Vanderbilt University launches a new Chelsea campus offering NYC internships
Vanderbilt University opened a satellite campus in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, beginning classes on Aug. 23 and leasing historic seminary buildings for 99 years.
Vanderbilt University, often called the “Harvard of the South,” inaugurated a new Chelsea campus in New York City on Aug. 23, occupying the former General Theological Seminary’s Gothic-style block between Ninth and Tenth Avenues. Under a 99-year lease the school will invest $44 million to operate the site and $50 million for extensive upgrades. Eighty-seven transfer students from the Nashville main campus will study arts, engineering and human-organizational development while completing internships with New York-based organizations such as Merrill Lynch, Tishman Speyer, the Legal Aid Society and Uber.
Chancellor Daniel Diermeier cited the university’s founding by Cornelius Vanderbilt and the presence of over 7,800 alumni in the area as reasons for the expansion. Students like Jacques Kalfayan, Carolina Kelly and Eric Wu expressed enthusiasm for the “unbounded opportunities” the city provides. The launch was celebrated by ringing the NASDAQ opening bell, and Vanderbilt also announced parallel satellite projects in San Francisco and West Palm Beach.
Why it matters
The new campus gives Vanderbilt students direct access to New York’s internship market and signals a major university’s push into a competitive urban education space.
In this story
