TRR photo by Krista Gromalski LCCC’s Linda Reid-Falcone and Jack Dennis of the county’s visioning committee finalized an agreement for LCCC to offer courses in Pike County.

Higher education near home

Pike may see two colleges soon

By KRISTA GROMALSKI

PIKE COUNTY — As Pike County continues to top the population growth charts in the state, in the not-so-distant future the area may also make a few leaps along the path to both public and private colleges located close to home.

On May 16, commissioners finalized an agreement with Luzerne County Community College (LCCC) to offer courses at the Pike County Complex on Route 739.

LCCC, a two-year college with its main campus in Nanticoke, PA, currently operates 12 off-campus sites. The college awards students an Associates degree.

On the private education front, The College of St. Justin Martyr, a four-year, private, coeducational liberal arts college, is working toward opening its doors to lay students. Since September 2000, the college has been educating members of the Society of St. John, an association of priests, clerics, religious and laity, working under the leadership of the Pope and bishops of the church to revive holiness of life and Catholic civilization in the third millennium.

The Society purchased 1,025 acres in Shohola Township in September 1999, with plans to construct a Catholic village. Dr. Jeffrey M. Bond, President of The College of St. Justin Martyr, said although there are “obviously close spiritual ties with the Society of St. John,” the college has become a separate 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation.

“Right now the college is searching for land because we want to get started with outside students by August, 2002,” Bond said.

Education at present

Work began on LCCC’s Pike County site almost a year ago when Linda Reid-Falcone, Dean of Business and Industry at the community college, initiated conversations with the Pike commissioners about the possibility of LCCC offering courses in the county.

The commissioners put her in touch with the Pike Visioning Benchmark Committee.

“We began formal conversations as to how a community college could help the region,” said Reid-Falcone. “A number of courses are scheduled to begin this fall at the Area Association on Aging (AAA) building.”

The College of St. Justin Martyr, which requires students to study a fixed curriculum without majors, minors or electives, will not offer single courses to individuals interested in studying a particular subject, Bond said. “It is our hope to establish great books seminars for adults who live in the area and may wish to study a particular work, such as Sophocles’ ‘Oedipus Rex’ or Plato’s ‘Republic.’”

Last summer Bond offered such a course to 10 adults in the Milford area. “We met for six sessions to discuss Homer’s Odyssey.”

The college may also offer weekend seminars, he said.

Vision for the future

Seeking out Pike County because of its “population growth and current lack of a community college education,” Reid-Falcone said, “our hope is to grow over time.”

“It’s hard to tell, but in a few years there is good promise that LCCC will enhance these initial offerings,” said Jack Dennis, a member of the Visioning Benchmark Committee.

Majors that may become available in Pike County include General Studies and Business, said Reid-Falcone.

Through its connection with the visioning process, LCCC may secure a permanent home in the county, she said.

“There is a continued emphasis to create a facility somewhere in a central location in the county,” Dennis said. “In stages, it may develop into a community college campus, [although] many things need to take place before that can happen.”

This Quality of Life Center, he said, is “planned to provide a location for enhanced health care and higher education in Pike County.”

Comparing the possibility of a permanent home in Pike County to a similar situation at an LCCC off-campus site in Northumberland County, Reid-Falcone said permanence generates great interest in the programs. “Using the same location gave the college great marketing opportunities and visibility. People want it to be permanent.”

As for Pike County, establishing a community college of its own to occupy the proposed Quality of Life Center, Dennis said, “There are only 14 community colleges in the state, so it’s not an easy process.”

What’s more important than starting a community college in Pike County, he said, is “to have the course work and resources in place and available locally.”

There will be much work involved, he said, in making the proposed facility a reality and creating enough interest to support local degree offerings. “The next two or three years are crucial. The county is behind the project and LCCC is committed to it.”

Encouraged by the educational turn that the county’s growth seems to be taking, Bond said from his institution’s perspective, “This is excellent news… The establishment of both a community college and our college would undoubtedly result in a synergism with respect to education in Pike County as a whole.”

Dennis said he has not heard any discussion of The College of St. Justin Martyr among the Visioning Committee.