Western Connecticut State University

A visit to Western Connecticut State University will bring you to a campus experiencing some of the most exciting times in its history.

WestConn already offered a foundation for success, located in the booming community of Danbury—with the lowest crime rate of any Connecticut city and the highest employment rate in the state—just an hour from New York City.

Two campuses offer a combination of New England charm and modern facilities to support innovative faculty and students who take full advantage of the local environment, which includes one of the Northeast’s largest shopping malls, Connecticut’s largest lake, and a vibrant restaurant and entertainment scene.

Music, Theatre, and Art
WestConn’s School of Visual and Performing Arts is one of the places to look for that entertainment. Here you will find the most robust and successful Music program in the Connecticut State College and University system. Music majors work closely with accomplished professors, many of whom have national and even international reputations as performers.

Our Department of Theatre Arts is also thriving. Last year, the program swept the American College Theatre Festival awards presented at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC, with first-place recognition for actor, actress, director, and “Outstanding Musical” for its production of Parade.

The Music, Theatre, and Art departments are housed in a new building—with separate wings for each discipline—that has received many recognitions of its own as a premier facility for the arts.

The sciences
The small but vibrant departments of Chemistry and Biology take advantage of WestConn’s location as well as a team of devoted professors.

Virtually every student who aspires to become a physician, dentist, physician assistant, or veterinarian is able to move from WestConn into a graduate school that will lead to their profession of choice. That’s because our professors work individually with students to help them achieve their dreams. The same is true for students who want to earn a PhD in their field.

At the same time, undergraduate students can be fully involved in the research being conducted at WCSU, which includes trips to Costa Rica and Greece to study sea turtles and, closer to home, intensive and publishable research on Candlewood Lake, which is facing threats from invasive species ranging from water milfoil, cyanobacteria, and zebra mussels. If you prefer dry land, Dr. Neeta Connally received a $1.6 million grant from the Centers for Disease Control last year to study the ticks that carry Lyme disease.

A top Nursing school
Like all Nursing students, WestConn nurses must take a licensing exam when they graduate to prove they can do the job in a medical setting. But unlike other Nursing students, WestConn nurses pass the NCLEX-RN examination with overwhelmingly positive results. Most years, 100% of WCSU nurses pass the test, and the rate never falls below 94%. That’s the best pass rate in the state.

WestConn works closely with the Western Connecticut Health Network—which operates hospitals in Danbury, Norwalk, and New Milford—to offer students hands-on experience in nearly every type of medical situation.

A new Nursing lab opened in 2017, with five classrooms designed to advance the department’s capacity to teach critical-thinking and decision-making skills through simulation of actual clinical care settings. Four of the new classrooms have been equipped with SIM mannikins that simulate standard and critical care scenarios. The mannikins include a SIM Mom for obstetrics training and a Trauma SIM for intensive care simulations.

The Ancell School of Business
With successful undergraduate and graduate programs, WestConn’s Business program trains the next generation of accountants, financiers, managers, and marketers, who land jobs with corporations in Connecticut and New York as well as smaller businesses looking to grow. Our Accounting students who take the CPA exam rank among the top in pass rates, and Ancell students have won business plan awards in state, regional, and national competitions.

A relatively new Entrepreneurship program is also thriving, as WestConn opened “The Garage” this year as a workshop where makers and entrepreneurs from all four schools in the University and the outside community work together to conceive of the next blockbuster success and bring it to market.

Why WestConn?
All of this information is to demonstrate that students at a state university can be as competitive and successful as students at any other school—and they won’t have as much debt. Learn more about Western Connecticut State University and schedule a campus tour at wcsu.edu.