THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, April 19, 1995 TAG: 9504190407
SECTION: BUSINESS PAGE: D1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Short : 47 lines
The College of William and Mary on Tuesday officially opened its Peninsula Center, which offers night classes leading to master's degrees in business administration.
For the past 10 years, William and Mary had been offering courses in its part-time M.B.A. program in classrooms at Christopher Newport University.
Christopher Newport was not charging the college rent, Newport spokesman John W. Campbell Jr. said Tuesday. But William and Mary officials wanted their own space.
The new center, which began classes this semester, has three classrooms in an Oyster Point office complex in Newport News.
The intention of the new center is not to attract more students, said Alfred N. Page, dean of William and Mary's School of Business Administration. What it will do is give students more access to computers and other high-tech equipment.
``It really just allows us to provide students with a much better facility,'' Page said. ``When you're a guest in somebody's institution,you're not going to put that investment in.''
About 200 people are enrolled in the program, Page said. Most work full-time and take about three years to complete the degree. Almost a quarter of the students are from South Hampton Roads.
Two other universities offer M.B.A.s on the Peninsula - Hampton and Old Dominion, which has a center in Hampton.
State education officials, tight on money, have prodded colleges to avoid offering the same programs in a region. But Page said there's a need on the rapidly developing Peninsula.
``We have delivered the program for 10 years,'' he said. ``It's a market-driven program. If students weren't interested in it, it wouldn't exist.''
Judith S. Scott, director of ODU's Peninsula Center, which has about 120 M.B.A. students, said she doesn't foresee increased competition.
``The fact that they're on the Peninsula is not new; they've been here for some time,'' she said. ``It's always great to have as much opportunity and diversity as possible. This gives students a chance.'' by CNB