March 08, 2017

Graduate education this week’s topic on Infinite Opportunities

Contact: Kevin Hensil, khensil@passhe.edu

Harrisburg – Anthony Grande, a graduate assistant who works in the Labyrinth Center at Indiana University of Pennsylvania, will talk about his experience working in the facility for college students with High Functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder on this week’s edition of Infinite Opportunities.
Grande will be joined in a panel discussion by Dr. Joann Migyanka, the center’s co-director, and Dr. Darrin Kass, coordinator of the Master of Business Administration program at Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania. The episode also will include visits to the campuses of Bloomsburg, Edinboro and West Chester universities.
Infinite Opportunities airs at 9:30 a.m. each Sunday on the Pennsylvania Cable Network. The half-hour, public affairs program features roundtable discussions with faculty, staff, students and alumni from the 14 State System universities talking about a range of higher education issues. State System Chancellor Frank T. Brogan moderates the weekly discussions. Each program also offers viewers the opportunity to “travel” back to the universities to learn more about how they address the various topics on campus.
This week’s topic is graduate education.
Dr. Migyanka is an associate professor of special education at IUP. She will discuss how providing students with a meaningful assistantship requires a good match between the specific requirements of a position and the individual student. She also will talk about the increased availability of online graduate programs and how to ensure such programs offer a “true graduate level experience so that students feel a part of the university community.”
Dr. Kass, a professor of management at Bloomsburg University, will discuss alternative delivery formats, especially how working professionals can engage in graduate programs even as their work weeks get longer and family obligations increase. He also will talk about leadership development and how graduate programs prepare students for leadership positions.
Each episode of Infinite Opportunities airs twice on PCN. This week’s program will be rebroadcast at 6 p.m., March 18. Prior episodes, including those from the first two seasons, also can be viewed at www.passhe.edu/InfiniteOpportunities.

Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education is the largest provider of higher education in the Commonwealth, enrolling more than 100,000 degree-seeking students and thousands more in certificate and other career-development programs. Collectively, the 14 universities that comprise the State System offer more than 2,300 degree and certificate programs in more than 530 academic areas. Nearly 520,000 State System university alumni live in Pennsylvania.
The State System universities are Bloomsburg, California, Cheyney, Clarion, East Stroudsburg, Edinboro, Indiana, Kutztown, Lock Haven, Mansfield, Millersville, Shippensburg, Slippery Rock and West Chester Universities of Pennsylvania. The universities also operate branch campuses in Oil City (Clarion), Freeport and Punxsutawney (IUP), and Clearfield (Lock Haven), and offer classes and programs at several regional centers, including the Dixon University Center in Harrisburg and in Center City in Philadelphia.