Examples of Excelencia: 2021 Finalists

Joint Dual Engineering Degree Program with City College of New York’s Grove School of Engineering

Hostos Community College 

In 2020, when Dr. Daisy Cocco De Filippis returned to Hostos College (part of the City University of New York system) after 12 years as president of Naugatuck Valley Community College, she was pleased to see that an engineering program she helped build in the early 2000s was still in existence. An immigrant from the Dominican Republic and a product of the CUNY system — undergraduate and graduate — Cocco De Filippis, now president of Hostos, is intent on developing means for students to succeed in higher education. 

Dr. Daisy Cocco De FilippisIn her time as provost at Hostos, Cocco De Filippis found there were a number of students who didn’t speak English well, but they had tremendous ability in mathematics.

“The provost at City College was very receptive to the concept of doing this two-plus-two,” says Cocco De Filippis of the Joint Dual Engineering Degree Program with City College of New York’s (CCNY) Grove School of Engineering launched in 2004. This dual admission program between Hostos, which offers an associate degree in civil engineering, and CCNY, which has a bachelor’s degree, enables Hostos students to take the same curriculum that CCNY students take in their first two years.