I’m excited to share some important updates with our community.
While it is a distant memory when looking at our institution today, MTI College originally came into existence nearly 60 years ago as a school that taught grocery checking…
Had MTI not found ways to evolve, improve, and match pace with the changing times in higher education, I can say with certainty we would not have lasted five years, let alone nearly 60. Now, and as you all have seen firsthand in a post-COVID world, the rate of change in higher education has only grown more quickly and more dramatically. Just as our college had to reinvent itself beyond grocery checking, we have also started the transformation to become a leading institution of the digital and information age in the wake of the pandemic.
As that transformation began, it became clear that MTI would require significant financial, technology, and human resources to continue to provide quality, affordable, and relevant education in this new age of higher education. In response to those needs, CampusGroup, Inc. has taken a controlling stake in MTI College.
Who is CampusGroup?
CampusGroup was founded by Tade Oyerinde with a mission to develop a new model for higher education in America. CampusGroup built the digital learning platform Campuswire, and it is backed by Jason Citron, founder of Discord; Dylan Field, founder of Figma; Sam Altman, founder of OpenAI; Bloomberg Beta; and many others. Their model for higher education, called the Campus Model, emphasizes quality, affordability and accessibility.
What is the Campus Model?
The Campus Model aims to provide an educational experience that centers on the following principles:
- Quality – through access to modern curriculum and software taught by instructors highly recognized for their teaching ability and expertise in their field.
- Affordability – by keeping tuition low and providing free learning materials, some students that qualify for grants, such as the Pell Grant or Cal Grant, may attend without the need to take on any debt.
- Accessibility – through the creation of an all-in-one digital learning platform, Campuswire, that allows students to learn from anywhere in the world.
What changes are coming?
- Students will continue in their existing academic programs undisturbed.
- All staff and instructors will continue in their existing roles, including me as president.
- The College will continue to reside on Madison Avenue in Sacramento, CA.
- Our current accreditation under ACCJC, Accrediting Commission for Community and Junior Colleges and affiliations with Paul Mitchell, the American Bar Association, and Amazon Web Services will continue.
- Existing academic programs will be evaluated for transition in whole or in part to the Campus Model.
- The first program based on the Campus Model will be the Business Administration Associate Degree starting January 17, 2023. You can find a preview of this program here.
- Current business administration students will have the option to continue in their courses as they originally enrolled or transfer to the new version of the program.
- As other programs transition in the future, existing students will always have the option to continue in their courses as they originally enrolled or transfer to the new version of the program.
- A new, independent board of trustees has been installed to oversee the institution. The members are:
- Dr. Arthur Levine (President Emeritus, Teacher’s College, Columbia University)
- Dr. Eduardo J. Padrón (President Emeritus, Miami Dade College)
- Dr. Gail O’ Mellow (Former President, LaGuardia Community College)
- Dr. Joe May (Chancellor Emeritus, Dallas College)
- Dr. John Silvanus Wilson (Former President, Morehouse College)
- Tade Oyerinde (Founder & CEO, CampusGroup)
- Michael Zimmerman (President, Campus)
- And probably most significantly from your perspective, MTI College is changing its name to Campus.
As such, I imagine many of you will be asking, “why is ‘college’ or ‘university’ not in the name?”
Our goal is to create a new model for the college experience, one that lowers costs and barriers to students and raises accessibility and quality of outcomes. As that model is a break from the historical trajectory of higher education at large, we felt the need to detach ourselves from the thousands of other colleges and universities in the country. We believe the name Campus is bold, iconic, and, while rooted in the college experience, is clearly unique.
However, it is not lost on us that the MTI College name carries significant weight with employers in the Sacramento area. With that in mind, we are proactively communicating with those partners to introduce the Campus name and reaffirm our commitment to providing graduates that are equipped with the knowledge, skills and confidence necessary to be successful in their careers.
On that note, references to MTI College are ubiquitous and this transition to Campus will need to occur in stages to honor our history and cause negligible disruption to the student experience. So, please be mindful that this will not occur overnight.
While I imagine many of you are eager to see other academic programs migrate to the Campus Model, it is important to understand that this transformation will be a multi-year effort. It must be done in a methodical manner that does not disrupt your current learning experience, or compromise the quality of instruction or outcomes that you are accustomed to. Furthermore, doing this in stages allows us to learn and improve our process and product with each successive milestone.
You will gradually see the transition to the Campus name, initially through changes to our website and social media handles and eventually into all aspects of how our name is communicated.
If I could leave you with only one takeaway from this message, it would be that this transformation will be conducted with your best interests at the core of the process. While there are likely more questions than we have answers at this early stage, I invite you to speak with any department head or directly with me should you wish to learn more about our next steps.
Here’s to our next 60 years,
Michael Zimmerman
President
Campus