Assistant Deans Assume Duties in School of Integrated Studies

Two new assistant deans have joined the administrative staff in the School of Integrated Studies at Pennsylvania College of Technology.

Dr. Clifford P. Coppersmith began working at Penn College in June as the assistant dean of liberal arts. He is responsible for English, mathematics and the Social Science and Humanities Department.

Dr. Coppersmith spent the past eight years in Price, Utah, where he taught history and anthropology at the College of Eastern Utah. He spent his last year there in an interim appointment as vice president for academic affairs.

A native of western New York, he earned an associate's degree from Jamestown Community College in his hometown of Olean, N.Y. He then transferred to Brigham Young University in Utah, where he earned a bachelor's degree, majoring in Latin American studies and political science. After serving in the Army, he worked for the CIA as an intelligence analyst, where he wrote reports on topics of interest, especially counternarcotics and counterinsurgency, for policy-makers.

He left that job to return to Olean, where he enrolled in St. Bonaventure University, earning his master's degree in history and teaching, and taught part time at Jamestown Community College. He then earned his doctorate at Oklahoma State University, where he majored in history with an emphasis on Native Americans, the American West and anthropology.

Dr. Coppersmith and his wife, Kathleen, who also works at Penn College, have three children, one of whom is a Penn College student.

Dr. Jeffrey J. Vetock started his new role as assistant dean in January and will oversee the Natural Sciences Department and the School of Integrated Studies' degree programs, which include majors in media arts, human services and early childhood education, among others.

Dr. Vetock began working at Penn College in Fall 2003 as an assistant professor of English composition. Directly before that, he taught at Shippensburg University.

Originally from Carlisle, Dr. Vetock spent 10 years in Arizona. He taught and earned his doctorate at the University of Arizona. He also was a professor of English at a charter school in central Tucson.

In his spare time, Dr. Vetock is a musician and artist. He plays guitar and bass and is learning basic keyboards. He has been playing in and out of rock bands in Pennsylvania and Tucson since he was a teenager, and he writes and records his own music.

Dr. Vetock also enjoys painting with oils and acrylics. He started his undergraduate studies at Shippensburg University as an art major, but switched to English, preferring to learn art techniques on his own. Two pieces of his abstract art hang in his office. Inspiration for his paintings often comes from his two children, Nicholas, 11, and Emma, 9, who serve as his critics.

Dr. Vetock's interest in art is one reason he is excited to take the assistant dean post, because he gets to work with art and graphic communications faculty. He also enjoys the dynamic of working with faculty from a variety of programs, because conversations in one day can range from the fine arts or finding a location for a cinema class to an issue with early childhood education.

For more information about the academic programs offered by the School of Integrated Studies at Penn College, call (570) 327-4521, send e-mail or visit online.