Pennsylvania College of Technology is set to provide a quicker pathway to a baking and pastry arts career through a new 12-month certificate in professional baking and a revision to its associate degree in baking and pastry arts that will make a degree obtainable in 16 months.
Allowing students to enter the workforce more quickly helps to meet the needs of the hospitality industry, where there is a high demand for skilled baking and pastry arts professionals, and of students, who will incur a lower financial cost.
Both majors provide a robust yet compact education with extensive hands-on learning. Curriculum has been updated to meet industry needs, helping to ensure students will land jobs.
In the church’s kitchen, students form an assembly line to pack giveaway bags with toothpaste and toothbrushes.The crew of helpers: Front row (from left): dental hygiene students Hailey A. Gearhart, of Phillipsburg; Kaeli A. Plezia, of Sellersville; Taylor E. Allison, of Allport; Emily N. Renninger, of East Greenville; Jordyn M. Kahler, of York; and Megan P. Fitzsimmons, of Portville, N.Y., with Nolan Strouse. Back row (from left): dental hygiene student Pavel Dariychuk, of Leola, with Derek W. Baldwin, a physician assistant studies student, Barbara K. Emert-Strouse, Robert Strouse and Scott Neff II, ’16. Also helping was dental hygiene student Christina M. Kiessling, of Muncy.
For the ninth year, faculty member Barbara K. Emert-Strouse, assistant professor of dental hygiene, and her family, joined by several dental hygiene students, provided a “pay it forward” dinner at Christ Episcopal Church on Mulberry Street. The group served around 180 diners with a menu of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, mixed vegetables, Jell-O with fruit, and cake. They also offered free toothbrushes and toothpaste. The church serves a free “First Saturday” community dinner each month, and the family – including sons Scott L. Neff II, a 2016 culinary arts and systems graduate, and Derek W. Baldwin, a physician assistant studies student – provides one of those monthly dinners each spring. The April 6 dinner and the Penn College crew helping to serve it were featured on WBRE. Photos provided
Student managers for the event, Gray and Jordan, plate the dessert: key lime pie with coconut panna cotta.Students Jordan, Showers and Meszaros look over the main course before serving: an herb-and-garlic-crusted loin of beef with classic au jus lié and potato cake.Callahan prepares seared scallops.Shannon and Gray plate an intermezzo of tropical citrus sorbet.
It is fitting that each year, Pennsylvania College of Technology students enrolled in a catering class bring their talents to a historic building that, when built in the late 1790s, was a tavern and inn. Set along the Susquehanna River in Lewisburg, it served river travelers.
Now the structure is open to the public as the Packwood House Museum, and among the highlights of the year for the organization is a raffle for an elegant “Champagne and Orchids” dinner for eight, created by the Penn College catering class and served in the museum’s dining room.
Pennsylvania College of Technology will again be part of the hospitality team for the running of the historic Kentucky Derby on May 4.
Twenty-eight students, 10 alumni and a faculty member are set to spend a week in Louisville, Kentucky, where they will join a legion of culinarians from Levy Restaurants, the food purveyor for Churchill Downs.
While there, the students learn to produce high quality cuisine in mass quantities.
“Our students continue to be instrumental in the production of premium food service, working with some of the top chefs in the country, plus celebrity chefs,” said Chef Charles R. Niedermyer, instructor of baking and pastry arts/culinary arts, who will accompany students to the Downs for the 12th time.
The empowering combination of applied technology education and financial support was celebrated Sunday afternoon, as Pennsylvania College of Technology hosted its second annual Scholarship Luncheon in the campus Field House.
“I am overwhelmed by the collective energies in this room to transform tomorrow,” President Davie Jane Gilmour said, addressing students, families and donors alike. Announcing that the coming academic year will include the largest total amount of scholarships awarded in any one year during the college’s history, she thanked attendees for their significant role in helping students succeed.
Penn College’s baking and pastry arts program has added two new industry-standard ovens to its lab: a hearth oven with an integrated loader and a round, rotating-rack oven. Curriculum additions also give students new pathways for their baking careers. The college is implementing a consolidated, three-semester version of its baking and pastry arts associate degree, and in Fall 2020, the college will offer a professional baking certificate. Whether seeking the certificate or a degree, all students will learn the fundamental truth shared by Chef Charles R. Niedermyer, an alumnus and instructor of baking and pastry arts/culinary arts. “Baking is a craft, and you never get away from that,” he reminds in a video added to the college’s YouTube channel. “While we have all these fancy ovens and fancy equipment, there is a person who is making it all happen. And that’s what is exciting about it. That’s what gets me up every day. It’s never boring. It’s never easy. But it’s always fun.”
Pennsylvania College of Technology recently announced the winners of its annual wedding cake competition, with first-place honors awarded to a cake topped with a hand-molded weeping cherry tree.
The decorator responsible for the intricately detailed cake is Aurora Mercedes LeBlanc, a non-degree student from Williamsport.
The Girl Scouts in the Heart of Pennsylvania and the PPL Foundation held a free STEAM Lab at Penn College from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, providing more than 250 girls and young women – from kindergarten through 12th grade – with a hands-on look at Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Mathematics pursuits while learning and working with Penn College instructors and students. Attendees worked side-by-side with Penn College faculty/staff and students to earn badges and take part in workshops. Girl Scouts also heard from campus leaders about the future of STEAM and garnered “Spark Curiosity” patches for their participation.
From left, students Jace A. Crowl, Cynthia R. Setzer, Maren A. Zaczkiewicz, Amber Kreitzer, and Deirdre L. Satterly represent the college at the Girls Exploring Tomorrow’s Technology festival in Phoenixville.Penn College students prepare to interact with guests.
Penn College took its celebrated “The Taste of Technology: Sweet and Savory Science” presentation on the road again over the weekend, sharing the scientific side of baking, pastry and culinary arts with youth during the Girls Exploring Tomorrow’s Technology event at Phoenixville Area Middle School, in the southeastern region of the state. GETT is an annual event for girls in grades five to 10 and their parents to learn about career opportunities in a broad scope of science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics-related industries. Five students made the trip to provide a tasty, hands-on science lesson: Jace A. Crowl, of Landenberg; Amber Kreitzer, of Port Treverton; and Deirdre L. Satterly, of Shippensburg, who are majoring in baking and pastry arts, and Cynthia R. Setzer, of Port Allegany, and Maren A. Zaczkiewicz, of Williamsport, who earned associate degrees in baking and pastry arts and are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in applied management. They were joined by faculty members Chef Todd M. Keeley, instructor of baking and pastry/culinary arts, and Chef Frank M. Suchwala, associate professor of hospitality management/culinary arts. This is the third year that Suchwala, Keeley and students have taken “A Taste of Technology” to the GETT festival. They’ve also presented the topic multiple times at the USA Science & Engineering Festival in Washington, D.C., and for K-12 students taking part in campus events. Photos provided
Pennsylvania College of Technology business administration student Dianna R. Weaver, who is completing an internship with Northwestern Mutual, has been selected for the company’s Next Level Development program.
Interns selected for the program have written 10 or more life insurance policies during their intern year and plan to continue to work for the company.
Weaver, of Morris, has been interning as a financial representative for Northwestern Mutual for nearly a year, completing the same duties as a full-time financial representative. Working under the guidance of an experienced mentor, she develops clients and helps them to devise a financial plan to meet their goals. As part of the requirements to work as a Northwestern Mutual intern, she secured the Pennsylvania Life Accident and Health license.
College-minded students, overwhelmed by piles of possibilities as they consider which career path to follow, can sort through the clutter of options during a revealing visit to Pennsylvania College of Technology’s Spring Open House.
From 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday, April 6, members of the Penn College community will welcome potential students and their families, sharing their unique experiences from an institution that has helped tomorrow makers find their niche for more than a century.
A member of the Barilla Pasta World Championship team will headline Pennsylvania College of Technology’s Visiting Chef Series in April.
Chef Manuel Uribe, sous chef for Terzo Piano, a restaurant inside the Modern Wing of the Art Institute of Chicago, will spend three days on campus with the restaurant’s lead pastry chef, Rachel Erceg, mentoring students and working alongside them to produce the elegant Visiting Chef Dinner that will culminate their visit.
Building construction has been added to the abounding schedule of pre-college initiatives offered at Pennsylvania College of Technology, hands-on summer activities that mirror the nationally renowned opportunities afforded postsecondary students.
“Our Pre-College Programs offer living and learning experiences in which students have opportunities to explore unique academic interests in a state-of-the-art environment,” said Deborah B. Wescott, manager of conference and guest relations. “It’s a chance to work and make connections with industry leaders, meet and mingle with your peers, and establish a path that could lead to all sorts of future possibilities.”
The signup deadline is May 31 for the institution’s 12 residential programs and its one day camp.
The legislator is welcomed by Patrick Marty (back to camera), chief of staff/assistant to the president for college relations. On the Earth Science Center tour are (from left) Michael J. Reed, vice president for academic operations/associate provost; Johns (hidden from view); Owlett; state Rep. Garth Everett, R-Muncy; Justin W. Beishline, assistant dean of transportation and natural resources technologies; and Kyle A. Smith, executive director of the Penn College Foundation.The representatives talk with tomorrow’s well-tooled workforce …… and converse in a lab, surrounded by big-wheeled examples of corporate philanthropy.Owlett – returning to a campus he toured as an 11th-grader – learns about the ESC’s lumber kiln outside one of higher education’s few functioning sawmills in Pennsylvania. Providing details is Erich R. Doebler, a member of Penn College’s forestry faculty.
State Rep. Clinton D. Owlett, who represents the 68th legislative district (all of Tioga County and parts of Bradford and Potter counties), visited Penn College on Thursday. Accompanied by aide Kim Johns, Owlett began at the Schneebeli Earth Science Center, hearing themes that would echo throughout his day: the college’s status as a “true commonwealth asset,” the primacy of business and industry partnerships, students’ enhanced marketability from the incorporation of core subjects in their chosen majors, and the life-altering and career-building potential of “degrees that work.” After touring diesel, power generation and forestry laboratories, Owlett traveled to main campus for lunch at Le Jeune Chef Restaurant and stops at nursing, collision repair/automotive restoration, and culinary arts and hospitality. An assemblyman since May 2018, the Wellsboro Republican serves on the Agriculture & Rural Affairs, Appropriations, Commerce, Game & Fisheries, and Health committees.
A Pennsylvania College of Technology culinary arts and systems graduate was named a “Chopped” Champion after the popular television show’s judges deemed her dishes the most creative, tasty and well-prepared.
Kristina Wisneski, executive chef of Amis Trattoria in Devon, a Philadelphia Main Line suburb, watched the show for years with her family before making her appearance in an episode titled “Wonton Wonder” that premiered on the Food Network on Feb. 12.
“My dad and I always try to figure out what we would make if we were in the same situation,” said the Whitehall native, who earned a bachelor’s degree in culinary arts and systems from Penn College in 2013.
On the show, chefs compete to prepare a three-course meal using all of the mystery ingredients the show provides them. After each course, one chef’s dish is “chopped” by the judges, eliminating the competitor from the remainder of the contest.
