Bendapudi keynotes Schuylkill Chamber business forum, highlights community ties

SCHUYLKILL HAVEN, Pa. — At the beginning of each calendar year, Penn State Schuylkill sponsors the Schuylkill Chamber of Commerce Business Executive Forum, showcasing the strong and productive partnership between higher education and businesses in the region. This year, Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi keynoted the event on Feb. 7, speaking to an audience of 100 professionals from Schuylkill County and the surrounding region.

In an interview-style conversation with Penn State Schuylkill Chancellor Patrick Jones, Bendapudi discussed workforce development, entrepreneurship, economic development, community revitalization, and the innovation economy in Pennsylvania.

“As a land-grant university, we will always stay focused on making a world-class education accessible,” Bendapudi said. “We’ll always focus on our research. And we will always be about our communities. We exist to make sure these are thriving places. We are not a university that says, ‘I am.’ I love the ‘We Are’ spirit of Penn State.”

One thread of the conversation focused on Penn State Schuylkill Co-Op, a four-year elective program that provides students with practical career skills and experience while offering regional employers a way to build their talent pipeline. Bendapudi recognized Co-Op as a way to keep students in Pennsylvania.

“We need to make sure they realize they don’t need to go away to make a life for themselves,” she said.

During the event, Jones acknowledged the recent donation of $100,000 from the Schuylkill County commissioners to endow the Commissioner Frank J. Staudenmeier Memorial Scholarship at Penn State Schuylkill. The scholarship will support students majoring in nursing and will help address the nursing shortage in the region.

The event menu reinforced the strength of the business community in Schuylkill County by featuring ingredients from the county in every dish. Ingredients came from:

• B&R Farms (Ringtown)
• Guers Dairy (Tamaqua)
• Koch’s Turkey Farms (Tamaqua)
• Kowalonek’s Kielbasy Shop (Shenandoah)
• Mrs. T’s Pierogies (Shenandoah)
• Sterman Masser Potato Farms (Sacramento)
• Yuengling (Pottsville)

Bendapudi left attendees with a request — to visit advocate.psu.edu and become an advocate for fairer state funding for Penn State students. She reminded attendees, “There is a sacred covenant between a land-grant university and the state it serves. ... By virtue of being in this room, if you live, work, play, raise a family in Pennsylvania, you have a claim on us.”