Juniata College to broaden horizons through Liberal Arts education in USA

Dr. James Troha, President of Juniata College, Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, USA made his maiden visit to Colombo recently, marking the first time in its entire 140-year history that an official from Juniata College visited Sri Lanka. Joining him was Ran Tu – Director, International Admissions, Juniata College, who herself is part of the alumni of Juniata College. 

President Troha was invited by Scholarships for USA Ltd. (SUSA), Sri Lanka’s only recruiter who works exclusively with US colleges and universities since its inception in 2001 and has been passionately committed to making US higher education accessible and affordable to the largest segment of Lankan youth. 

During the past 15 years, SUSA have introduced many such private liberal arts and sciences colleges – the ‘hidden gems’ of US Midwest – to Sri Lanka and most have become popular higher education destinations over the years for Sri Lankan students. 

Juniata College is offering a $ 120,000 scholarship for a comprehensive top liberal arts degree program on campus. Daily FT sat down with Dr. Troha and Ran Tu for an in-depth discussion on the academic aspects, liberal arts education and the sub culture surrounding Juniata College. Following are excerpts from the interview:

By Dilrukshi Fernando 

Q: How did the name Juniata come about? Is there some a story to the name? 

Dr. James Troha: Juniata College sits on the Juniata River, from which it derived its name. Our founders when they built the campus in 1876, they could see the river from the top of one of the buildings and they decided to name the college after the beautiful river that flows through the campus. The maple leaf in the Juniata College logo represents the area in which the campus is located, which has lots of leafy green surrounding, for recreation, open spaces, lakes and water.

Q: Where do you place Juniata College in the American educational framework? 

Dr. James Troha: Juniata College is a post-secondary school that’s accessible following a 12th grade secondary school. In USA a student is in high school from 9th to 12th Grade and once you complete that you are eligible to go to a post-secondary institution like Juniata. Our student population is typically 18 to 22 years old.

Q: What are the programs on offer and the duration?

Dr. James Troha: We don’t get into a lot of what we term ‘pre professional programs’ like architecture or nursing. Instead we have several educational programs to prepare teachers. We also have business programs such as Economics, Business Management and Marketing. But most of what we do is based in the Liberal Arts which tries to provide a breadth of experience for our students, that they are engaged in study that is outside of their particular interest that broadens them as a learner. 

The Liberal Arts experience, particularly in today’s world, we at Juniata College believe anyway, is more important than ever because the world is changing so fast that careers that you think exist today will not exist 10 years from now. So if you go and get trained as an Engineer, in Mechanical Engineering, that particular occupation might not exist 10 years from now. So you want to try and give yourself, in those four years from 18 to 22, an opportunity to become a more learned person, to become a critical thinker. Somebody who can talk and communicate effectively, to be a better citizen in the world vs. getting trained to do one specific thing. That’s the essence of the liberal arts and that’s what Juniata tries to communicate to their students. It’s more than getting trained for an occupation. We try to bring in students who are going to be transformed as a person in our world, who can go out and solve complex problems in the world.

For example if you are a student pursuing Business, you will take your core business courses but they will be augmented by a religion class, a history class or a English class – basically the core Liberal Arts that are required, that are going to strengthen your Business courses, so that you are not just getting trained as a businessman or woman and instead you are getting an educational experience underneath. Liberal Arts becomes the foundation from which you build that Business experience.

Q: Ran, you are a graduate of Juniata before joining the school’s director board. Could you share your own Liberal Arts experience whilst you were a student?

Ran Tu: I think it’s important for whatever area you study to have a basis all around. For example, I studied Bio Chemistry but we didn’t take just Science and Math courses. We had to do the Humanities, the Politics and Arts where we had a lot of Cultural Analysis courses which were cross-disciplinary and very interesting. Different professors teach it together as a team. I really enjoyed having three professors talking about a specific subject. 

Each semester a student would take about five to six classes overall. The number of Core and Liberal Arts subjects you take each term depends on how you structure your classes. You are assigned two instructors who advice and help you select the courses to accumulate enough credits to graduate, that will be a mix from your core area of emphasis, or your major and the remaining credits from Liberal Arts. 

You have a basis no matter if you are studying the Sciences or the Arts, you have a background in each so that you don’t feel like you are incomplete in terms of learning. It is not one dimensional education. 

Dr. James Troha: Adding to what Ran mentioned, the Liberal Arts are there to expand their mindset a bit more. You think you want to do Business or take up Accounting and you are forced to take a philosophy class or a theatre class, you discover things about yourself that you never thought were possible. It’s not possible without having the Liberal Arts environment, along with advisors and faculty around you to encourage you and push you towards very significant directions.

It’s no mistake. I read an article recently, which said that around 75% to 80% of all CEOs of companies, if you are thinking about those who are leading complex companies, that they come from a Liberal Arts background. The reason is because they are required to become critical thinkers. They are not trained in any one particular skillset but they are able to rise to that position because they are able to look at a lot of different things. They have the breadth of opportunity. It’s around having an analysis mindset, of looking at problems and trying to ask the right questions. Not just about business, accounting or fashion design but of humanity if you will! 

Q: How much of an international student presence can be experienced at Juniata College? 

Dr. James Troha: We have a student body of about 1,600 students at present and at any semester we have about 60 to 80 international students per intake. The student demographics are going through some drastic changes in the USA at present, particularly in the north east, where high school graduation have been on the decline and will be on the decline until around 2020 to 2023. It’s about a 10 to 12 year spurt where the decline has been observed and now it’s regional. 

This demographical change is one reason we are interested in working with organisations such as Scholarships for USA Ltd. because as demographics change in the United States and the number of students we have the opportunity to recruit goes down, that market share needs to be expanded to the international student population. 

Our student diversity is about 15% and our international diversity is about 10%. The overall different ethnicity diversity is approximately 15%. Meanwhile our faculty diversity is about 7% and we have faculty from India, China, and Germany, giving it a more international flavour. We want our students to be exposed to particularly where the world is and make sure that our students have that kind of diverse learning experience for someone who comes from different backgrounds and different parts of the world. 

Q: Ran, from your experience, what were the more popular fields of study and what resonated more with the Asian students? 

Ran Tu: There was a wide variety of subjects on offer from Business to the Sciences, because we are particularly strong in Sciences with a liberal arts background, so Biology, Physics, Chemistry are very popular paired with Psychology or Environmental Sciences which has grown in popularity as of recent. History, Politics, Philosophy and Religion combined are the popular choices in the core Liberal Arts with History being a subject with the largest study program. 

Q: You mentioned the importance of keeping up with the times. Are you actively looking at changing the curriculum and subjects to reflect these changes and what are the more recent additions?

Dr. James Troha: That’s a good question. We are looking at that right now. The curriculum in core educational product hasn’t changed all that dramatically. What has changed is how students perceive it, how they read into a particular major. So we need to examine the process of recasting or naming it something a little bit different or something more appealing to the millennial generation. Their choices are meaningful and purpose driven so just saying ‘Environmental Science’ may not spark their interest but talking about water or talking about sustainability are words that resonate with this generation that we always have to keep in mind on how they are viewing the science. Considering the new generation of students, Bio Chemistry is not very popular but Neuroscience is garnering much interest as a field of study.

Having said that, we are always looking at new programs that we can get off ground. We are looking at Digital Humanities and Food Science which are fairly new to the academic arena. Digital Humanities especially is still an emerging field of study. Trying to imagine the Humanities with a technological side to it and that field is still emerging. Different scholars will interpret this in a different way. Broadly speaking it is the integration of these two disciplines. 

Q: What is the student profile that Juniata College considers for selection?

Dr. James Troha: We look at the whole student. It is not just about your academic preparation, which is a strong point of consideration because we believe that you need to have the academic preparation and skill set to succeed at Juniata. But we are looking for personalities. We are looking for leadership opportunities. We are looking for students who can be citizens of the world. 

We want students who are engaged in their community and is communicative while maintaining with good grades. At Juniata we take their core academic experience – we ask them to write an essay, we ask them to talk about what they have done with their life leading up to the college experience and we blend them together. That is when we can imagine what a Juniata student may look like. 

So in terms of an academic profile we are looking at around 27 ACT, a SAT score of 1165 (out of 1600) and our average GPA score is around 3.7 points. As Ran said, we have about 47% about our students who want to be pursuing Sciences each academic year. But we get students interested in Science who are great in the Arts. So we are looking at that well-rounded student. 

Q: Apart from the studies, could you elaborate on what Juniata offers in terms of extra-curricular activities? 

Ran Tu: We have so many clubs and organisations and at the beginning of every year, we have a special event called the ‘Lobster Fest’ at the beginning of the year where all students are served lobsters. All the clubs and organisations at Juniata College set up tables and invite students to sign up for the clubs of their choice at this event and it is also a wonderful opportunity to network and make new friends. If students want to start a new club or organisation based on their interests, they are welcome to form a group of 20 to 25 members and do so!

I was in some international student cultural clubs. Science honours society clubs and I also played some tennis at inter-university and inter-state level. We have several sporting clubs as well. Juniata College offers 19 different inter-college sports. 

Dr. James Troha: Safety is one of the main attractions Juniata has to offer for international students, especially for parents who have to send their children half way across the world. Huntington is a very safe environment. We take it for granted. It is a small safe place where people look after each other. Virtually everyone lives on campus or adjacent to the campus in apartments.

The scenic surrounding and setting is also welcoming. The campus is situated at a beautiful location. Think about nature at its best in a peaceful atmosphere. If a student from Sri Lanka comes to Juniata they get to experience some snow during winter, a beautiful fall season and a lovely summer and spring as Juniata College you see all four seasons.

Q: What kind of scholarship programs are on offer for international students when applying to Juniata College?

Dr. James Troha: Based on their academic performance, that is put into a grid and points are given with which they qualify for ‘merit money’ based on test scores and high school GPA. Then we consider your family’s need. Your economic situation as a family. Internationals student may or may not get federal grant money hence we have what we call Institutional Grant Money which we give to international students who we have selected and have decided we want on our campus. 

Q: When the education is over and your students graduate out into the world, what kind of fields do they step into and what kind of feedback have their employers given based on their performance? 

Dr. James Troha: Our students are going into the top schools in the country if not the world. We are producing graduates who go off into the some of the best grad schools and employment opportunities. In 1997 we had a Nobel Prize Winner for Physics – William (Bill) Phillips from Juniata College. A graduate from 2014 is currently at Harvard right now and he has reported us back to us and said how Juniata College prepared him to for his future higher educational path. Although his fellow batch-mates are from several Ivy League schools, he is topping the grades at all of his classes! That to me is the essence of what we do. 

Ran Tu: It’s definitely true. I talk to a lot of alumni who have gone on succeed in their various technical fields. It’s not just liberal arts that we possess, we have a very good depth of study and research that really prepare students and makes them succeed in their graduate studies. 

Q: What do you see as the key factors which you have to encounter in presenting a Liberal Arts education at a private university such as Juniata College to the international market?

Dr. James Troha: The hurdle in trying to convince? We don’t try to convince! We share the importance of a sound and well-rounded education with potential students and their parents. 

Affordability is one of the key concerns. This experience we spoke about at length, how do they afford that experience? That’s a question we try to answer. We offer strong scholarship assistance, work on campus experience. We have to get the economic piece out of the way before getting into the educational aspects.

Parents want a ‘job’ for the children to go into after a four-year learning experience. So we need to share the outcomes, results and possibilities that our students with a liberal arts educational background have on offer. About 90% of our students are either employed or at grad school within 6 months of graduation. 

We keep our student population small at 1,600 and it corresponds well with the resources, the faculty and the learning process. What we offer is something unique. The dream is to welcome a number of Sri Lankan students at Juniata College and see them graduate, with an authentic educational and life changing experience at Huntingdon.