Brooklyn’s Medgar Evers College First CUNY School to Offer Cannabis Minor

Brooklyn, New York’s Medgar Evers College (MEC) is the first City University of New York (CUNY) campus to offer a cannabis minor degree program. The college announced last week that students can now enroll in its Introduction to the World of Cannabis which will serve as a prerequisite for the program.

Students can choose four courses from any of the 13 newly-developed courses to earn the minor in one of four different tracks. Students from other CUNY campuses can also access the classes via the CUNY e-permit system.

Dr. Patricia Ramsey, president of Medgar Evers College and a botanist, said that she is “particularly pleased” that the college “is on the cutting edge of providing educational opportunities to learn about the many beneficial uses of plants such as cannabis and to provide the training necessary” for students interested in entering the cannabis space.

Education is a key step in raising awareness of the non-recreational benefits of plants such as cannabis. Oftentimes, communities of color are the last to benefit from emerging economic opportunities. The science faculty and the business faculty collaborated in developing the minor in cannabis education; thus, exposing the students to the science, health, technical and business aspects of this new industry.” — Ramsey in a press release

The program includes partnerships with  Women Grow, Cookies cannabis brand, the Webber Wild Impact Fund—which is led by 2021 Basketball Hall of Fame inductee Chris Webber, Columbia Care, Cannabis Advisory Group, and New York City community-focused foundation Gotham Gives. The program was spearheaded by the MEC Cannabis Education Taskforce and is part of the Department of Chemistry and Environmental Science.

Michael Zaytsev, the author of The Cannabis Business Book and founder of New York City cannabis education and networking community High NY, will lead the Introduction to the World of Cannabis course.