A computer lab at Stayer University's new campus just off Borrkpark Road. (West Life photos by Larry Bennet)

Strayer University opens in Fairview
By Kevin Kelley
Fairview Park
Published Nov. 25, 2009

Fairview Park is now a college town.

Strayer University, which focuses on nontraditional, adult college students, held a luncheon Nov. 18 to mark the opening of its Fairview Park Campus, located at the Fairview Office Center just off Brookpark Road.

The campus, which occupies two floors in the office condominium complex, consists of classrooms, computer labs and financial aid and academic advising offices.

Strayer offers education in business administration, accounting, computer technology, education and public administration. The university serves more than 54,000 students across 15 states. The Fairview Park campus, which began offering classes in July, is the fourth to open in Ohio. Founded in Maryland in 1892, Strayer also offers courses online.

Daniel R. Hauerstein, the acting campus dean. (West Life photos by Larry Bennet)

Daniel R. Hauerstein, the acting campus dean, told West Life that potential students who request information online are invited by admission officers for a personal tour of the campus.

“We have very much one-on-one contact with students,” Hauerstein said.

In remarks following the grand opening luncheon, Robert Silberman, chairman and chief executive officer of Strayer Education, noted that the university focuses on the nontraditional, adult college student.

“We don’t have a football stadium. We don’t have a football team,” he said.

The typical Strayer student, Silberman said, is in his or her 30s or 40s, although some students in their 70s have enrolled.

The focus of Strayer University, Silberman said, is bringing high-quality academic instruction to working adult students and making it possible for him or her to earn a degree.

“It is important to understand that we are not in the business of giving out degrees,” Silberman said. “We are in the business of providing an opportunity to students to earn a degree. And the students that we attract and the ones that we enroll understand that.”

Relevant education is more important today than ever before, Silberman said.

“The nature of education – the thing that we’ve been providing for more than 100 years at this very university – is really a key part of increasing the productivity of individual workers in the economy,” he said. “And it’s the one thing that all economists agree on as the way to raise the level of output in the economy, to raise national income.”

John Sobolewski, executive director of the Fairview Park Chamber of Commerce, said the key to overcoming the current recession is education.

“Everything today is about jobs,” Sobolewski said, adding that many of today’s jobs didn’t exist just a few years ago.

Cuyahoga County Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones, who also spoke at the grand opening, said Strayer students and their families will benefit from the courses taught in the Fairview campus.

These days, a high school degree is not sufficient to survive in the workforce, and a college degree is barely enough, Jones said.

“The jobs will come where there is an education workforce,” Jones said.

In remarks welcoming Strayer to her city, Mayor Eileen Patton said Fairview Park is stronger now that the university has a campus there.

Patton noted that most employers today associate the skills they seek with educational attainment.

“The students that will be filling these classrooms today will become part of the economic engine that will keep our community and our county strong and vibrant,” Patton said.

The mayor also lauded the fact that Strayer’s opening marks yet another occupant of Zaremba Management Company’s Fairview Corporate Center, a major development project in the city’s recent history.

“Many years ago, this used to be vacant land owned by the state,” the mayor said.

On the Web:

• Strayer University