Two private funds have been established at Potomac State College of West Virginia University to help the college achieve its mission of providing high quality education at the lowest possible cost to students and their families.

New Campus Provost Leonard Colelli has pledged $36,000 to the college to create an academic teaching endowment as well as a demand fund to help off-set some of the loss of state-level funding and to support the teaching/learning process.

“It’s important to understand the national trend of disinvestment that is occurring in public higher education. We must begin devoting more effort on private fund-raising to better support our primary mission of teaching and learning,” Dr. Colelli said.

“In order to accomplish this, I believe it’s important to lead by example. As a former high school teacher and college professor, I have some understanding of the resources needed to facilitate good teaching and learning. Most endowments focus on providing scholarship money to offset the cost of education and reduce debt for students, while relatively few are designed to support the teaching/learning process. These two new funds will be designated for that purpose,” he said.

The receiving parties will be Potomac State College of WVU faculty who want to improve student learning by providing supplies, software, and equipment to facilitate the learning process in their classrooms.

Colelli earned his doctorate degree in industrial technology education from Ohio State University. He worked as an industrial technology teacher at Grove County High School, a tenured professor at Fairmont State University, and was dean of the Eberly College of Science and Technology at California University of Pennsylvania before taking over as campus provost at Potomac State College of WVU on July 1 of this year.

To find out more information about the Potomac State College Academic Enhancement Endowment contact Potomac State Alumni/Development Associate, Libby Nichols, at 304.788.6870 or lmnichols@mail.wvu.edu.

This donation was made in support of Potomac State College of WVU’s initiatives in conjunction with A State of Minds: The Campaign for West Virginia’s University. The $750 million comprehensive campaign being conducted by the WVU Foundation on behalf of West Virginia University runs through December 2015.

The WVU Foundation is a private, nonprofit corporation that generates, receives and administers private gifts for the benefit of WVU, of which Potomac State College is a division.

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CONTACT: Libby Nichols, Potomac State College
304-788-6870, lmnichols@mail.wvu.edu

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