Educaton Featured in Last Law & Justice Lecture at the Taber Museum

            The final lecture in the Law & Justice in Lycoming County series provided an overview of educational opportunities in Lycoming County, for those interested in law related professions.  Presentations featured instructors from the Pennsylvania College of Technology and Lycoming College as well as three students who spoke of their experiences and opportunities at both colleges. 

            Sue Alberti opened the session with an overview of her department at Penn College.  She is a faculty member of the Human Services and Restorative Justice Program at Penn College.  She described Penn College’s course offering as providing opportunities for students who are interested in fields where they help people.  Their focus is hands-on opportunities that train their students to think and believe in themselves to perform responsibilities in the job world.

            Ms. Alberti’s background is in the counseling and juvenile justice systems.  Her most recent work experience was with Clear Vision Residential Services working with troubled youth.  At the time, she was also teaching as an adjunct with Penn College, but now she is a full-time instructor on the staff. 

            Their program is one of the smaller ones on campus, with only 98 students.  However, it is growing, and the freshman class included 26 new students.  They provide opportunities for hands on involvement in the community.  For example, for their first semester, students are in the field for 30 hours with hands-on opportunity in parole departments, police departments, working with elderly, counseling, etc. 

            After they have a better understanding of where they might wish to work, students are placed into a more intensive internship program that is more active and requires 175 hours of experience at places like SCI Muncy and other prisons, Genesis House and the like.  Their work is more hands-on at that time and there are a lot of reporting requirements to complete the course.

            Finally, in their last semester they have a 300-hour requirement in programming.  There they will work more intensely in a program and become actively involved with people who are patients or prisoners or the like. 

            All of the standard course work is required.  Then there are courses that are specifically required for their major, including diversity and cultural understanding, psychology, mediation, case management and assessment and similar classes. 

            She then turned the session over to two students, Addison and Angelina.  They came from different backgrounds, one initially focusing on music.  Addison described her internship experience as working with Aids Resource, working in the Genesis House and actively participating in assessments of patients and in group therapy.

            Angelina worked her 30-hour requirement at White Deer, and it was more hands-on.  She also worked at Genesis House, and was active in groups and learned how what she was learning about was done in real life.

            Back at school, they are required to participate on labs that include mock sessions of counseling. 

            Ms. Alberti described seeing students, who may have had more reserved personalities, have skill levels that “explode” due to the immersive experience.

            Penn College offers an interesting approach to degree work.  The student can get an associates degree however, the opportunity that the student has is to get a joint degree – that is, they perform the course work necessary to obtain an associates degree in two years, but can continue on and can also obtain a four-year degree without changing majors.

            Penn college has an excellent placement rate with their students.  There are great opportunities for students graduating from their program.  That is because communication skills are explored and the immersive opportunities in the community. 

            Both instructor and students mentioned the relations between staff and students as important to the success of the program.

            The second part of the program focused on Lycoming College.  Assistant Professor Dr. Susan Achary opened the session.  She is a lawyer and a native of Columbia.  She actually practiced as a corporate lawyer in Columbia before immigrating to the United States.

            While working as a corporate lawyer, she had strong views about people’s access to justice.  She found herself interested in constitutional law.  Because of her work as a corporate lawyer, she really didn’t have much exposure to that area so she changed professions.

            She has a commitment to social justice, and she sees the law as a tool of social justice.  Traditionally, the law is perceived as a tool of the status quo, but that is not her approach to the law. 

            As she worked as a corporate lawyer, she found it was hard to change things, so she ended up spending more time with her pro bono cases which is one of the reasons why she changed professions. 

            She came to Lycoming College because the College was interested in her skills and knowledge in comparative politics.  She also had a background in political science.  Lycoming College wanted someone who had both skills to offer their students.

            After she arrived at Lycoming College, she found that there was the traditional pre-law program for those who are interested in becoming lawyers.  However, she identified certain needs in students who have an interest in the law and legal studies but do not necessarily wish to become lawyers.  As a result, she became involved in the process of creating a legal studies major that is for students who are interested in legal studies but are not sure if they wish to become lawyers or to work in other law related fields.  The program encourages interdisciplinary work and includes courses in psychology, criminal justice and the like.  They focus on writing, legal analysis, jurisprudence, also, they offer interdisciplinary skills such as accounting, finance and psychology.  They train people to speak the language of the law, even if they do not become lawyers.

            Kaitlyn, a recent graduate, participated in this session.  She initially attended Lycoming College with the intent to become a lawyer, later determining that she did not want wish to become a lawyer.  She found the program at Lycoming College to be very helpful because she was fascinated in politics and the law but wanted to work in a different way to help people.  Lycoming provided her with work study opportunities and allowed her to use her skills as a Spanish major to assist people, without becoming a lawyer.  She started to work with Thrive Services, a program that gives advice and assistance to recent immigrants.

            Because of her studies at Lycoming, she can take the required examinations and possibly attend law school in the future in the areas of immigrations law.  Now, however, she is using her major to assist people while not as a lawyer.  She mentioned how the interdisciplinary work is important to students to gain skills so that they can work in various fields.

            Again, there was an agreement that the closeness between staff and student is an important aspect of life at Lycoming College.  They also work within the community and the college creates opportunities for partnerships in the community.  Lycoming College is a small school with a vibrant student life and great facilities.

            The pre-law program is also quite good if one’s goal is to become a lawyer.  There is actually a joint law program with Widener School of Law, where one attends three years at Lycoming College and three years at Widener to obtain a bachelors and juris doctor degree.

            The presentation was an excellent conclusion to a fascinating series of lectures from the legal community in Lycoming County.  All of the lectures are available on the Lycoming Law Association’s YouTube page.