The chancellor of Penn State Altoona on Monday asked city officials to help the college in its multi-pronged effort to restore some of its lost enrollment — while increasing diversity — an effort that was expressed recently in the college’s Vision 2030 plan.
City Council members seemed amenable to the request for help, which Chancellor Ron Darbeau made while laying out the ways he hopes to boost enrollment, not up to the former 4,000-plus from the current 2,400 — but to a “sweet spot” of 3,500.
A key to the effort will be recruitment of both a diverse student body and a diverse faculty, and a key to making that happen for the benefit of the college and the community at large is for the community to become welcoming, according to Darbeau.
A more welcoming community might mean a barber shop or hair salon where Black people can want to get their hair cut the way they’re accustomed to, a restaurant where a Hispanic person or an Indian can get the kind of meal he or she is used to eating or a grocery store where ethnic food they’re familiar with is available.
The lack of such amenities can be interpreted as a “tacit statement” of unwelcome, Darbeau said.
By contrast, when such amenities are available — and when those kinds of faculty and students feel welcome — they’re more likely to stay here to live and work, to raise families, buy homes, start businesses and pay taxes, according to Darbeau.
The community hasn’t become what he’d like to see yet, based on his predecessor Lori Bechtel-Wherry’s observation that atypical central Pennsylvania students often feel comfortable in Ivyside, but not so much when they go out to visit local shops, Darbeau said.
A similar unease with the area often afflicts medical professionals of different races and ethnicities recruited by UPMC, who end up leaving, according to a UPMC official to whom Darbeau spoke.
“That’s a lost opportunity,” Darbeau said.
By contrast, atypical central Pennsylvania students tend to feel comfortable in State College, Darbeau said.
Altoona isn’t going to evolve into that borough to the north, but “we can be more deliberate” about becoming more cosmopolitan — so much so that people from elsewhere could eventually be “blown away by the welcome,” he said.
To increase enrollment, the college plans to focus — “double down” — on engineering and nursing.
The rail transportation engineering program, the only baccalaureate program of its kind in the country, currently has an “anemic” enrollment in the mid to high teens, he said.
Yet the community could handle 100 graduates a year, he said.
Accordingly, the college hopes to increase that production to as many as 150 graduates by the end of the decade, he said.
Recruitment to make that happen will include conversations with community colleges that have rail-related programs, high school railroading clubs and high schools and universities in India and China, including college-related railroad “associations” in India, he said.
It will also include talks with railroad companies like Norfolk Southern.
More generally, the college would like to increase the number of international students from the current 120 to as many as 400.
India is an especially fertile recruitment ground, as there are 6 million more students there who are ready for college than the country’s infrastructure can accept, Darbeau said.
Additional fertile ground for recruitment is within Pennsylvania — where there are 1.2 million individuals with some college education — but no degree, Darbeau said.
Expansion of the nursing program will involve finding the necessary physical and enrollment space, he said.
That may mean adding spring courses and offering accelerated summer courses. The current nursing programs are not nearly large enough, because we’re “beating (applicants) away with sticks,” he said.
The college is also working on a “bookend” effort involving the addition of master’s degree opportunities based on suggestions from faculty members, coupled with “pipeline” programs involving pre-college students, starting with middle schoolers.
The youth will be offered four-week summer experiences for four years, followed by compressed “early college” experiences in 11th and 12th grades that will allow them to save a year of study, he said.
Recruiting diverse faculty members may be “a harder nut to crack” than recruiting diverse students.
Still, there’s an opportunity coming soon with the expected “flood” of retirements by faculty who came on board about 25 years ago, when Penn State Altoona began to offer four-year degrees, he said.
Accordingly, the college plans to invite doctoral candidates at universities where there are lots of Hispanic and African American students to come to Penn State to become adjunct professors, while writing their dissertations.
If those experiences are pleasant, they may be willing to consider returning to teach full time, he said.
Adding sports is part of the mix, too.
So will be training students for positions like social worker, mental health counselor and psychologist, all of which are in short supply here, Darbeau said.
That initiative is needed so as “not to be inert to the suffering around us,” he said.
More sports backed
Council members were especially complimentary about the addition of sports and the middle school pipeline.
The college loses a lot of potential students because of sports it doesn’t currently have, said Councilman Bruce Kelley, speaking of two of his own children, who went to college elsewhere to run track and cross country — neither of which Penn State Altoona now offers.
Those will be available within a few years, Darbeau said.
“Congratulations on the pipeline idea,” said Councilman Ron Beatty.
Working with area school districts will benefit both the college and the community at large, Beatty said.
The whole notion of a more robust college-community connection makes sense, said Councilman Dave Butterbaugh.
The college has created a “town and gown” committee to encourage it, Darbeau said. “We have work we can do together.”
To Kelley’s concern that commonwealth campuses have lost enrollment — Altoona has gone from highest in the system to fourth — Darbeau was reassuring.
Despite plans to maintain a level of about 48,000 students at University Park, the university’s new president believes the commonwealth campuses are critical for ensuring that Penn State fulfills its land grant mission of accessibility and affordability, he said.
Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.
