Family tradition: Mother-daughter duo pursues college degrees at Peirce

TELL A FRIEND: If you let a friend know about
Peirce, you'll get a shirt and a public thank you!

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to go back to school with your mom? Kristina Botti did just that. This mother-daughter duo turned Peirce into a family tradition when Kristina followed in her mom Kelly's footsteps to return to college (mother knows best!).

We weren't surprised -- many of our students find their way here through family, friends, or colleagues who have come before them and suggest they check us out. Kristina and Kelly talked to us about how they found themselves at Peirce at the same time and how things are going.

But before we share their story, we want to remind you that a referral doesn’t just benefit the student who ends up enrolling -- all of you referrers out there deserve to know how much we appreciate and recognize your role in bringing future students to Peirce.

In addition to the rewards traditionally offered through our Referral Program, every student or alum that refers a new student to the College will now be publicly thanked in our Referral Honor Roll and will receive a new special edition Peirce College T-shirt.

And now, the story of Kelly Blair and Kristina Botti!

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At age 19, Kelly delayed her education to become a mother. She was a stay-at-home mom for many years, but when her husband became disabled, it was her turn to support the family. In order to work her way into the career path she wanted, she realized that an education was a necessity.

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College degrees that will get you a job

Steven Greenhouse wrote an article for The New York Times earlier this year about how colleges have been rethinking their continuing education programs to help the many Americans unemployed as a result of the recession. One way they're tackling this is by tailoring degrees to match job opportunities.

It makes sense to us, because this is something Peirce College has been doing for a long time. In fact, Peirce was established on the foundation of offering a new kind of practical business education in the post-Civil War years, and we continue to add pertinent, career-related degrees to this day. Healthcare Administration, Health Information Administration, Human Resource Management, and Accounting are among our most recent degree additions.

Colleges and universities of all shapes and sizes play an important role in producing graduates that possess the skills employers really need. Unfortunately there seems to be a disconnect between the two. Greenhouse reports:

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The story continues for readmit student Latifa Richard

ANYTHING TO EARN HER DEGREE: Latifa
went back to school after a 15-year hiatus

It was 1994 when Latifa Richard first enrolled at Peirce College. And now, after a 15-year hiatus, she is back on her way to completing her bachelor's degree in Business Administration, with a concentration in Management, by 2014!

Latifa was born and raised in South Philadelphia, one of six children. Her mother never finished high school and her father finished high school only to serve in the Vietnam War, but education was always important to Latifa. She excelled as a student at Furness High School, where she made the honor roll in her senior year. She was rewarded with an internship working for the Greentree Group, specializing in homeowners insurance.

It was a colleague that encouraged Latifa to work for an insurance brokerage firm, and with that ambition in mind, she knew she needed to pursue her college degree. She first heard about Peirce College from her high school guidance counselor, and it stuck out in her memory for its size and location.

"I knew that I didn't want to tackle the big schools," recalls Latifa. "Peirce was close to home and manageable." She enrolled and attended evening class part-time while building her career. "Peirce was great, the classes were small and challenging, and I enjoyed the people and atmosphere," she says of those first courses she took back in 1994. 

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Health Programs Faculty Chair Stephanie Donovan talks outsourcing with Becker’s ASC Review

For those of you studying in one of our healthcare degree programs (or if you simply find the subject matter interesting!), we wanted to share two recent articles that feature Stephanie Donovan, one of our Assistant Professors of Health Information Management who is now the Faculty Chair of Health Programs at Peirce.

Stephanie weighs in on a trend that is very important to the healthcare industry -- outsourcing. She offers Becker’s ASC Review reporter Laura Miller her insight on qualities to look for when outsourcing billing and collections, as well as how to determine if outsourcing or in-house billing is the right approach for ambulatory surgery centers.

Check out Laura’s articles to read about these decisions facing many healthcare administrators. If this subject matter is of interest to you, consider a degree in health information management -- this area of focus offers great opportunities to work in the non-patient-care side of the healthcare field, a rapidly expanding part of the industry.

“We did it together!” Husband and wife graduate with each other’s support

LOVE AND EDUCATION: Vector Cole
and wife Ashley Jenkins-Cole graduate together

I recently received a very nice story from Ashley Jenkins, one of our graduating seniors. She kindly agreed to let me share her words here. Read on to learn about the journey that brought Ashley to Peirce.

It was summer of 2010, after watching my husband get his associate degree from Peirce College, when I decided to go back to school. But let’s rewind a little bit further to my husband’s journey of going back to school. In 2008, my family was faced with a hardship that was almost impossible to recover from. My husband, who at the time was a real estate broker, was forced to close his office due to the fallen economy. As time went on it was hard trying to stay afloat on our bills and deal with the everyday stress of life. The straw that broke the camel’s back was when we received a letter from our mortgage company saying that our home was in foreclosure.

It was then that I felt that my husband and I needed to make a decision about our next career moves so that we could generate an income for our family. I knew that we never wanted to be in this type of situation again in life, and although my husband had been a broker for five years and sold real estate for 20 years, I knew that he needed more. When we talked about what our next steps should be I asked him how he felt about going back to school to get his degree. My husband is a very smart man and I knew that he would be interested, but the fear of doing something he hadn’t done in years was a process to get over.

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Countdown to Commencement: Tonight’s the night!

CLASS OF 2012:Peirce graduates
depart well-prepared to enter the job market

All of the hard work and dedication is about to pay off for our 2012 graduates, as they prepare to cross the stage at The Kimmel Center tonight! Jump over to the press release we issued today for more details about Peirce Commencement 2012 and a snapshot of some of our featured graduates.

This year’s class of graduates exemplifies the hard work, determination, and commitment to education that defines our students. The Class of 2012, many of them working adult learners, has overcome obstacles to pursue their dream of a college degree. One of the many highlights will be the inaugural class of graduates from Peirce’s new Accounting degree program.

WURD 900 AM will be broadcasting live from The Kimmel Center tonight and interviewing several Peirce graduates and alumni about their educational journey, so we sure to tune in!

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New video teaches how you can use LinkedIn to build your career

It was impossible to capture all of the advice offered during our LinkedIn seminar with Robb Pardee in a single post, so that’s why we’ve provided so many different resources and highlights from the event in different posts. But we still felt like there was more to learn. We tackled that conundrum by recording the entire session.

The video is available to download here, so you won’t miss a thing! You can also see what some attendees had to say about the seminar in the video below.



And that’s a wrap -- at least for this seminar!

Video highlights from Peirce’s 2012 Spring Reception

Thank you to all who attended our annual Spring Reception last week! As always, it was a wonderful opportunity to celebrate the College. Hundreds of members of the Peirce community gathered together under the tents on Carlisle Street for an evening of food, drinks, friends, laughs, and networking. The skies might have opened up for parts of the evening, but a little rain never stopped us!

The Alumni Association honored several standout Peirce people during the event. Albert G. Cederstrom, Jr. ’43 was the recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award. As we blogged about previously, Al announced as he accepted his award that he has committed $50,000 to establish the Albert G. Cederstrom and Emilie I. Cederstrom Memorial Fund for Human Resource Management. The Alumni Association also honored Babette Pace ’06 with the 2012 Distinguished Service Award. She has done outstanding work on behalf of Peirce with students, alumni, faculty, and the paralegal community. Peirce President James J. Mergiotti and Peirce Alumni Association President Steven Wurtz ’08 also stepped to the podium to reflect on the events of the past year.

Be sure to watch our previously posted video featuring Mr. Cederstrom and his gift, and then watch the video below for more highlights from our Spring Reception -- maybe you’ll see your own face in the crowd!