By Penni Schaefer
01/17/09 — Area legislators met with a leadership team at the City of Meadville Friday to discuss if a community college would be the right educational fit for northwestern Pennsylvania.
Leaders of the plan were on hand to discuss the progress of an initiative to establish a community college in the tri-county area. Through funding from the Northwest Industrial Resource Center and Erie County, a consulting firm is conducting research to discover which workforce educational needs of the community — Erie, Crawford and Warren counties — are not being met by existing institutions and if a community college is the answer in filling the gaps.
Thus far the consulting firm Clements Group L.C. has administered 98 one-on-one interviews with people in the public and private sectors. They have also held eight forums to generate feedback from those in a variety of sectors including manufacturing, health-care, education and community service agencies.
What would separate this regional community college from all of the others throughout the nation is that it would emerge from an “unprecedented process” of building it from the bottom up, said Project Manager Judith Fagin of REthink Erie. To her knowledge, she said she does not know of any community colleges that have been started in this manner — by looking at the workforce needs first.
There is a great deal about the proposed project that is still unknown, including where its campus would be located and how it would be funded by the three counties. For now, consultants are only researching exactly were the perceived workforce and education deficits are. Rich Gross, executive vice president of the Clements Group, has been examining national and local trends. He reported to legislators Friday that there are distinct training gaps in many regional sectors of industry including health care, tool and die, automotive, and both high-end and day-in and day-out support positions in the field of technology.
Republican state Rep. Brad Roae attended the meeting and said he’s interested in learning more about their ideas for a regional community college. He is concerned, however, that building another higher education institution in the area could hurt those already in existence.
“It’s just in the preliminary stages, but it’s good that it’s being looked at and studied,” Roae said. “But we definitely need to see more study done to make sure that it wouldn’t siphon students from surrounding institutions.”
Scott Friedhoff, vice president of enrollment and communications at Allegheny College, attended the event and said he supported the community college initiative and felt it would not have a negative impact on existing institutions. He supports it because he said it would result in a more educated community which often leads to many positives such as more civically-involved residents and less crime.
Another concern Roae has is location. If Crawford County and Warren County taxpayers would be expected to help foot the bill, he said it’s only fair that a campus be convenient to residents in all three counties.
“If it’s for the three counties, seemingly it would be located in Corry, Spartansburg, Columbus or somewhere close to where the three meet,” Roae said. “But if it were located in downtown Erie, it wouldn’t benefit Crawford County.”
While the state mandates that only 50 percent of the classes may be held off-site of the campus, ideally Roae said he would like to encourage them to use schools that are already in existence.
“Using existing school buildings rather than spending money to build a campus means that they could use all of the money for education and not infrastructure,” he said.
The next REthink Erie meeting is planned for February and will be held in Warren County.
SPEAK OUT!!
Republican state Rep. Brad Roae would like to hear the community’s feedback about the formation of a community college for the tri-county area. Responses should be directed to his office at 336-1136.
