjugating the original intention and spirit and the culture of what this college has been,” Dr. Crew said.

MEC was established in 1970 by a coalition of elected officials, educators and community leaders who sought an institution in Brooklyn to meet the social and educational needs of the Central Brooklyn community. Increased enrollment will bring greater diversity of all kinds, Dr. Crew noted, and he expressed the hope that the newest incarnation of diversity would be embraced in MEC’s tradition of social justice.

Among the programs housed in a new building would be the School of Education (which offers a new model for urban education) as well as the Pipeline Program and Parent Academy; the School of Professional Development; a Faith Center; Beacon Programs; a Childcare Center and a Transitional Help Facility for students.

The five-year forecast is to continue to increase space and infrastructure, generate internships and experiential learning opportunities, expand the Caribbean Consortium and offer new degree and certificate programs, stakeholders were told.

Here are some of the data points shared by the President:

• Fall 2017 freshman enrollment increased by 4.1 percent. Entering freshmen in a Baccalaureate degree program increased 28 percent.
• Seventy-six Excelsior Awardees enrolled as students this semester
• The College awarded 204 more degrees than the previous academic year
• First-time Freshmen are increasingly better prepared and need fewer developmental courses