Lycoming College 2020 President's Report/Magazine

After intense planning throughout the summer months, Lycoming was able to resume residential education on Aug. 20, 2020. To do so, we had to reinvent almost every facet of campus life from the classroom to athletics to residence halls. Protecting the health and well-being of community members was our top priority. We followed closely guidelines from the Pennsylvania Department of Health and the Centers for Disease Control, as well as consulted with both the head of the infectious disease unit and the president of UPMC Susquehanna, trustee Steven Johnson ’76. I have been asked why the College was so determined to return to residential education. The primary reason is really quite simple: In-person residential education has been Lycoming’s mission for more than two centuries. The College’s leadership has been guided by the belief that a significant departure from our mission — such as remote or online education — should be taken only as a very last resort. We have felt an ethical obligation to deliver in-person education to our students and families. From the Presiden Despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, the College continues its upward trajectory and has had a successful admissions year, receiving approximately 3,000 applications for the second consecutive year. This number represents a fifty percent increase over the number of applications received annually from 2012-17. Similar to the two previous classes, approximately 24 percent of the Class of 2024 ranked in the top decile of their high school graduating class — up from an average of 17 percent from 2015-17. As indicated by college rankings, Lycoming’s reputation has been significantly enhanced during the past four years. Most notably, the College has risen from No. 164 to No. 120 in U.S. News & World Report , from No. 444 in 2017 to No. 295 in 2021 in the Wall Street Journal , and is currently No. 61 in Washington Monthly , up from No. 100 in 2020 and No. 184 in 2016. The physical transformation of the campus continues as well. Renovations totaling $1 million to the Heim Science Building were completed during the summer and include updated entrances and interior corridors that create a more unified transition from the adjacent Lynn Science Center to Heim. Introductory laboratories for chemistry and biology also were redone. At its recent October 2020 meeting, the Board of Trustees also improved a plan to move ahead with two new intercollegiate programs: baseball and field hockey. The first step in building the programs is hiring coaches who will begin recruiting in spring 2021. The schedule anticipates baseball beginning competition in spring 2022 and field hockey in fall 2022. Baseball will compete on a new collegiate field being built by the Lycoming Country Chamber while field hockey will use UPMC Field. In support of this expansion of our athletic programs, we also are fundraising for improvements to the Shangraw Athletic Complex Enhancement Project. We anticipate constructing a 500-seat stadium on the current soccer/ lacrosse field, for use by those four teams as well as field hockey. The additional locker rooms and athletic training room will improve the experience of all the teams competing in Washington Monthly , up from #100 in 2020 mere five months following The Campaign for a Greater Lycoming Celebration, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted all of our lives, and governors in the northeast and Middle Atlantic implemented stay-at-home orders. In response, similar to almost every college in the country, Lycoming College made the decision to complete the spring semester remotely. A 24 % of the Class of 2024 ranked in the top decile of their high school graduating class # 61 2 LYCOMING COLLEGE 2020 PRESIDENT’S REPORT/FALL MAGAZINE