York College of Pennsylvania

York College of Pennsylvania
YCP
Established	1787
Type	Private
Endowment	$52.7 million
President	George W. Waldner
Students	5,367
Undergraduates	4,600
Location	Spring Garden Township, Pennsylvania, USA
Campus	Suburban
Colors	Green and White
Mascot	Spartan
Website	ycp.edu

York College of Pennsylvania (York College or ycpUSA) is a private, coeducational, 4-year college located in southcentral Pennsylvania. The school offers more than 50 baccalaureate majors in professional programs, the sciences, and humanities to its 4,600 undergraduate students. The college also offers master's programs in business, education, and nursing, along with a doctoral program in nursing.

History

The basis of today's, York College of Pennsylvania was started in 1776 by Rev. John Andrews, D.D. and established and incorportated in 1787 as the York County Academy. In 1929, the Academy merged with the York Collegiate Institute, allowing further growth of both schools. But up until 1941, a true college curriculum had yet to be established. It was in 1941 that the school's charter was amended, transforming it from a center for education into a "two-year liberal arts school." At this point, the school began to outgrow its campus, forcing a move outside of downtown York. In 1965, the current campus, located in Spring Garden Township was dedicated. The former occupier of these lands was a local country club and golf course that had gone bankrupt before selling its property. By 1968, York established an accredited four-year bachelor's degree program, and officially became the York College of Pennsylvania. The college sits near the historic center of the city and has some residence halls located in the city, which known as the fourth national capital of the United States of America and the birthplace of the Articles of Confederation. YCP has students from 31 states and 34 countries.

Campus

York College is currently located on three campuses with the majority of its academic buildings on the Main Campus, a few on its more recently built West Campus and the engineering center on its incomplete North Campus. Despite the college's extensive history, all the buildings on campus are less than 50 years of age with the majority of them being built during the 1960s. The buildings utilize a standard red brickwork style, enhanced with white marble on some buildings.

Main Campus

The central buildings include the Robert V. Iosue Student Union building where several offices, gathering halls, the cafeteria, campus radio station WVYC, lounge, and college bookstore are located. The major academic buildings are the newly renovated Wolf Hall, formally known as the Music, Art, and Communications (MAC) building, housing the MAC Department, Recital Hall, and Art Gallery. Campbell Hall sits in the center, with renovations made to its chemistry labs and classrooms. The Appell Life Sciences Building is next door, housing most of the Social Sciences department, and the Playpen Theatre. Adjacent to the Life Sciences complex is the Business Administration Building, teaching of course all things business related. Schmidt Library resides as the figurehead building of the campus, being directly in the center of main campus academic life and houses a large collection of books, periodicals including both scholarly journals and popular magazines, a popular reading collection, the Information Literacy classrooms and a rotating display of student art.

The recently completed Performing Arts Center (PAC) and Humanities Center occupy the space between the Schmidt Library and Student Union. These new facilities consist of one building, built on the site of the old Wolf Gymnasium and including a 720-seat main theatre, black box theatre, scene shop, green room, costume shop, breakout spaces, a mezzanine level, 14 classrooms, 40 faculty offices, computer labs, a film screening room, and more.

The other buildings on campus include the Miller Administration Building and the adjacent Manor Complex (Manor North, Northeast, East, West, and South) which serves as the living quarters of many on-campus freshmen students. Manor Northeast is the newest of the residence hall and was opened in 1998. The campus tennis courts reside nearby with Tyler Run Apartments being a short walk from here as well. Across the small bridge over the picturesque creek which snakes through the campus lay the main commuter parking lots and the other dormitories as well as apartments. Beard Hall, Penn Hall, Codorus Hall, Susquehanna Apartments for upperclassmen and the mini-dorms. The Mini-Dorms, low occupancy residence halls, consist of Willow, Laurel, and Evergreen, named for the surrounding plant/tree life in the area. Beyond there is the campus chapel, the President's house (the two oldest buildings on campus), baseball and softball fields, the old track, and the playing fields for most club sports, especially rugby. Greek Life surrounds the campus, with many being a short walk from most major buildings. Many off-campus upperclassmen live on the neighboring streets outside the college in historic townhouses....

West Campus

At the center of West Campus sits the spacious Grumbacher Sport and Fitness Center (names in honor of the Grumbacher's, who own The Bon-Ton Company in York, PA), a 160,000-square-foot (15,000 m²) complex featuring the Charles Wolf Gymnasium, a 1,712-seat arena hosting varsity competition in men's and women's basketball, volleyball and wrestling; an eight-lane competitive pool with instructional areas and 1- and 3-meter diving boards; a three-court field house; spacious locker room facilities; a climbing wall; cyber cafe; wireless network access throughout the building and a fitness area that spreads out over 7,600 square feet (710 m²).

McKay Hall houses York's upper tier Nursing and its Sports Management curriculum. Not too far from that is the smaller Grantley Hall composed of general-use classrooms as well as the office of the Spartan Newspaper.

The West Campus residential quad consists of Richland Hall, Spring Garden Apartments, Brockie Commons, Country Club Apartments and Little Run Lodge, a suite style residence hall complex which includes a student center with a dining facility, central mailboxes, multipurpose space, tv lounges, game room(s) and other special features.

North Campus

The Kinsley Engineering Center (Kinsley Construction is the largest construction company in York, PA) features a large common project work space area to be used by the Mechanical, Electrical and Computer Engineering disciplines. The building also features many gathering points for students to meet in small work groups or in social settings. The building was converted from a Red Tape Factory; it is LEED certified silver and has open ceilings.

In back of the Kinsley Engineering Center is Northside Commons. It is a 171-unit, five-story residence that houses 275 students in single and double bedrooms. The air-conditioned building houses a mix of freshmen and returning students, and will also include lounge and common space for residents to use.

The Kings Mill Depot, located across the train tracks from Northside Commons, houses the College's J.D. brown Center for Entrepreneurship, a local business incubator, as well as various service facilities for the college.

Academics

York College offers its more than 50 undergraduate majors through ten academic departments.

A center of affordable academic excellence, York College is dedicated to the intellectual, professional and social growth of its students. The College helps them develop a concrete plan to attain academic growth and career success; encourages them to try in the “real world” what they learn in the classroom; and prepares them to be professionals in whatever career they pursue. Emphasis is placed on an outstanding teaching faculty, the majority of whom hold doctorates or other terminal degrees. Graduates enjoy a 90% career placement rate. The college was listed among the top third of 100 "Colleges Worth Considering" nationwide by The Washington Post.

York College is also the host campus for WVYC, Students in Free Enterprise (SIFE) and YCP Rhapsody, York's only a cappella singing group, as well as over 80 other clubs and organizations.

Centre for Professional Excellence

The Centre for Professional Excellence (CPE) was created in 2009 as part of an effort to strengthen the college’s long-standing focus on training students in professionalism as well as in liberal arts. The CPE is guided by an advisory board of human resources and business executives from the private sector as well as faculty and staff from the college. The CPE has two purposes:

1. to develop and conduct a regional and national poll that captures what current employers consider to be characteristics of professionalism; and
2. to assist the college in developing co-curricular programs that develop professional characteristics in students.

National Poll

In the summer of 2009, a national study of 520 human resources professionals and business leaders was conducted by Polk-Lepson Research Group. The study focused on what these business professionals expected from and experienced with first-year employees who were college graduates.

In the survey, respondents indicated what they consider to be unprofessional. Topping the list of unprofessional traits are inappropriate appearance (39.1%), poor communication skills including grammar (38.9%), a poor work ethic (37.0%), poor attitude (28.3%), being disrespectful and inconsiderate (27.4%), and demonstrating a sense of entitlement (16.6%). Responses indicate that human resources and business professionals believe "soft" skills are lacking in new college graduates.

When the CPE conducted the national poll again in 2010, researchers expanded the base of respondents. Along with surveying more than 400 business leaders and human resources professionals nationwide, the survey also asked current college students from around the country and recent graduates the same questions about professionalism. Even with these changes, the results of the 2010 poll were similar to the results from 2009. The 2010 CPE poll reaffirmed the findings that new employees continued to be concerned with advancement opportunities and that information technology etiquette among recent college graduates was not improving.

York College uses findings from the study to guide the development of co-curricular programs on professionalism.

Rankings

The college is ranked by U.S. News & World Report as 13th in the Baccalaureate Colleges of the North category for 2010 and is named a Best Northeastern College by The Princeton Review. The college has is also included in Barron's Best Buys in College Education and is ranked by Parents and Colleges as 8th on its list of Top 10 Best Value Private Colleges and Universities.

Student Life

Social organizations

Fraternities and Sororities comprise 15% of overall York College students. The following organizations are represented.

Fraternities:
Alpha Delta Gamma (ΑΔΓ)
Alpha Chi Rho (ΑΧΡ)
Zeta Beta Tau (ΖΒΤ)
Kappa Delta Rho (ΚΔΡ)
Kappa Delta Phi (ΚΔΦ)
Tau Kappa Epsilon (ΤΚΕ)
Phi Kappa Psi (ΦΚΨ)
Phi Sigma Phi (ΦΣΦ)

Sororities:
Alpha Sigma Tau (ΑΣΤ)
Delta Phi Epsilon (ΔΦΕ)
Theta Phi Alpha (ΘΦΑ)
Sigma Delta Tau (ΣΔΤ)
Phi Mu (ΦM)
Phi Sigma Sigma (ΦΣΣ)

York College also hosts the Alpha Zeta Chapter of the Phi Sigma Pi (ΦΣΠ) National Honor Fraternity.

York College Football

York College does not have a football team, though it does have many conspiracy theories and tales regarding the program's absence. One such tale holds that the game was banned by a former board member of the college after his son suffered a fatal concussion during a football game. The college book store does sell "York College Football" t-shirts and hoodies. On the back of these it reads "Undefeated since 1787". These are one of the more popular clothing items sold by the York College Bookstore.

External links

• York College of Pennsylvania official website