Northeastern University opens campus in uptown

CHARLOTTE, N.C.,None — Uptown Charlotte is now home to a new university campus from Boston.

Massachusetts-based Northeastern University is setting up its first regional campus in Charlotte for some very specific reasons, and the school's president said he hopes to fill a gap for the city's future.

One of the big reasons Northeastern chose Charlotte is because it has a lot of college-educated workers in finance, energy and healthcare, but not a lot of graduate degrees around to get them to the next level in their careers.

Lieutenant Governor Walter Dalton called Charlotte "a city for the future" at the announcement. However, the city is facing high unemployment and layoffs from industry mainstays like Bank of America.

"Charlotte wants to be the knowledge hub, wants to be the health hub, wants to be the financial hub, wants to be the technology hub," said Northeastern University President Dr. Joseph Aoun.

Northeastern's classrooms will offer graduate programs targeting thousands of professionals already working in those areas who want more.

"It's really beneficial because you can apply what you learn in the classes to your actual dat-to-day activities at work, and vice versa," said Ph.D. student Matt Dubach.

The Charlotte campus will have some professors in the city and video links to others in Boston. It expects about 300 graduate students when classes start in January.

Northeastern is just the latest to offer advanced degrees.

UNC Charlotte has an uptown campus, and Wake Forest has a business school in SouthPark.

The head of Charlotte's Chamber of Commerce thinks more will follow.

WSOC