By Colin Young, News Staff
Approval for a Northeastern University satellite campus in Charlotte, N.C. is expected to come this fall. The university hopes to offer a doctorate in education and eight master’s-level programs at the campus starting next year.
The campus, set in Charlotte’s uptown financial district, will be the university’s first expansion outside Massachusetts. Charlotte was selected after a national search because of the city’s economic growth and educational opportunity, Senior Vice President for External Affairs Mike Armini told The News.
“Charlotte is a great opportunity for us because there is a high percentage of people with bachelor’s degree, but not a high percentage of people with master’s degrees,” he said.
Armini also said the university hopes to receive approval in the coming months from the University of North Carolina Board of Governors, N.C.’s higher education licensing authority after an extended licensing process.
“We submitted an application to offer professional graduate degrees in Charlotte,” Armini said. “We are awaiting approval and hope to hear from them this fall.”
The satellite campus would offer classroom-based courses as well as online degrees. The expansion represents a shift away from what President Joseph Aoun called “place-based” learning in an article he wrote in the May 8 Chronicle of Higher Education.
“Today a college or university increasingly is not just one place, but many places — a main campus, a satellite branch in a different city or state, an international outpost and a virtual-learning environment,” Aoun wrote. “This major evolution is likely to proceed further as the demographic changes and competitive pressures facing our sector continue to intensify.”
In the article, Aoun said that a university is no longer bound just by a physical campus and must diversify the ways it delivers its “services.”
“Now the rapid march of technology, customers with new needs and global opportunities are driving the evolution of the new delivery system that we see today in higher education,” he said.
To bolster its presence in Charlotte, the university hired Cheryl Richards to take over as regional dean and executive for the Charlotte campus June 1. Richards was previously campus and academic dean at Central Piedmont Community College in Charlotte.
Richards was not immediately available for comment.
