The Journal

Issue date: 4/19/07 Section: News

Media Credit: Photo courtesy of Brad Moser Webster's new campus in St. Petersburg will open its doors for classes May 28 for the upcoming summer session.

This summer, Webster will open its first metropolitan campus in almost seven years.


The campus, located in St. Petersburg, Fla., will serve the Tampa Bay metropolitan area, a region with more than 1 million people. The last metropolitan campus to be built was the Columbia, S.C., campus in 2000.


Starting with a nine-week summer term May 28, students from the Tampa Bay/St. Petersburg area will be able to earn master's degrees in business administration, counseling, human resources management, finance and management in leadership.


St. Petersburg is a small peninsula off the Gulf Coast of Florida. Tampa lies directly across the bay from St. Petersburg. The Sunshine Skyway Bridge, one of the largest bridges in the world, connects the two cities.


The new campus is located in an office building just inside the St. Petersburg city limits.


Brad Moser, director of the new campus, said he proposed to create the campus March 2004 to Webster's Academic Affairs. After he entered his second proposal in March 2005, Academic Affairs began searching for a building location.


Dan Viele, associate vice president and director of metropolitan campuses, said the new campus would fulfill an obvious need in the area.


Viele said Webster has roughly 106 campuses worldwide.


"We have a strong presence over the whole state of Florida," Viele said. "This will bring our number of Florida campuses to 11. Florida has always been a strong place for Webster; these campuses evolve from the university's mission of being aware of a need and fulfilling it."


Moser said he chose the Tampa Bay area for the new campus based on the need for another graduate program there.


"The Tampa Bay market is one of the fastest-growing markets in the United States," Moser said. "This county alone is the most densely populated in all of Florida. There are more than 50,000 white collar workers within a three-mile radius of the campus."


Moser graduated from Webster's Lakeland, Fla., campus in 2000. He remained involved at Webster since graduation. Moser was the community relations coordinator for the Lakeland campus for three years until he became director of the Sarasota, Fla., campus.

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