Andy Close
WARREN, Pa. – Dr. Joseph Nairn, President of the Northern Pennsylvania Regional College, spoke about the benefits of the school during the Warren County Chamber of Business and Industry’s ‘Eggs and Issues’ Friday morning at the Conewango Club, as well as an exciting new partnership for the school.
(Photo: Joseph Nairn, President of the Northern Pennsylvania Regional College, speaks at WCCBI’s Eggs and Issues.)
“I’m very proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish in a short amount of time,” Nain said.
Nairn highlighted the progress the 2-year college has made since officially being established in May of 2017, as well as their recent partnership with Pitt-Titusville.
“Our programs are very good quality and we’ve seen students transfer already, utilizing our credits to RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology), Edinboro, Clarion and other schools,” Nairn said. “That means something to me because I worked their (at RIT) for 25 years.”
The core mission of the college is simple, to provide affordable and accessible post-secondary education to the residents of northern Pennsylvania.
The college serves a 9-county radius compromising Cameron, Crawford, Elk, Erie, Forest, McKean, Potter, Venango and Warren.
“We are realizing our potential as an institution every day,” Nairn said. “The most important things for us is serving our mission, which is two-fold. We have a mission to provide career and technical education, preparing people to go to work. The other end is we want to provide students academic opportunities to give them additional schooling.”
Nairn emphasized the low-cost, high quality education of the college, and continued to hammer home that two-fold approach.
“We’re offering programs in academic areas in preparation for a bachelors degree,” he said. “We’ve been successful in preparing people to go to work, but also giving them to tools to move on in their education.”
Part of that continuing education includes the partnership and transfer agreement with Pitt-Titusville, which will become effective with the spring 2020 semester.
Specifically, Nairn addressed the Nursing and Physical Therapy Assistant (PTA) programs and manufacturing job training courses the partnership will provide.
“Looking at Pitt-Titusville, we all recognize the need for nurses,” he said. “Having come from higher-ed for so long, I know that nursing programs are very expensive. For a community college, a nursing program is a loss financially.
“Pitt coming to us and saying we’d like to provide a pipeline into our nursing program was too good of an opportunity to pass up. We’ll offer students the general education courses to be successful, and they can move on to the Pitt nursing program if they meet the academic requirements.
“We thought it was a win-win. Titusville will also serve as a hub for other workforce development, including manufacturing. Being in this area, we all understand the need for manufacturing jobs.”
Nairn expressed at the end of his presentation that he is very optimistic about where the NPRC is going.
“That’s kind of a snapshot of who we are and where we’re going,” he said. “We’re very excited.”
The next WCCBI Eggs and Issues is slated for Nov. 20.
WCCBI Director of Operations and Tourism John Papalia expressed at the conclusion a growing interest and the plan to launch a ‘Beer and Business’ series, beginning in 2021.
