CCNY is the fifth CUNY college to host a regional New York Small Business Development Center.
The City College of New York has partnered with the New York Small Business Development Centers to open a regional center at CCNY to encourage entrepreneurship and the creation of small businesses by the members of the CCNY community, as well as entrepreneurs and small businesses throughout Upper Manhattan.
This will be the fifth CUNY campus to host a regional center, joining Baruch College, York College, the College of Staten Island, and LaGuardia Community College. The center will be located in Shepard Hall and managed by the Office of Institutional Advancement, Communications, & External Relations (OIACER). It will provide no-cost one-on-one business advisement, training and research for aspiring entrepreneurs and business owners.
In addition to the full-time staff, CCNY faculty members with relevant subject expertise will be encouraged to participate as regular consultants.
During the staffing recruitment phase, the center’s interim executive director is Dee Dee Mozeleski, the College’s senior vice president of OIACER, executive director of the Foundation for City College, and senior advisor to President Vince Boudreau, the project’s principal investigator.
“This regional center is a watershed moment for our campus,” said Mozeleski. “Small Business Development Centers provide a direct link from our campus back into the local community we serve. Our goal, as a central figure in the workforce development goals for New York state, is to provide a hub for business owners to access advice, research, and educational and informational services to support them through all phases of business development.”
CCNY has already started such a transformation through the Charles B. Rangel Infrastructure Workforce Initiative’s partnership with the Edward J. Malloy Initiative for Construction Skills (CSKILLS) to train workers for union construction careers.
“Opening our Upper Manhattan SBDC hosted by The City College of New York, the founding institution of the CUNY system, marks an exciting new chapter rooted in partnership and expanded opportunity for the communities we serve,” said Sonya Smith, state director of the New York SBDC. “We’re proud to collaborate with CCNY’s incredible leadership team and look forward to supporting entrepreneurs across Upper Manhattan for years to come.”
Funded by the U.S. Small Business Administration, the state of New York, and regional and private partners, the New York Small Business Development Centers is a nationally accredited organization and part of a statewide network of 20 centers and more than 70 satellite locations. It is also one of 63 SBDC chapters nationwide, operating in every U.S. state and territory, and united by a shared mission to support entrepreneurs, strengthen small businesses, and share best practices across the country.
About the New York Small Business Development Centers
The New York Small Business Development Centers are the most expansive small business network in New York State. The NYSBDC provides free and confidential one-on-one business advisement, training, and research to small business owners and entrepreneurs.
It is a joint federal and state economic development organization, administered by the State University of New York (SUNY), that operates regional small business centers in all of New York’s ten economic development regions. These centers, hosted at SUNY, CUNY, Pace University and St. Thomas Aquinas College, link higher education to small businesses.
Additionally, the SBDC has dozens of satellite locations with community partners such as chambers of commerce, economic development corporations, industrial development agencies, and incubators.
About The City College of New York
Since 1847, The City College of New York has provided a high-quality and affordable education to generations of New Yorkers in a wide variety of disciplines. CCNY embraces its position at the forefront of social change. It is ranked #1 by the Harvard-based Opportunity Insights out of 369 selective public colleges in the United States on the overall mobility index. This measure reflects both access and outcomes, representing the likelihood that a student at CCNY can move up two or more income quintiles. Education research organization Degree Choices ranks CCNY #1 nationally among universities for economic return on investment. In addition, the Center for World University Rankings places CCNY in the top 1.8% of universities worldwide in terms of academic excellence. Labor analytics firm Lightcast puts at $3.2 billion CCNY’s annual economic impact on the regional economy (5 boroughs and 5 adjacent counties) and quantifies the “for dollar” return on investment to students, taxpayers, and society. At City College, more than 16,500 students pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in eight schools and divisions, driven by significant funded research, creativity, and scholarship. In 2023, CCNY launched its most expansive fundraising campaign ever. The campaign, titled “Doing Remarkable Things Together,” seeks to bring the College’s Foundation to more than $1 billion in total assets in support of the College's mission. CCNY is as diverse, dynamic, and visionary as New York City itself. View CCNY Media Kit.
Syd Steinhardt
212-650-7875
ssteinhardt@ccny.cuny.edu