PA College Magazine - Spring 2021 - 11

PA COLLEGE / FEATURE

On the electrical end, we get the heart
to beat correctly. "
She loves the advances in technology at
the College. " As a student I practiced
on a piece of plywood with PVC tubing.
Now we have a simulator that mimics
everything. "
She especially loves teaching and " seeing
students get it. So many have gone on to
be successful cardiovascular technologists
and it makes me so proud. I always tell
them you can have a very hard day, but
who else gets to go home and say, 'I've
saved 10 people's lives today'? "

Fixing Things Inside
the Body	
HOWARD COVERDALE,
BSHS '12, CST, Program
Director, Surgical
Technology
" Surgery is incredibly
interesting, " says
Howard Coverdale. " I've worked as a
surgical technologist in nearly every
specialty, and it's amazing the ways we
can fix things inside the human body. "
But Coverdale also loves teaching,
and extols the College's embrace of
technology: the sim labs, the video-gamestyle apps he uses to teach surgery, the
collaborative spaces, and the writable
windows and walls where students draw
diagrams of body systems they've been
tasked to learn. He loves the emphasis
on integrating the health sciences
through simulations where students
work together across disciplines.
With advances in robotics and the
prospect of more surgeons operating
remotely, he is even preparing students
to become the lead health care providers
on site. " We're the ones making sure
the robotic arms have the proper
instrumentation, the ones doing the
trouble shooting, " he says.

progress. " It's so gratifying to see them
working as surgeons, first assistants
and physician's assistants all over the
country, " he says.

Still Learning
Penni Longenecker
'85, CNMT, RT(N),
PhD, Vice President of
Institutional Effectiveness
Penni Longenecker
graduated from the
(then) Lancaster Institute for Health
Education's Nuclear Medicine program
nearly a decade before it became part
of the College in 1994. " We started out
[at the College] educating nurses, but
as things became more technologically
advanced, we added different health
science programs, " she says.
" It's been an amazing journey, to go
from a bunch of mostly little programs
all working on their own, having their
own graduations, their own admissions,
to being a fully accredited college on a
beautiful campus. "
Longenecker made the transition from
clinician to educator 27 years ago, has
served as the Vice President of Academic
Affairs and, now, is Vice President of
Institutional Effectiveness. " I still get
to be an educator, helping the faculty
and staff understand assessment and
accreditation. I'm also working with a
relatively new group, the Data Governance
Council, so I'm still learning, and that,
to me, is the joy of being in education,
that continuous learning. Everything
changes so quickly in our world, so we
are always looking for opportunities to
know more, and to use that knowledge
to provide the best possible
educational experience for our
students. " n

And he takes great satisfaction in
following his students' post-graduation
PA College / Spring 2021

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PA College Magazine - Spring 2021

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