Five Towns College


Five Towns College is a private, independent college located in the Town of Huntington, hamlet of Dix Hills, New York. It is the only private residential college in all of Suffolk County.

History

Founded in 1972, Five Towns College holds an Absolute Charter issued by the New York State Board of Regents. Its programs of study are registered by the New York State Education Department. The College is regionally accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education. It also holds national accreditation by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education and by the National Association of Schools of Music.
The College's unique cluster of degree programs focus on music, media and the performing arts. It offers associate, bachelor, master's and doctoral degree programs through eight academic divisions. These include Music, Theatre Arts, Mass Communications, Film/Video, Business and Entertainment Industry Studies, Liberal Arts, Interactive Computer Graphics, and Teacher Education. The most popular majors on campus include Audio Recording Technology, Broadcasting, Musical Theatre, Journalism, and Music Teacher Education.
Approximately 1/3 of Five Towns College students reside on-campus in the College's Living/Learning Center - a complex of four recently constructed residence halls with private bathrooms, student center and music practice rooms. The College is also home to the John Lennon Center for Music and Technology. The JLC is home to the College's industry-standard suite of sound recording studios, film sound stage, interactive computer graphics lab, and student run radio station WFTU. The College is also equipped with a MIDI Studio, Film Editing Lab, and Piano/Keyboard Lab. All pianos at the College are by Yamaha.
The Five Towns College Performing Arts Center is a fully rigged main stage theatre, equipped with state-of-the-art lighting and sound equipment, and seating for 600. The College also includes a black box style playhouse, costume shop, and set design and construction workshop. Through its Theatre Arts Division the College produces a variety of Broadway-style theatre productions each year, including musicals, dramas, and comedies. Through its Film/Video Division, students produce a variety of motion picture projects, including narrative, experimental and short films. The College annually hosts the Long Island Media Arts Show, The Luminary Student Film Awards, and the Long Island 48-hour Film Festival, among many others.
The Lorraine Kleinman and Stanley G. Cohen Memorial Library/Learning Resource Center includes an extensive digital and bound collection of materials that support the academic program. It also includes an Educational Technology Center for the training and development of online learning skills for both students and faculty. Additional support services include Wellness Counseling, Academic Advisement, and Tutoring Services. The College also has a professional Student Success Center, which supports the academic goals of students with documented learning disabilities pursuant to the American's With Disabilities Act. Five Towns College also offers the only Higher Education Opportunity Program on Long Island, which provides additional support services for students who are designated as both academically and economically disadvantaged by the New York State Education Department.
The College's success with helping students succeed was recognized by U.S. News and World Reports, which in 2020 designated Five Towns College as ranking in the top 10 - 12% of all regionally colleges in the North, and which ranked it as number 3 among all regional colleges in the North in the category of Social Mobility - a ranking of a school's ability to help the most economically challenged students to graduate.
The Five Towns College Sound Athletic Department is a member of the United States Collegiate Athletic Association. It competes as a full member of the Hudson Valley Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. The College offers men's and women's basketball, volleyball, and soccer. In 2020 it will begin offering competition in e-sports. The College's mascot is Fader the Seagull. Home games are streamed around the world by Mass Communication degree program students, who provide play-by-play coverage from the College's television lab - Studio 400, which is located adjacent to the Sound Arena.
The College's name comes from the original proposed campus, which was to be in Lawrence in southwestern Nassau County, New York, an area known as "The Five Towns". However, the College never opened in that location. Its first campus was actually sited in Merrick, New York. Its second campus was located in Seaford, New York. The College acquired its permanent home in Dix Hills in 1992, and relocated here for the Fall 1992 semester. The College also operates a broadcast transmission facility for its FCC licensed radio station at Riverhead, NY.
College operated radio station broadcasts 24 hours at 1570 AM and streams around the world over the internet. The College recently received a construction permit to build an FM broadcasting transmission facility. It anticipates FM broadcast operations to begin during the 2020-21 Academic Year.
The College offers a variety of financial aid programs to eligible students, and awarded nearly 2.4 Million Dollars in institutional grants to students for the 2019-20 Academic Year. These awards help reduce the cost of an education at Five Towns College to one of the lowest in the Long Island/New York City Metropolitan Region. The College fully funds the education of its most economically challenged students, while assuring affordability for all. The College also offers the only Tuition Rate Lock-Guarantee, which provides that tuition will not increase for any student who maintains good academic standing, remains continuously enrolled, re-registers on-time, and graduates on-time. Through this program, graduation rates have increased 12% in just two years. According to the U.S. Department of Education IPEDS Report, the official graduation rate for the College is now 51%, consistent with that of four-year private colleges.

Academics

Five Towns College offers programs that lead to the A.A., A.S., A.A.S., B.S., B.B.A, B.F.A, Mus.B., M.M., and D.M.A. degrees. Although the College offers a comprehensive music program that caters to all musical genres, it was the first in New York State to offer a program which focused on Jazz and Commercial Music. It was also the first to offer a program in Music Business, and has one of the most extensive programs in Audio Recording Technology.

Notable alumni