Northern Pennsylvania Regional College President, Susie Snelick, was appointed to her position on the Board of Directors for the Rural Community College Alliance (RCCA) on Monday, February 19. Snelick is now one of just 13 higher education professionals from across the country who currently serve on RCCA’s board of directors.
Snelick’s involvement with the alliance began shortly after she became president at NPRC. Snelick attended their annual conference and immediately was welcomed as a part of the RCCA family. This connection brought her back every year for the past three years, Snelick has attended regularly scheduled networking events, conferences, and meetings hosted by the RCCA to learn from a wide collection of industry experts who share a similar goal of providing quality education to those in small towns and communities. It helped her to learn many best practices, develop new ideas, and pivot to help better serve students from across NPRC’s territory.
According to their official website, the RCCA helps individuals and institutions from across the United States serve the nearly 90 million people who live in rural America. The alliance seeks to promote a more economically, culturally, and civically vibrant rural America through advocacy, convening, leveraging resources, and serving as a clearinghouse for innovative practice, policy, and research. “This is a wonderful opportunity for so many reasons,” expressed President Snelick. “It’s a great way for me to continue learning and continue my journey through education and experiences. From a professional sense, it is a great way to help bring recognition and best practices to NPRC. There are also valuable networking opportunities. My hope is ultimately this experience will provide opportunities of continuous improvement to NPRC to always better serve our students.”
Two items Snelick is particularly interested in working on with consultation from her colleagues in the RCCA are how to continue improving and growing dual enrollment and how to locate and successfully secure funding and scholarships for students. “I’m hoping we can better identify resources for our students in workforce development to help make our courses more affordable. The same goes for our academic students who are in the dual enrollment program. There are barriers each of these groups of students face that limit them from seeking training or coming to college.”
Snelick’s service on this board will help bring increased attention to the NPRC service region and help the institution be seen at both a state and nationwide level. It’s an opportunity she does not take lightly. She expresses, “I’m happy to be that person serving our region and our state on this national board. It’s important for our area to have representation in these rooms. It’s a unique opportunity to serve on this board because every institution is like ours because it represents rural areas. I’m looking forward to figuring out how my experience can benefit everyone and discovering more ways in how this service on the board can benefit our region and NPRC.”
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