City Tech Profile
NEW YORK CITY COLLEGE OF TECHNOLOGY
New York City College of Technology (City Tech) of The City University of New York (CUNY) is the largest public college of technology in New York State and a national model for technological education. Established in 1946, City Tech can trace its roots to 1881 when The Technical Schools of the Metropolitan Museum of Art were renamed The New York Trade School. That institution -- which became the Voorhees Technical Institute many decades later -- was soon a model for the development of technical/vocational schools worldwide. In 1971, Voorhees was incorporated into City Tech.
Today, through its Schools of Technology & Design, Professional Studies and Arts & Sciences, City Tech offers 56 degree and specialized certificate programs in the technologies of art and design, business, computer systems, engineering, entertainment, health care, hospitality, human services, the law-related professions, career and technology teacher education, and the liberal arts and sciences.
Its 29 associate and 17 baccalaureate degree programs provide a rare blend of specialized technological instruction and broad education in the liberal arts and sciences. Many of these programs are offered nowhere else within the CUNY system or in the metropolitan area. Recently introduced baccalaureate programs or program options in applied mathematics, architectural technology, communication design, computer systems, facilities management and travel and tourism (an option within the degree program in hospitality management) not only help meet the urgent need for skilled professionals in these areas, but are also attracting record numbers of transfer students and enabling more of the College’s associate degree program graduates to continue their education here. City Tech’s new bachelor’s degree program in health services administration, started during academic year 2004/2005, does the same.
City Tech’s outstanding faculty -- many recruited from business, industry and the professions and most holding the highest degree in their fields -- provide students with the benefit of their extensive knowledge and real-world experience. More than half of the College’s full time faculty was hired during the past five years.
Students and faculty from more than 100 countries and speaking more than 60 languages help to create and sustain an exceptional learning environment. For four of the last five years City Tech ranked first in the diversity of the students it serves among all Comprehensive Colleges/Bachelor’s (North) in the annual survey by U.S. News & World Report. The College also ranks at or near the top of all colleges in the nation in the number of African-American, Asian-American and Hispanic students enrolled in associate degree programs in the engineering technologies.
The College is home to a number of “learning communities, a powerful approach to the delivery of instruction, through which sizable numbers of incoming freshmen take two or more classes together, some of which are multi-disciplinary. This approach to education has produced solid results in student retention and other measures of academic success.
City Tech has produced some 78,000 graduates, most of whom have remained in the metropolitan New York area and continue to contribute to its economic and professional vitality. Many of the College’s alumni are prominent in their fields and include more than 1,000 graduates of record who are or have been organizational CEOs or owners of their own businesses. The percentage of its graduates passing licensing exams in the health-related professions is substantially higher than the statewide average, and almost half of all New York State minority engineering technicians are City Tech alumni. Nationally, the figure is nearly one in five.
Known informally as City Tech, New York City College of Technology enrolls over 13,500 students in 57 baccalaureate and associate degree programs. It also enrolls about 15,000 students annually through its Division of Continuing Education and External Partnerships. Here, highly innovative programs help meet the specific training and retraining needs of working men and women and provide regional businesses of all types with the technological and managerial skills they need to successfully compete in increasingly competitive local, national and global markets. Many of these programs lead to licensure and certification. City Tech programs are designed to anticipate emerging employment trends in the city, state, and nation, not just to follow them.
City Tech enjoys a long-standing reputation for its involvement in economic development and business assistance. A study by the Wall Street-based Center for an Urban Future identifies City Tech and its Business & Industry Training Center as "one of CUNY's leading job training and business assistance centers with a strong set of programs that many employers have come to rely on."
Located at MetroTech Center in Downtown Brooklyn and a two-minute walk from all public transportation facilities serving the area, City Tech is a member of the Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce, the Downtown Brooklyn Council and the MetroTech Business Improvement District as well as an active partner in the economic renaissance of the borough. Its academic, adult education, and business and community assistance programs are widely recognized throughout the private and public sectors as integral to the development of a highly skilled workforce throughout the region.
The impact of City Tech extends far beyond its physical boundaries. Students enjoy numerous opportunities to enhance their education through research assistantships and related opportunities at prestigious national laboratories. Their experience is similarly enhanced through internship and service learning opportunities across the curriculum, in addition to an international student exchange program with the technological college of the University of Paris and other study abroad initiatives. A highly proactive Placement Office provides extensive job placement opportunities for both current students and those about to graduate, while a broad array of voluntary community assistance projects enables them to apply their knowledge, test their skills and put what they are learning in the classroom to good use in the service of others while still in school.
As the College begins its second 60 years, we look forward to the new academic complex that will soon be under construction at the corner of Tillary and Jay Streets. On the site of the current gym and auditorium will be an academic complex of approximately 300,000 square feet that will house programs in the sciences and health-related areas. For the first time, these growing programs will have teaching and laboratory space built specifically to meet their needs. The building will benefit from the participation of the celebrated architect Renzo Piano and will be CUNY's first public-private partnership to develop academic facilities. It will provide attractive, modern space to a rapidly growing college.
At the same time, the College's Voorhees Building, the center for the engineering technologies, will receive a makeover, changing it into a sleek icon of the Information Age. The new face of the building will make it clear that it is a place where you can create the future and can learn the technological skills necessary to thrive in it. Coupled with the recent renovation of the Namm complex, where the majority of our classrooms are located, the new and renovated space will allow City Tech to serve New Yorkers in a hospitable, modern and effective set of buildings.
