Lehman College just gave its first round of students credit for completing a new cannabis career certification program. Pictured, customers line up at the Bronx’s first legal recreational dispensary on Thursday, July 6, 2023.
Photo ET Rodriguez
As the legal cannabis market continues to take up more space in New York state, one Bronx CUNY school is working to educate continuing education students about the “budding” industry.
Lehman College is offering credit to students who complete the Cannabis Career Exploration and Worker Rights Certification Program through the Cannabis Workforce Initiative (CWI) — a free pilot curriculum that aims to prepare students to start entry-level jobs in the budding legal marijuana industry.
Jane MacKillop, the dean of the School of Continuing and Professional Studies at Lehman, told the Bronx Times that offering credit for this new certification will propel more people into entrepreneurship by increasing small business prosperity in the borough. According to MacKillop, Lehman is the only CUNY school in the Bronx, and one of two CUNY schools citywide that offer cannabis credits.
“That’s what we do,” MacKillop said. “The School of Continuing and Professional Studies is the bridge into the community, we’re kind of the arm from the college to reach out to the community to help with workforce development and adult degree programs, and so on.”
The CWI is a collaboration between Cornell University and the Workforce Development Institute that aims to promote social equity in the legal cannabis market statewide through workforce development and legal education. Lehman doesn’t offer the certificate program through its own institution, but rather students or prospective students are eligible for one credit upon full completion of the 15-hour curriculum through the CWI.
MacKillop said Lehman is still collecting student surveys from the pilot program — which started in April and ran through…
Read the full article here
Leave a Reply