Penn State president says the 3 letters following grads names should be J-O-B

Feb. 7—SCHUYLKILL HAVEN — When Neeli Bendapudi first visited Penn State Schuylkill campus in April 2022, a month before she was named Penn State's first woman president, she took note of a sign that read "Schuylkill: hard to pronounce, easy to love."

On Tuesday, when she returned as keynote for the Business Executive Forum, Bendapudi confided that she'd borrowed the theme for her own use.

"Everywhere I go now, I say, Bendapudi: hard to pronounce, easy to love," she said.

The touch of humor set a tone for Bendapudi's informal talk with Penn State Schuylkill Chancellor Patrick M. Jones in the campus Health and Wellness Center.

While discussing overarching topics like tailoring higher education to the needs of the 21st century economy and creating meaningful jobs that will keep PSU graduates in Pennsylvania, Bendapudi frequently injected humor into the dialog.

When stressing the need to provide an education that meet the needs of businesses, Bendapudi said she tells her faculty, "Curriculum is like milk; it needs to have an expiration date."

The remark elicited approving laughter from a crowd of about 100 people that included county business leaders, educators and state and local elected representatives.

Sponsored by Penn State Schuylkill, the forum was organized by the Schuylkill Chamber of Commerce.

In his introductory remarks, Chamber President and CEO Robert S. Carl Jr. paused to note the recent establishment of the Frank J. Staudenmeier Memorial Scholarship for Nursing at Penn State Schuylkill.

The Schuylkill County commissioners recently donated $100,000 to underwrite the scholarship.

"Frank would be happy today knowing that this endowed scholarship will support generations of students preparing for a career in service to others," Carl said. "This is truly a great day as we reflect on a great man and a great friend."

Kate Staudenmeier, Frank's wife, and their children, Stacey and Scott, attended the forum.

"We're thrilled that Frank is being presented with such an honor," Kate said. "Frank loved Schuylkill County so much."

Challenges ahead

Jones credited the vision of a group of county leaders who organized Schuylkill campus as the Pottsville Undergraduate Center in the midst of the Great Depression.

The same organization continues today as the Penn State Schuylkill Campus Advisory Board, he said.

At the same time, higher education is facing critical challenges in the future.

Pennsylvania faces what Jones called a double whammy: a declining number of high school graduates coupled with years of brain drain.

"We're anticipating a double-digit decrease in high school graduates across Pennsylvania starting in 2025," he said. "We're looking at years of much smaller numbers of students graduating from high school and entering the workforce, joining the military or attending college."

Jones asked: "What can Pennsylvania do to retain and attract workers in general, and highly educated workers in particular?"

Bendapudi said that from 2030 on, the college population will take a deep dive.

So much so, she referred to it as an educational cliff.

Bendapudi stressed the importance of people becoming lifelong learners to stay abreast of change. Young people need to be exposed to existing opportunities in business, technology and cybersecurity.

Penn State Schuylkill's CO-OP, for example, combines classroom work with on-the-job experience. Sixty-eight percent of freshmen signed up for the program, Jones said, adding "of that, 63% are first-generation students."

Bendapudi said: "No matter what degree they get, MBA or Ph.D., the three letters we want to see after a college graduate's name are J-O-B. We want all of them to get jobs."

The president sees higher education as playing a critical role in energizing the economies of smaller communities.

"We cannot have Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and nothing in between," she said. "That's not a state that anyone wants to live in."

Calling it the Penn State Pledge, Bendapudi sees the university as playing a critical role in meeting the state's needs.

"We want to be aggressive about being part of the solution for all of Pennsylvania," she said.

Recently named the fourth most influential woman in Pennsylvania, Bendapudi leads a university system with a $7.9 billion budget and 88,000 students on 24 campuses, including Dickinson School of Law, Hershey College of Medicine and the online World Campus.

After eight months on the job, she was accorded a vote of confidence from the many Penn State alums attending the forum — there are 780,000 in Pennsylvania.

"We are a university that says, we are not 'I am,' and this room is testament to that," she said.

The room erupted in a chant: "We are Penn State! We are Penn State!"

Contact the writer: rdevlin@republicanherald.com; 570-628-6007