FISHKILL – Dutchess Community College held the official ribbon cutting for the long-awaited Fishkill campus on Thursday afternoon.
The new campus facility is located within the former Dutchess Mall, which had been vacant for years, and includes 45,000 square feet of space, 25 classrooms, and can hold over 500 students at a time. Fishkill campus will host tutoring services, an ebooks library, a number of multi-purpose study rooms, along with computer and science labs.
Associate Vice President of Administration and Facilities, Bridget Anderson, who is in charge of facilities for Dutchess and helped spearhead the Fishkill campus, said the location, being off of Route 9 and I-84, makes college learning accessible to many more people in the county and beyond. She said it is a major part of what makes the campus unique.
“It just gives us more accessibility to the community,” said Anderson. “Our location was probably halfway between here and the main campus, and this being on the southern-most end of the county allows accessibility to not only Dutchess County residents, but also Putnam County residents and upper Westchester County residents, so it makes education more convenient for our students,” she said.
The Fishkill campus will be the site for accelerated micro-credential programs including basic bookkeeping, small business management, computer support, networking for Cloud, web administration, personal training and public safety. All of these programs can be completed within a semester and strive to require only one on-campus day per week, which college officials believe will be highly advantageous to working, continuing ed adults.
The campus will open to students for the fall 2021 semester in late August.
It replaces the former Southern Dutchess college facilities in Wappingers Falls.
