The Bermuda College is looking to raise $164 million to build a new fine arts facility, the president of the institution told the Rotary Club yesterday.

Bermuda College president Charles Green told Hamilton Rotarians that the Bermuda College is now ready for a new facility.

?In the last 30 years Bermuda has not invested in us,? said Dr. Green, who spoke without notes. ?It is now time. We need $164 million rededicated to the Bermuda College. We need a business plan. We need to be doing this over a five- or ten-year period.?

Mr. Green said he was not saying the Bermuda College needed all that money right away, but rather over a period of time.

?You will notice that we have cut those bushes down on the hillside overlooking the South Shore Road. That is so that you will not forget that we are up here. We are going to be doing some landscaping. We are hoping to look as nice as some place like the grounds of the Southampton Princess.?

Mr. Green said there was a great need in Bermuda for a fine arts facility. The new facility would include a 2,500 seat theatre.

?We need a theatre like this so that of the arts can perform on this island,? he said.

?We don?t have a place for the National Dance Foundation dancers to perform. We have several movie stars living here. Why can?t we produce movie stars of our own? Let?s talk about where we are and where we are going.?

Under the fine arts programme, students would receive associates degrees, as in other fields at the Bermuda College.

?We should have and could have a great future as a two-year community college,? he said.

The new facility arises from an ongoing strategic plan at the Bermuda College that has attempted to draw in the opinions of the community.

?Last August people were invited to a strategic planning meeting,? said Mr. Green. ?We had representatives from the common citizen. More than 200 people came to the campus. You told us after 30 years what we ought to be in the future.?

Dr. Green said that since the plan got underway, the Bermuda College has grown in ?every way?

?One of the things we heard from the community is that we need to get more young men involved at the college level,? said Dr. Green. ?We have now increased male enrolment by ten percent.

?We need to distinguish the different between being a young man and being a thug.?

The result was a programme called Men Speak which is a thriving organisation designed to entice other young men to come to the college. We are now in the midst of graduating young men who are number one in the class.?

Mr. Green said another concern that the Bermuda College deals with comes from the private school sector of the community.

?I recently had families and young people approach me who felt they were being held hostage by the private school system,? said Mr. Green. ?They did not want to go into the two year International Baccalaureate programme their schools offer, and they could not get their high school diplomas if they did not.?

The Bermuda College has now allows for students like this to come to the Bermuda College and finish their high school education and work towards their associate?s degree.

?One young lady who came to us through this situation is now knocking our socks off academically,? he said.

?We have also entered into an agreement with Mount Saint Agnes Academy to start a programme that will show students there about what careers are available to them. This year we are starting by looking at culinary arts.?

He said the Bermuda College was also hoping to work with the Bermuda Regiment to offer educational programmes to soldiers.