Paul Smith's College sits on the shore of Lower St. Regis Lake. (Photo provided by Paul Smith's College)

PAUL SMITHS — Paul Smith’s College is going through a major transitional period, with continued declining enrollment, a pending affiliation with a large educational nonprofit organization and a new interim president, the fifth new president in two years.

Interim college President Dan Kelting, who is two months into the job, says he has a vision to turn things around by making enrollment a priority for the entire campus and overseeing the expected partnership with New York nonprofit Fedcap Group. This affiliation with the Fedcap Group is a massive change that college leaders hope will lift the college out of the slump it’s been in.

Kelting said that 668 students were enrolled in the fall semester. That’s down by around 11%, from 754 students last year. This is following a pretty consistent trend of declining enrollment the college has faced for a decade, he said. Enrollment means revenue, he added.

The college had a $600,000 deficit in 2020. Kelting said he didn’t know the exact number, but the college is still carrying around that much in its annual operating deficit. This is primarily because of decreased enrollment, he said.

Kelting said PSC’s enrollment peaked in 2012 with 1,050 students.

In 2021, there was an increase in enrollment over 2020, what Kelting called a “COVID bump.” The college kept recruiting during the pandemic and its outdoors-focused natural campus was attractive to students.

Of the students at the college this fall, 196 were new — either freshmen and transfers — and 472 were returning students.

College administrators announced in the fall of 2021 that the college would be partnering with New York City-based nonprofit Fedcap in an effort to expand the college’s promotional reach, create branch campuses and support its finances by offloading back-end work onto Fedcap’s much larger systems.

Kelting said the downward trend in PSC enrollment was a major reason why the college reached out to Fedcap for assistance. Former PSC President Cathy Dove, who retired in 2020, “reached out to the broader world,” asking for help from other colleges, saying “we would like a partner,” according to Kelting.

Fedcap Group answered the call.

“They weren’t looking for us. We were looking for them,” Kelting said.

Fedcap owns organizations all over the country, with many locations in the northeast. The PSC affiliation would mark Fedcap’s 24th organization affiliation, and its first with a college.

The Fedcap affiliation has been commonly referred to as a “merger.” Kelting said this is not exactly right and there is an important difference between merging and affiliating. He said PSC is not becoming part of the larger company, which allows it to maintain its 501(c)(3) nonprofit status and maintain an independent board of trustees.

Kelting said Fedcap works like a “parent company.”

–

Enrollment push

–

Kelting thinks the Fedcap affiliation is crucial to boosting enrollment, and he’s already started a push to attract more students, recruiting everyone on campus to help in the effort.

He said attracting new students — freshman and transfers — is like a funnel. It starts wide with prospective students — anyone looking to get a college degree. Then, on each step — inquiries, applications, acceptances — the funnel gets smaller. The final step is choosing to attend PSC.

The goal, he said, is for each tier to be the largest it can be with the highest conversion rate. Improving that means engaging with students. More engagement means more of a chance the student will choose PSC. That’s something he said the college is looking to increase, and his “number one” focus so far in his eight weeks as president.

Kelting became president in the middle of the enrollment season, when high school seniors are making decisions about where they will go to college. He said his message to staff has been “enrollment, enrollment, enrollment.”

Typically, this is the job of the enrollment and admissions office, who set up meetings with faculty, hold promotional events and bring in tours. But Kelting said that process has been opened up to staff and faculty in all departments, campus-wide.

Everyone’s job description has expanded to include enrollment and promotion in an “all hands on deck” call and Kelting said professors and staff are sharing the responsibility “willingly.”

PSC staff all want more students, too, he said, because they want their employer to thrive.

Kelting said he meets with a 13-person team weekly to discuss enrollment among many other issues. He believes that next year, the college can bring 300 new students and have 500 returning, for an 800 total enrollment.

“We think it’s doable,” he said. He believes this Fedcap affiliation will bring a much larger reach for the college.

PSC Board of Trustees Chairman Mark Dzwonczyk said the affiliation increases the college’s geographic reach. Fedcap owns several private high schools on the East Coast, which Kelting said gives the college a larger market to promote itself to.

–

Retention

–

The college’s other goal is to retain all the students it brings in.

This can be challenging, Kelting said, because there are many reasons for someone to leave — the college could not be a good fit for a student, or they may have academic or external challenges.

He said the college’s student support services identify at-risk students for help. The main reason students leave is because they feel PSC is not a “good fit,” according to Kelting. Students need to find belonging, he said.

Athletes have the highest retention rate at the college — close to 90% — which makes sense, he said, since they’re part of a team and a community.

Kelting said the college should foster more clubs to take group trips, attend movie nights, open mics, enjoy the outdoors or get into gaming.

If students are going to be on campus on the weekends they need things to do, especially in winter, he said.

Then, there’s the financial struggle.

Tuition is always higher at private colleges because they’re not subsidized by taxes, Kelting said. He added that the college works to help people afford tuition. As Fedcap’s stated goal is to lift people out of poverty through education, this will become more needed if the affiliation is approved.

–

Presidential change-up

–

In early November, Kelting was named as the college’s new interim president, a surprise to him. He was the executive director of the college’s Adirondack Watershed Institute at the time.

Kelting said it was an “honor” and “an absolute joy” two weeks later to officiate the fall semester graduation.

He hadn’t been told the reason for his appointment to lead the college in the interim, he said, and he hadn’t been seeking the position. The decision was made behind closed doors by the college board of trustees.

The change was made three months after the board appointed Nicholas Hunt-Bull as president after he had been serving as the interim president since April. Hunt-Bull had been the provost at the college since 2015 and returned to that role after Kelting was named as the new interim president.

Dzwonczyk said the decision was about aligning the right people for the right jobs.

“It was just a collective decision on campus as we saw enrollment not picking up and the breadth and the scope of the work that it required,” he said. “Nicholas, we thought would serve us as the provost. He’s a terrific provost.”

Dzwonczyk said overseeing the academic programs is Hunt-Bull’s “core strength.”

“We had an opportunity to put him back in a position where he was very, very strong,” Dzwonczyk said.

He said Kelting was chosen by the board because of his successful leadership at the Adirondack Watershed Institute and that Kelting has assembled a good team to improve enrollment.

Kelting said he works well with Hunt-Bull with “no animosity.”

“He slid back into that provost role with grace,” Kelting said.

Dzwonczyk said a national search for a full-time president hasn’t started yet. The board is waiting until after the winter term and the 2023 World University Games in January. PSC’s dorms will be used to house athletes for the games.

Kelting said he’s not really thinking about if he’ll put his name in for the full-time president position yet. He said he’s focused on the immediate tasks at hand — communication and enrollment.

–

Communication

–

Along with enrollment, Kelting said one of his main priorities has been increasing communication especially during the transition.

He sends out a weekly communication to all faculty and staff, the first time this has been done in a while, he said. He holds a monthly all-hands call — his first one was on his sixth day on the job — where he takes questions from dozens of people on campus. He also said he will begin having a monthly “lunch and learn,” the first of which was held in early December.

“I would take issue with anyone that would say that I haven’t been forthcoming in terms of communication,” Kelting said. “I think I’ve done a very good job in communicating what’s been going on at the institution.”

Kelting has assembled what he calls a “turnaround team” of PSC and Fedcap people to manage the transition. One of the people on the team is James Malatras, the former chancellor of the State University of New York system, who is now working for Fedcap Group as a communications advisor.

–

Resolutions

–

In mid-December, college faculty felt they were not hearing enough about the college’s planned affiliation with Fedcap. They voted to pass a resolution asking for clarity on the affiliation from Kelting and the college’s board of trustees.

Faculty Congress President Kendra Omerod said there was a positive response from Kelting addressing several of the points faculty had brought up. Omerod said Kelting has done well improving communication, as well as admitting mistakes and changing course when he needs to, which she said is a sign of a good leader.

She hasn’t gotten a response from the board yet, but she said that made sense, since the vote took place right before the holidays.

Omerod said faculty senators, two from each department; Staff Council Chair Josh Clemens and Student Government Association President Charlotte Kline, also later signed a letter of support for the affiliation, which Clemens helped write. Omerod said faculty, staff and student representatives were unanimously supportive of affiliating.

–

The future

–

Kelting sees the college in a three-phased process as it pivots.

Phase one is to reach stable financial footing. Kelting believes this can be achieved in the next few years. Then, phase two is growth over time. Kelting said the PSC campus is designed for 1,200 students. He wants get back to that — a fully enrolled, 3,000 student college with double its current operating budget. Ambitiously, he believes in five to seven years the college could have “full dorms, full dining hall, full classrooms and kids running around.”

Then, phase three is opening up branch campuses through the Fedcap affiliation. He’s envisioning “Paul Smith’s in New York City, Paul Smith’s in Boston and Paul Smith’s online.” But he said all this is to hopefully bolster the core camps here. The college is part of the Tri-Lakes community as well as a “community within a community,” he said.

The college is currently in a challenged state, Kelting said, but he believes they are on a path to stability.

“We’re working hard to right the ship,” he said.

The last day of classes on campus was Dec. 5. Classes resume Feb. 6.