Dive Temporary:
- Fairfield College, a 5,800-student four-year Jesuit establishment in Connecticut, will open a brand new two-year campus in close by Bridgeport in fall 2023, it introduced Wednesday.
- The brand new location, to be known as Fairfield Bellarmine, will goal to coach college students to allow them to land good jobs or switch to bachelor’s applications at four-year establishments, the college stated in a information launch. It’s going to give attention to serving native college students between the ages of 18 and 22.
- The campus can be situated at a web site that used to host the previous St. Ambrose College and a church, working initially in a former rectory and convent.
Dive Perception:
Fairfield’s growth plans present that even in a time when faculty enrollment has been falling nationwide, and when establishments have been closing, some leaders will see native markets and underserved pupil populations that they imagine can assist new choices.
It will also be seen for instance of a method touted by greater ed leaders: partnerships between schools and different sorts of organizations. Fairfield College is working with the Diocese of Bridgeport on the brand new location.
“The Bellarmine initiative is one other modern partnership offering larger alternatives and pathways to achievement for college kids of promise,” Fairfield president Mark Nemec stated in an announcement.
The diocese stated in 2013 that it was closing St. Ambrose College, an elementary college that was hooked up to a shuttered church, the Connecticut Put up reported. The positioning wanted repairs, and the varsity confronted monetary challenges. The transfer was a part of a reorganization of diocesean faculties that got here amid a wave of Catholic college closures throughout the nation within the face of falling enrollment and donations.
However the location wasn’t the primary to be thought of for the brand new campus. Fairfield College and the diocese initially sought to arrange a 200-student campus in a special location in Bridgeport earlier than encountering native resistance, together with issues about visitors and whether or not the brand new campus can be situated close to the underrepresented pupil populations it seeks to focus on, the Connecticut Put up reported.
The diocese will proceed to personal the property the place the brand new college campus can be situated.
Fairfield College’s writing and math heart will keep a presence on the new campus. The college is promising to have mentoring and peer tutors. College students on the two-year campus will have the ability to participate in Fairfield College actions like golf equipment and intramural sports activities. They’re going to additionally have the ability to entry the college’s important campus, about 7 miles away.
“By making a pathway to greater training, we’re additionally making a pathway to hope and to achievement for college kids with untapped promise and potential,” the Most Rev. Frank J. Caggiano, Bishop of Bridgeport, stated in an announcement.
