Karen M. Whitney has been teaching for the last 25 years. (Lamont Sinclair/ The Clarion Call)

CLARION, Pa., April 22 – Karen M Whitney, a potential candidate for president of Clarion University, said she sees herself as one in a long line of teachers.

“I view myself as an educator first,” she said, citing her family’s long line of educators.

Whitney has been working in higher education for 30 years, starting as a resident adviser and working her way up, including working in executive administration for the past 10 years.

She has been teaching for the last 25 years. She also writes and presents scholarly papers on a regular basis.

She has a bachelor’s degree in psychology, a master’s degree in public administration and her doctorate in higher education administration.

Should she become president, her goals include advancing the university’s enterprises, promoting the “Clarion values” with pride and enhancing the university’s resource base.

Her overall goal is growth in all areas for the university.

“A president’s job is to protect and to progress, to fight for funding,” said Whitney.

She said she is very impressed with how the university leverages its funding and wishes to increase that if she becomes president.

In the face of what Whitney said she sees as an inevitable decline in funding, her goal is to try to reduce that decline for Clarion students by having a steady cash flow into the university.

Whitney said she sees herself in the mid-range of qualification in the fundraising department, having raised $2.7 million for her own portfolio.

She said she hopes to increase enrollment and student retention at the university.

She said she hopes that, at some point, the university will work so students can have more of their college degrees paid by scholarships and be less dependent on student loans.

Whitney said that, in her view, it is up to the state to help provide education to students who need it.

“It’s morally wrong for a state to control education and not fund it,” said Whitney.

She noted that many of the students at Clarion come from Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Erie, and part of the reason is the personal connections between Clarion alumni and those communities.

“It goes beyond the driving distance relationship,” she said.

When asked for specific strategies on how to increase enrollment and cash flow, Whitney said she would have to look at what’s working for the university before formulating a decisive plan.

Alexia Pursley, a senior industry relations and management major who attended the session in Hart Chapel, praised Whitney.

“I enjoy her subjective appeal to the functional areas of education, which makes an obvious balance of rationality and insight,” said Pursley.

“I think she will act in faculties’ and students’ best interest and to fullest extent of her being,” said Pursley.

Pursley said she is confident Whitney will take the students’ interests into account and take a path of success to achieve the university’s overall goals. She says she’s looking forward to an administrator who seeks to actively increase student engagement in the university.

“As business student, she appeals to me in that she evaluates the situations such as budget cuts, she is dedicated to finding what went well and what didn’t,” said Pursley.

She also said she felt a calm she hasn’t felt with some of the other speakers.

“I did not feel anxious;” said Pursley, “I felt completely comfortable, like I could ask her anything. She seems very relatable.”

As a presidential candidate, Whitney said she sees possibilities and promise at Clarion.

“I can see Clarion’s desire to do good in the world,” said Whitney, “and its potential to do more.”