Continuing its tradition and commitment to educating Long Island teachers, Dowling College is emerging as a national leader in educating minority teachers, placing over fifty teachers nationally.

In April 2003, Dowling received $400,000 from the U.S. Department of Education to establish the Center for Minority Teacher Development and Training, which will operate at both Dowling's Oakdale and Brookhaven campuses.

The Center is one of few in the nation dedicated exclusively to attracting minority students from disadvantaged circumstances to become teachers.

The initiative addresses the systemic and growing problem of providing skilled, technologically educated teachers to meet the national shortfall of teachers in all areas of education among economically disadvantaged communities and their public schools.

Among the goals of this initiative is to increase the current rate of minority graduates receiving a Bachelor's Degree in Education; reduce the dropout rate of minority students; and to educate, train and recruit more minority men into teaching of the lower grades of the public school systems on Long Island and elsewhere.