Dear HJI Alumni and Friends of HJI,
Thank you for your continued support, friendship and encouragement as we—our faculty and staff—continue to strive to honor the legacy and build toward the future of this great institution, celebrating the 50th anniversary since welcoming its first class of students in 1975.
We are continually inspired by the students who, year after year, come to study at HJI. They continue to be students of high caliber who carry forward HJI’s great tradition of academic excellence, commitment to the wider community, to ministry and to public leadership.
At this time, in addition to providing a quality and innovative learning experience for students and faculty alike, HJI is currently developing its new Strategic Plan for HIJ, looking ahead to the next five years, 2025-2030. I look forward to sharing more about this initiative in the near future.
At this time, I am pleased to inform you of an important and exciting development underway at HJI.
As you may be aware, the property at 4 west 43rd Street in Manhattan which serves as the main campus of HJI is expected to be sold sometime this year. We are in close communication with FFWPU USA on this matter. As has been the case over the past 50 years, FFWPU leadership remains committed to assuring that HJI has a suitable, in many ways, superior location to serve as our new home and main campus.
President Demian Dunkley, in regular communication with HJI, has begun work on a new suite of offices, classrooms, library, and meeting space for HJI at 481 Eighth Avenue, on the 12th floor. Our new HJI campus will be ready by May of this year, and we expect to relocate to our new campus in June and July, ready to start the Fall Semester in the latter part of August.
This relocation will not present any significant challenges for the continuation of our academic programs offerings, student life, or general operations. It will have no impact on HJI’s financial projections nor our enrollment numbers.
We are ever grateful to the guidance and support of Dr. Hak Ja Han in opening this new chapter of HJI’s history. Our faculty and staff, and, of course, our Board of Trustees are fully on board with the relocation. An academic conference which HJI held in January pointed to the advantages of relocating to a facility with state-of-the-art audio-visual capabilities with a professional technical and hospitality staff. Relocation to 34th Street also will make it easier for local students to reach HJI through the New Jersey PATH train and the New York subway, which are within walking distance to the New Yorker from Penn Station.
I find it fitting, even providential, that we are relocating at the precise time of our 50th anniversary. This may be an indicator that we are ready for our next 50 years. In October 2020, True Mother said that the New Yorker should become a world center for education and I feel confident that HJI is meant to play a leading role in bringing that vision to fruition.
All of us at HJI are encouraged by the progress being made at HJI and recognize that our best days are yet to come.
Thank you once again. I hope to see many of you soon at our new home, at 481 Eighth Avenue.
Sincerely and with appreciation,
Thomas G. Walsh