by Theresa King & Daniel Clarke
Managing Editor & Senior Reporter
In a memo emailed to the university community on Monday, President Capuano said plans for expanded hospitality programs and a new student center are moving forward.
Expanded plans for the new student center include an education wing for the hospitality program, which will support the training for a new fourstory hotel planned for the North Lot. Capuano told The Equinox that the hotel could not be more than four stories high due to its proximity to Teterboro Airport.
“For the International School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, we are finalizing a large gift agreement with a global hospitality corporation to support the construction of a new academic facility for the hospitality school and for executive and continuing education,” Capuano said in the email memo. “The new facility is likely to be a wing of a new Campus Union Building that is proposed for the Metropolitan Campus. In the next few weeks, leadership will be appointed and charged to move this project forward quickly.”
Capuano told The Equinox that the new Campus Union Building is likely to cost in the range of $35 million to $40 million, if not more. It will include a wing for academic units— namely the hospitality school and continuing and executive education, for which the University will be seeking funding from private donors and the eventual owners and operators of the hotel. Capuano said the University will continue to own the land and establish a land lease agreement for the hotel, thereby generating a new revenue stream for the University with no outlay of capital.
Changes in its hospitality program extend overseas.
“We also recently hired a program coordinator for a new hospitality program at Wroxton College,” Capuano said in the email. “The MS in Hospitality Management Studies will be the first full degree program offered at Wroxton College in more than 50 years and is expected to enroll its first class this coming fall. Finally, the accreditation site visit conducted earlier this year by the Accreditation Commission for Programs in Hospitality A d m i n i s t r a t i o n (ACPHA) went very well, and we expect to achieve full accreditation status by July 2017.”
This accreditation follows Capuano’s announcement last September that the university had purchased the North Arms property adjacent to the Wroxton Campus.
“This venue will be fully renovated to become a full service restaurant and pub, as well as an important training facility for our students in hospitality management studies,” he said at the Convocation ceremonies last year. “In addition, it will become a place of leisure for other students, faculty, staff and alumni who visit Wroxton College on a regular basis.”
