Nassau Community College will be celebrating the anniversary of its founding in 1959. 
Please bookmark this web page for regular updates of festivities throughout 2009 and 2010.

In many ways, the history of Nassau Community College mirrors the history of Long Island. After World War II, prosperity and population growth fueled a mass migration to the suburbs. The post-war baby boom caused a swell of school construction across the country. By the 1950s, a generation of parents—many of whom had gotten a college education via the GI Bill—wanted their children to go to college as well. The drive was on to create an affordable college on Long Island.

Long Island actually had a community college of sorts for a while during the depression. The Nassau Collegiate Center was “a temporary public junior college” set up by New York State and CCNY, the City College of New York, and later run by the Workers Progress Administration (WPA). But the Nassau Collegiate Center closed in 1937, leaving the area with no local affordable institute of higher education.

Taking its cue from a sign on the Long Island Expressway that read “Welcome to Nassau County: The Fastest Growing Community in the United States,” enrollment at NCC increased dramatically after 1962. Classes and offices were moved to more spacious, if not more elegant, facilities at the former U.S. Air Force base at Mitchel Field—a $130,000,000 collection of wooden barracks buildings, hangars, an administration and operations building, a mess hall, a hospital and runways. An old chapel served as the theatre.

By the summer of 1965, the student population had risen to more than 7,000 (more than 400 percent more than when the school opened) and the professional staff numbered 245. The first school newspaper, NASCO, ran an editorial requesting that the college be made into a four-year school. Growth continued throughout the booming 1960s. It was during this period that the college became the largest of 28 community colleges in the SUNY system. Academic offerings were expanded and NCC athletic teams thrived. Existing facilities were refurbished and many of the old barracks torn down to make way for additional parking areas, but the campus overall still left a little to be desired. In the late 1960s, there were some student protests as was the fashion at the time, but none of the large protests that went on at other colleges.

As the 1970s dawned, enrollment stood at more than 16,500. To accommodate such rapid growth, the clusters—or what some who have been at Nassau for decades still call the “new” campus—were completed, creating a significant amount of new classroom, lab and office space. Little by little, pieces of Mitchel Field began disappearing. Advances in technology and societal changes started to also change the way the college worked.

Student enrollment growth stabilized during this decade. In the late 1970s, the method of admission changed from the lottery system that had been used since NCC’s inception to open admission. Students of different ethnicities began to attend the school, albeit in small numbers. Students also got representation in the academic senate for the first time. With student government and faculty-driven programs growing, campus life began to thrive.

The 1980s and 1990s brought still more expansion to Nassau Community College. The student body became much more diverse, once again mirroring the population of the Island. This led to the development of several more ethnic and religious student clubs. Degree programs grew in number and size. Dr. Sean Fanelli became president of the college in 1982. Later in the decade, plans were drawn up for a modern social science and visual arts building and a student center building. Building G, which was completed in 1997, has 37 classrooms, two black-and-white darkrooms, a color darkroom, and a modern kiln. The College Center Building (CCB) consists of 85,000 square-feet of space that is used for cultural programs, conferences, student clubs and other campus activities. A new food court opened in the CCB in 2001.

Today, Nassau is the largest single-campus community college in the State of New York. More than 22,000 students are enrolled in 30 academic departments. Among them are individuals from nearly 60 countries who speak 35 different languages. Another 14,000 people take non-credit continuing and professional studies courses. Over 110 academic, athletic, cultural, religious, political and social clubs are available to students. Nearly 70 percent of NCC graduates go on to a four-year school.

In 2009, there are 47 buildings on a 225-acre campus, with more on the way. Construction is scheduled to begin this year on a $40 million Life Sciences Building, which will house the Nursing and Chemistry departments. An open-air courtyard will be enclosed within the U-shaped building. Funds are also partially in place for a new performing arts facility.

For a half-century, Nassau has had a tremendous impact on the lives of those who have attended the college. As it has grown, NCC has also been a major component of the Nassau County economy. Even with all of this growth, however, the college campus still contains many reminders of its unique history. Whether it be the old hospital building that now houses the Music and Communications departments; Bradley Hall, the former officers’ headquarters, which is the current headquarters of the English department; or the officers’ dining hall, which houses the Hospitality Business department, buildings from the Mitchel Field base are all around. Even the generals’ houses are still standing. Many of them are now used for various administrative departments.

The current faculty and staff of NCC are the stewards of a great legacy. They stand on the shoulders of all those who have gone before them: not just their own predecessors, but the more than 121,000 students who have graduated from the college since its inception and the nearly three quarters of a million people who have taken advantage of NCC resources as well. All of us are charged with maintaining the excellence of the college for generations to come.