Meet Mike Reed

For as long as I can remember, helping others, competing and working through challenges have inspired me. I was fortunate to have quality teachers, coaches and mentors, and their impact sparked an interest in working in the helping profession. In addition, I spent a great deal of time with my oldest brother and sister-in-law throughout my high school years. My sister-in-law was, and still is, a passionate teacher. Seeing firsthand the impact she had on her students and the satisfaction she had with her career led me to become a teacher.

When earning my bachelor’s degree and teaching credentials, I worked at a psychiatric center to offset tuition costs and gain relevant experience. Facilitating groups and engaging with adolescents and adults working through extraordinary complexities triggered a dual interest in teaching and counseling.

I enjoyed teaching and counseling, and my interest in administration emerged by seeing firsthand the larger-scale impact a quality leader, working effectively with a team, could have on students and the community. Administration provided an opportunity to make a greater contribution and stretched my personal development.

I’m very proud of what we accomplished at Williamsport, SciTech and William Penn and enjoyed my experiences in secondary schools. My interest in higher education emerged through a partnership with Penn College when I served as principal at Williamsport. Our team worked hard to develop relevant partnerships with colleges and industry, and we promoted applied technology education on our high school campus. Penn College became an ideal partner in establishing several dual-enrollment courses for college-ready students and development opportunities for teachers.

The partnership with Penn College provided me an in-depth look at the extraordinary work happening on campus. The culture and mission of Penn College aligned to my personal beliefs, and when an assistant dean position opened, I took a risk – seeing it as an opportunity to make meaningful contributions while enhancing my professional learning.

As a high school leader in the Harrisburg area, I knew that Penn College was a quality institution dedicated to applied technology and boasted an impressive placement rate. When I toured campus for the first time, I was truly blown away by the faculty and staff expertise, the labs, and industry partners used to advance student development.

It’s difficult to rank because there have been multiple advancements. But I believe three of the more impactful changes have been the development of the Center for Career Design and the creation of College Relations, the reorganization of Academic Affairs, and the evolution of Workforce Development.

Placing Institutional Advancement, Corporate Relations, Alumni Relations and Career Services all under College Relations has created dynamic synergy and has yielded extraordinary results for students, industry and the college.

The three-school model in Academic Affairs has improved collaboration between faculty and staff, enhanced operational efficiencies, and streamlined resources for long-term sustainability planning.

Increasing apprenticeship opportunities and industry training and working collaboratively with faculty have led to expanded reach for Workforce Development – meeting workforce needs and advancing our mission.

I was fortunate to serve in a wide range of roles at Penn College, and the collective experiences will be invaluable as we strategically lead our team forward. Serving as an assistant dean and dean provided a unique opportunity to work closely with a large group of faculty and students to advance a subset of programs and lead a school. It also afforded me the chance to teach a couple sections of upper-level coursework. Being immersed with our faculty and students provided a comprehensive, hands-on understanding of our culture and how our mission and strategic plans are implemented, showing both our strengths and opportunities for growth.

Overseeing academic operations expanded my knowledge of our comprehensive budgets, building project planning and the entire academic portfolio. It afforded me the opportunity to work and learn with additional faculty and staff and understand the necessary interconnections of all college divisions.

Serving as provost extended my engagement with all college divisions and academic programs. Working daily with the president, dealing with assessment and grants, and being involved with corporate partners and our Board of Directors – coupled with the aforementioned roles – have enhanced my understanding of our culture, strengths and opportunities for growth.    

The role of president provides an opportunity to make a more impactful difference for our students, community and workforce. The talent density on our campus is exceptional. I look forward to building on our collective strengths and evaluating what systems need to be modified to accelerate our growth and advance our mission.

Our relevance, industry connections, hands-on approach, faculty expertise and alumni success make us truly unique. We offer a full college experience and degrees that are in extremely high demand. Our graduates are placed on a faster trajectory for long-term success. We shouldn’t be shy expressing how exceptional we truly are and the positive impact our graduates make throughout the commonwealth and beyond.

Enrollment, staffing and infrastructure present significant challenges and our greatest opportunities for improvement.

Regarding enrollment, industry needs more highly skilled graduates, and the return on investment from a Penn College education is extremely high. A few steps we need to take to bolster enrollment include:

• Strategically build stronger connections with high school teachers and parents. They are major influencers on higher education decisions, and our successful approach is not on enough radars.
• Strengthen relationships with career and technology centers and career and technical education programs. There are nearly 70,000 high school students in Pennsylvania alone completing CTE/CTC programs, which directly align with most of our degree options. We need to ensure more of these parents, teachers and students are keenly aware of how a Penn College degree can accelerate professional advancement.
• Enhance diversity on our campus. We need to expand recruitment and partnerships within culturally diverse areas. Industry needs a more diverse workforce, and all graduates will benefit from being better prepared to excel in a culturally rich, global economy.
• Increase part-time and weekend/evening opportunities for working adults who want to complete a degree.
• Expand stackable credentials to degree opportunities.

With staffing, there are employee shortages across the nation, particularly within the high-demand fields aligned with our degrees. Our campus experts are routinely recruited to return to industry. Most of our employees choose to work at Penn College to make a difference and develop the next generation of tomorrow makers. We need to ensure we keep our team members actively engaged in thought-provoking challenges and decision-making processes.

We also need to keep working to recruit a more diverse employee population to best prepare our students to enter a global workforce.

As for infrastructure, there are many rapid and radical changes and innovations happening within industry, and we must continually adapt our labs, technologies and equipment to ensure our faculty and students remain on the leading edge.
We need to strategically maximize our capital and continue to partner closely with industry.

Industry drives our program offerings, and quality industry relationships always have been, and always will be, essential to our success. We will continue to recruit industry and academic experts to teach, revise and advance our programs.

Team-focused, collaborative, goal-centered, transparent and transformative. The talent and passion on this campus are extraordinary, and the best ideas emerge when various points of view and data are used to advance opportunities and solve complex challenges. Engaging stakeholders is important to maximize our collective expertise, innovate and modify systems to move our institution forward.

I strongly encourage two-way communication, and I get out of my office as much as possible to purposefully engage with our stakeholders. Interactions through divisional rounds, coffee and conversations, department head/program leader meetings, and shared governance and councils have yielded multiple mission-focused ideas that have helped maximize opportunities and prioritize planning. As president, I will expand engagement opportunities to include a wider range of stakeholder groups.

I have a genuine appreciation for our alumni, and many are extremely successful leaders in their chosen fields. Our alumni offer invaluable input on what worked well on campus to help them advance, and they provide hands-on insight on emerging trends within their respective fields. These direct perspectives are essential for program advancement and recruitment for our next generation of tomorrow makers.

Industry needs more Penn College graduates, and we are a direct pathway to success. We are innovative, creative and relevant. We deliver transformative, hands-on education with personable faculty experts, small class sizes and a long list of industry partners. We are what college should be – a full experience to develop highly skilled thought leaders. The result is a 96.2% placement rate, with alumni enjoying sustainable careers that include salaries well above the state and national averages.