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Hi-Ed Council’s 3 decades plus of adult education

Times Observer photo by Brian Ferry Warren Forest Hi-Ed Council celebrates 35 years of meeting education needs.

For 35 years, Warren Forest Higher Education Council has been working to meet the education needs of adults in the community.

“Every time that we see a need in the community, we’re there trying to figure out how we can fill it,” Executive Director Joan Stitzinger said. “That’s what our role is… to meet the community’s adult education needs.”

In 1983, hundreds of people gathered to discuss the county’s priorities moving into the 21st century. Access to post-secondary education was one of the top two items that group identified.

“Back in the very beginning, the focus was to bring in credit programs,” Stitzinger said.

In 1987, Hi-Ed entered into an agreement with Jamestown Community College as the lead provider of those programs.

By 1990, both Gannon and Pitt-Bradford were offering degree programs through Hi-Ed.

At about that same time, other areas of the state took notice.

“We were the very first higher education council,” Stitzinger said. “There are now nine community education councils statewide that were developed and modeled from what we were doing here in Warren. We’re recognized around the region for what we’re doing and we have been recognized as an organization that people want to replicate.”

Venango Technology Center expanded its nursing program to Hi-Ed in 2009.

Recently, the council has made a push to better serve Forest County. “We’ve got some good classes that are running down there,” Stitzinger said.

The development of the Northern Pennsylvania Regional College has fit well with Hi-Ed’s mission.

Although the two entities are not directly related, Hi-Ed houses the classroom space where local students receive instruction through the NPRC’s system.

In the early years, “JCC had a live instructor” on-site at Hi-Ed, Stitzinger said.

“Technology has meant a big change in how that coursework is being delivered,” she said. The NPRC delivers instruction to students at Hi-Ed and throughout the region simultaneously.

“Why the new college is so valuable to the community is credit coursework is now affordable and accessible,” she said.

That’s still part of the Hi-Ed mission, but it’s not all about credits and degrees.

“We’ve tried to well-round our offerings,” Stitzinger said.

Hi-Ed offers programs that help people find work, find careers, save lives, and find enrichment.

“Over the course of 35 years, we’ve really developed our non-credit course offerings,” Stitzinger said. “We work with the school district. Anything that’s available at Warren County Career Center, we can use in the evenings.”

She said welding classes have been popular.

“We have providers that come in and offer classes,” she said. Phlebotomy is another that fills up.

“We’ve expanded to offer the diploma program in addition to GEDs, and our school-to-work partnership,” Stitzinger said.

Over the last 10 years, the diploma program has seen almost 100 graduates — folks who, for whatever reason, did not finish high school, but now have their Warren County School District diplomas.

Hi-Ed even offers classes like painting.

“We get a lot of interest in classes that enrich people’s lives,” Stitzinger said.

“We’ve been here in the community for 35 years,” Stitzinger said, and, through a changing education world, Warren Forest Higher Education Council is still going strong.

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