Boston – Wentworth Institute of Technology has received approval for university status from the Massachusetts Department of Higher Education. As required by the Code of the Massachusetts Regulations, the institute has established graduate programs in four “distinct professional fields of study” and has demonstrated that it has “faculty, facilities, and resources necessary to support sound graduate programs.”
Over the last eight years, Wentworth has developed graduate programs in design (Master of Architecture); management (Master of Science in Construction Management, Master of Science in Facility Management, and Master of Science in Technology Management); engineering (Master of Engineering in Civil Engineering); and sciences (Master of Science in Applied Computer Science). The Institute has also been recognized as a university by the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education and U.S. News & World Report.
The institute’s name will not change; it will remain as is — Wentworth Institute of Technology. The university designation will help the institute expand its name recognition, and the value of the Wentworth degree will be enhanced as the institute continues gaining regional and national visibility.
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“The faculty and staff have done a tremendous job in developing our graduate programs,” said President Zorica Pantić. “The university designation strengthens our mission to educate and prepare our students for career success and engaged citizenship through our undergraduate programs and, now, graduate programs.”
She added that the graduate programs provide Wentworth’s alumni and other working professionals with the opportunity to come back to the Institute throughout their careers, expand and retool their knowledge, and continue to be successful.
The Institute’s trustees voted to move forward with university status in May, and the school received word of the state approval via a letter to Wentworth in July.
Below is a list of frequently asked questions that was compiled with feedback from students, faculty, and staff during a series of campus-wide meetings this spring to discuss university status.
Achievement of university status is one important step in a series of key transformations of the Institute. For instance, Wentworth broke ground on June 21 on a $55-million building for engineering, innovation, and sciences—the first new academic structure on campus in 45 years. Wentworth also recently renovated its aged library, transforming it into the modern, state-of-the-art Douglas D. Schumann Library & Learning Commons.
