In the late 1970s, Donna Kart was studying at Manhattan College and Mercy College. The courses she took were in a field that was up and coming at the time—computer programming, with an emphasis on accounting. But her college ambitions were put on the back burner when she got married, had kids, and moved to Dutchess County in 1984. “Life just changed,” says Kart, 54, of Wappingers Falls. She began working nights as a hostess and restaurant manager so she could take care of her children during the day. Although she enjoyed working in the restaurant industry, when Kart turned 30 she wanted “a career with better hours,” since her children were in school full-time.
Building on her passion for mathematics, which plays a role in generating computer code, she went back to college part-time at Mount Saint Mary College in Newburgh. Kart studied math and education, and is now a teacher at Van Wyck Junior High School. She has a bachelor’s in mathematics, an education certificate, and a master’s degree in special education. She received her master’s degree at 38. “I love it,” she says about teaching.
The Mid-Hudson Valley is home to more than a half-dozen colleges that offer professionals and entrepreneurs opportunities to gain skills in their current career fields or transition into new ones. Local colleges offer courses on an array of subjects that can help professionals gain skills in the 21st-century job market, including: emerging technology, such as 3-D printing at SUNY New Paltz; an aviation program at SUNY Dutchess; entrepreneurship; and a long list of other courses, workshops, and seminars. Here’s a glimpse of which area colleges offer courses for nontraditional students, as well as a sneak peek into some upcoming courses and programs.
3-D Printing, Green Initiatives
SUNY New Paltz has “one of the most sophisticated 3-D printing labs in the country,” says Daniel Freedman, dean of the college’s School of Science and Engineering and director of the Hudson Valley Advanced Manufacturing Center. “It’s definitely not a niche technology,” Freedman says. “Three-D printing is a technology that already has important applications in a number of fields such as art, engineering, math, all of the natural sciences, education, manufacturing, and medicine.” The college introduces students to computer-aided design with introductory and advanced art and engineering courses. Students can also minor in digital design and fabrication. Two 75-minute introductory courses in 3-D printing and 3-D computer-aided design, or CAD, modeling are open to the public. In addition to 3-D printing, SUNY New Paltz hosted a forum on green architecture and engineering on July 22 called “Conquer the Code,” which provided information to help architects and engineers design energy-efficient buildings. The US Green Building Council conducted the seminar “in response to new revisions to New York State’s Energy Conservation Construction Code.” The one-day course cost $75, and included a course manual. Those who completed it received green-business certification and continuing education credits. SUNY New Paltz had 201 nonmatriculated undergraduate students in fall 2015. Eighty-three, or 41 percent, were over 25.
Professional certification and business skills training in clean energy, as well as building science and energy efficiency, are offered at SUNY Ulster in Stone Ridge. About 30 certification programs are available at SUNY Ulster in its continuing and professional education department, including solar panel installation.
Teeming with Tech
A few other local colleges offer courses on computer-aided design software, and other types of technology. SUNY Ulster will offer a four-day class on 3-D computer-aided design software SolidWorks from August 15 to 18. The course, which runs from 8am to 4:30pm each day, is limited to 12 students. The cost is $1,600. SUNY Ulster also provides technical courses in lean manufacturing (eliminating waste and creating more with less resources), electrical theory, programmable logic controllers (digital computers used for controlling machines like factory assembly lines), and structured query language, or SQL (programming language used to manage data). The college recently added three programs to its computer science department that are set to begin in fall 2016: computer game design, Web application development, and mobile application development. Adult students make up slightly less than 20 percent of SUNY Ulster’s degree-seeking student body, says Deborah Kaufman, the college’s marketing and media services director.
Columbia-Greene Community College in Hudson offers computer software courses in programs like JAVA, Adobe Photoshop, and Microsoft Word, Excel, and QuickBooks. “These courses are very popular with employees needing to stay current with the newest applications, as well as small business owners who handle their own administrative functions,” explains Robert Bodratti, the director at the office of community services at Columbia-Greene Community College.
Elevating to Great Heights
SUNY Dutchess in Poughkeepsie has plans to roll out a Federal Aviation Administration-certified airframe and power-plant flight mechanics program in 2018. The program will be an expansion of the college’s existing aviation degree program. Dutchess currently offers a two-year aviation science degree program in which students can earn private and commercial pilot licenses. The lab fees for the courses cost an estimated $26,200. The college plans to partner with Dutchess County and the company FlightLevel Aviation, which operates Dutchess County Airport, to design and build a classroom and lab for its new initiative.
FlightLevel will mentor the college’s airframe and power-plant flight mechanics students, and give them hiring preference, according to Glenn Tanzman, the Dutchess Community College program manager for Start-Up NY. The company will also provide aviation program internship opportunities. FlightLevel has been approved in the Start-Up NY program, and will hire maintenance mechanics via the program this month. Start-Up NY allows “new and expanding businesses the opportunity to operate tax-free for 10 years on or near eligible university or college campuses in New York State,” according to its website. “These efforts are vital to the county’s strategy of turning the airport from an underutilized asset running at a loss into a profitable asset that helps drive the local economy,” says Tanzman.
Getting Down to Business
Classes such as Starting a Successful Home Business and Food Entrepreneurship are offered at Columbia-Greene Community College. Accelerated programs for adults are provided at Mount Saint Mary College in the following fields: accounting; business management and administration; human services; and interdisciplinary studies toward childhood education, nursing, and psychology. Accounting and nursing programs are also popular at the college.
SUNY Ulster offers programs in business and entrepreneurial studies to help small business owners get rolling. The college is home to the Darlene Pfeiffer Center for Entrepreneurial Studies, which helps students, faculty, and alumni work together on entrepreneurial projects with an emphasis on technology and sustainability. SUNY Ulster also sponsors the Mid-Hudson Small Business Development Center, which helps business owners and entrepreneurs create business plans, discover funding sources, and devise marketing plans.
It’s possible to earn a master’s degree in business administration online at Marist College, which hosts its annual Summer Entrepreneurship Institute.
Education for Educators
Mount Saint Mary College provides resources like its Center for Adolescent Research and Development, or CARD, which holds a series of talks and conferences for those in the field of education, and an annual literacy conference called Collaborative for Equity in Literacy Learning, or CELL. A two-session seminar on picturing writing and image-making literacy, which is part of the CELL initiative, will be held in August at the college’s Hudson Hall Auditorium. The technique helps meet the literacy needs of students with diverse learning styles. The first session runs from August 1 to 5, the second from August 8 to 12.
Skills Strengthening and New Careers
Columbia-Greene Community College has continuing education programs, such as a state building safety code training course to help students become code-compliance technicians and credentialing programs in medical assisting, phlebotomy, and electrocardiogram (EKG) technology.
Mount Saint Mary College will launch a new criminology major in fall 2016. “Students will get a nuanced exposure to understanding why crime happens, what to do after it happens, and what we can do to stop it,” says Jennifer Lee-Gonyea, an associate criminology professor at Mount Saint Mary. A criminology degree can lead to careers in law enforcement, corrections, mental health, and other related jobs.
It’s Never Too Late to Learn
It’s never too late to go back to school, according to Kart. Her aunt graduated from Pace University at 65, and was the first of her mom’s 11 siblings to receive a college degree. To further illustrate that point: Alvin Mann, a World War II veteran, of Cuddebackville in Orange County, graduated Mount Saint Mary College in May 2016 at 92. Mann, a history major, studied in the college’s Accelerated Adult Degree Completion Program.
This article appears in August 2016.
