by Zoe DeFazio, Staff Writer
Manhattan College’s School of Engineering, School of Continuing and Professional Studies and O’Malley School of Business have announced a new post-baccalaureate certificate program for Green Power and Sustainable Energy.
The certificate program is open to all college graduates and consists of five courses that total to fifteen credits. Students can complete this program in less than one year. There are two required courses, one in engineering and one in business, with an additional three elective courses in the Schools of Engineering, Business, and Continuing and Professional Studies.
Dean of the O’Malley School of Business, Donald Gibson, addressed his views on how the new interdisciplinary program can provide MC students with the proper skills to understand the working world.
“Professionals in all industries need to understand how energy sources affect the environment and how corporations can develop and use green power on a larger scale. This program provides insights into these areas,” Gibson wrote in an email to The Quadrangle.
Gibson then further explains how MC needed a program designed for sustainability.
“Understanding sustainability is critical in a time when climate change is having an increasing impact on all of our lives. Understanding sustainability is complex–and having the perspective of business and engineering in understanding delivery systems, regulation and markets is important,” he wrote.
This program shows how Manhattan College is able to encourage a dialogue between faculty across MC’s schools to approach an issue of importance to our society.
“In the O’Malley School, we have had several students do research in the area of Environmental Economics, working on ways to nudge students to use their energy resources more wisely. Having a program like this can serve as motivation for the College overall to focus on its environment and processes to assure that they’re sustainable,” he wrote.
Manhattan College’s administration also met with leadership from Con Edison Clean Energy Businesses to review the program. The input from Con Edison Clean Energy helped MC to better understand specific green power and sustainable energy needs for professionals working in the energy sector.
Dean of the School of Engineering, Tim Ward, also discussed how Con Edison Clean Energy Business has been an essential part of the process to create the new program.
“Con Edison Clean Energy Business has been a very strong supporter of Manhattan College for many years and continues to be,” Ward said. “This is an idea that came from them and we liked that idea too. So that’s why we formed this or created this program. And this program is now registered with New York State Education Department.”
Dean of the School of Continuing and Professional Studies,Steven Goss, weighed in and shared the expectations within the new post-baccalaureate certificate program.
“By the end of this program students will be able to differentiate between alternative energy sources in terms of generation and utilization, critique the integration of business into its natural environment through the utilization of the triple bottom line framework for long-term sustainability and analyze strategies that will maximize the value of the project experience to the organization by capturing best practices and lessons learned.”
Goss then went on to talk about how MC can greatly benefit from a program that discusses the new sources of power the world partakes in and how business can coincide with helping the world.
“ It is essential that we, as citizens of a global community, take new approaches to energy use. This opportunity is for more than students in our traditional engineering or Master of Business Administration programs, it’s for anyone who wants the skills and knowledge to actively be involved in this important discussion,” Goss said.