The Washington Post - USA (2022-04-03)

SUNDAY, APRIL 3 , 2022. THE WASHINGTON POST EZ RE A

Sometimes the nudge comes from a brother or sister. Jorge L. Tapia Becerril, a junior at IUP majoring in political science, would be the first in his immigrant family to graduate from college. Tapia, 21, who as- pires to become a lawyer, was born in Mexico and grew up in Kennett Square, Pa. He said he wants to set a college-going example for his three younger sisters. “They are capable of doing it,” he said. “And if they set their minds to it, they will achieve it.” With Tapia’s encouragement, his 18-year-old sister, Jarely, en- rolled here in the fall. She is a criminology major. For any regional university, the most crucial source of new students is the local high school. Indi- ana Area Senior High School is eager to do all it can to open doors to IUP through dual-enrollment programs and other neighborly connections. In a typical year, it sends about 60 graduates to the university. But many graduating seniors are looking for jobs right away. A career corner in the school library displays numerous guidebooks for them, including “300 Best Jobs Without a Four-Year Degree.” Stineman, a senior at the school, seems definitive about her goals after the gap year. “I couldn’t imagine my life not going to go college,” she said. “I’m dead set on going.” But she doesn’t know yet whether that would be IUP or a community college. For some, the question of jobs vs. college after high school is a false choice. They want both. If their plans succeed, colleges may discover a large number of poten- tial students are not lost forever. They’re just delayed. Garrett Griffith is a metalworking whiz. The 18-year-old high school senior from nearby Marion Center was milling a piece of tool steel to a 45-degree angle one recent afternoon in a machining laboratory here. Griffith has taken dual-enrollment classes from IUP. He wants to study business and accounting in hopes of someday owning a manufacturing shop. But Griffith hasn’t applied to IUP or any other college. He sees himself on a different track. With his metalworking skills, Griffith figures to start in a well- paying job after he graduates and then pursue a bachelor’s degree on the side, with help from his em- ployer. “I’m looking to continuously earn education credentials as I work,” Griffith said. “One of my thoughts is to further myself as much as possible, but not break the bank and put myself in the hole.” Griffith is not drawn to the college “experience” — campus dormitories and all of that — as much as he is to skills, training and certification. He talks about college in this way: “It’s not for the lifestyle. It’s for the benefits.”

ally expects at least a 2.5 high school grade-point average. As of March 24, enrollment leaders counted 1,152 deposits from admitted students to save a seat in the freshman class. But those totals can be deceiving because admitted students sometimes hedge their bets with deposits at multiple colleges. IUP offi- cials would like the Class of 2026 to reach 2,000 students, but they say a more realistic scenario is about 1,800. They also are aiming for 300 new transfer students. In an open house for prospective students, recruiter Lance Marshall pitched IUP’s academic programs, student-faculty rela- tionships, Division II sports teams (the Crimson Hawks), suite-style housing and friendly vibe: “a real- ly nice college town, very walk- able, lots of great shops and res- taurants,” he said. “I liked it here as a student. I’ve also raised my family here.” On a tour of the campus, student guides showed off various configurations of two-, three- or four-student suites, raved about the cookies and gelato at the din- ing hall, showed off the student fitness center and noted that the town holds an annual “It’s a Won- derful Life” parade and festival in honor of the famous holiday mov- ie featuring native son Stewart. Michael DeIeso, a postal worker from Philadelphia, was touring with his 17-year-old daughter, Adrianna. He didn’t go to college himself. But for his daughter, he said, “I definitely want her to get out and experience the college life. Meet new people.” Money matters to him. He’s been saving for tuition since Adrianna was a baby. “ This is affordable,” he said. “That’s very attractive.” Like other colleges, IUP mails prospective students reams of promotional material every year, along with emails and texts. But often the best way to land one is through word of mouth. Last year, Hudson Jean was a freshman who might have gotten lost but didn’t. After high school, he thought about private Lebanon Valley College, near his hometown of Lititz, Pa. But Jean, who pos- sesses a strong bass voice, heard from a conductor about a music professor at IUP named Craig Denison. That contact called Den- ison “an amazing conductor” and said, according to Jean: “You should go work with him. He needs basses.” Jean started at IUP in spring 2021 as the coronavirus was still wreaking havoc at schools across the country. “It was a weird time,” he recalled. One recent afternoon here, he was singing “Let My Love Be Heard” in the chorale. “It’s not just the music,” Jean, now 19 and a sophomore, said during a rehears- al break. “It’s the personality of the staff that keeps me here. You can’t have good music without personality.”

ing budget increase for the system,
to $552 million a year, and $
million for need-based aid to stu-
dents in the system and communi-
ty colleges. Those proposals are
pending in the Republican-con-
trolled state legislature. The sys-
tem is pushing lawmakers to make
the investment.
“Basically I say to them, ‘This is
a choice. We are your system, you
own us. What do you want?’ ” said
system Chancellor Daniel Green-
stein. “This is what you need in
terms of your workforce develop-
ment. We can’t deliver without
your support.”
Here in Indiana, the university
is not merging with any others.
IUP is a midsize research institu-
tion that offers PhDs in fields in-
cluding English and safety scienc-
es, master’s degrees for a range of
professions and bachelor’s de-
grees in more than 100 programs.
Founded in 1875, the university
dominates a small town known as
the birthplace of Hollywood star
Jimmy Stewart and the center of a
Christmas-tree-growing region.
Faculty members are proud of
IUP and eager to help stabilize, or
better yet raise, enrollment. Some
say that the university grew too
much when it reached 15,000 stu-
dents a decade ago, and that a
better target would have been
12,000. There have been years of
cost-cutting pain, they say, as the
head count plunged below 10,
during the pandemic.
“It’s been hell on wheels,” said
David Chambers, chair of political
science. “Serious budget deficits.”
He is planning to retire at the end
of the school year after more than
30 years at IUP. “I don’t know, but
I’m reasonably sure that I won’t be
replaced,” Chambers said, “which
then places a great deal of pres-
sure on the department because
they have to try to figure out how
to cover the courses I teach.”
David Piper, a longtime profes-
sor of employment and labor rela-
tions, holds four degrees from IUP
and chairs its University Senate.
There was a time, he said, when
enrollment “just happened.” Stu-
dents showed up; faculty mem-
bers taught. Now, it’s all hands on
deck. He pitches in at student ori-
entations and move-in days and
other events. “I recruit when I’m
on vacation,” Piper said. “I recruit
when I go to church on Sunday. I
recruit, you know, no matter
what.”
On the university’s enrollment
team, there is practically no end to
the admissions cycle. It offers
transfer and freshman seats on a
rolling basis throughout the year
and sticks with recruiting every
day until students actually show
up.
For the class that entered in fall
2020, records show that 93 per-
cent of 9,030 freshman applicants
were admitted. Of those, 1,864 en-
rolled that fall. The school gener-

FROM PREVIOUS PAGE

PHOTOS BY JEFF SWENSEN FOR THE WASHINGTON POST

BreAnn Stineman, 18, top, a student at Indiana High School, plans to take a gap year before attending
college. Garrett Griffith, 18, above, a high school senior from Marion Center, Pa., is a student at
Indiana County Technology Center with plans to move into the job market after graduation.

the “zero” mark by late May, with consequences that included depleted reservoirs, water shortag- es, the shutdown of the state’s largest hydroelectric plant and devastating forest fires during the summer of 2021. This year, snow could be gone by late April or even earlier, de- pending on the weather. It remains unclear how much meltwater ultimately will make it to reservoirs, many of which are less than half full, including Oro- ville and Shasta, the state’s largest. In 2021, the snowpack was built on historically dry soils, which quickly absorbed the melting snow. This year’s wet start to the year boosted soil moisture before the snowpack was built in December, making it more likely that runoff will flow into streams and reservoirs. The California Department of Water resources noted in a report published last year that, because of climate change, it has become “increasingly difficult to rely on historical observations to predict water supply conditions” and that the department’s “runoff fore- casts substantially over-estimat- ed the runoff that occurred” in spring 2021. Dahlke said that computer models have become less reliable at predicting how much water will flow into streams and reservoirs, for a number of possible reasons. The state’s overgrown forests are probably using more water, which models may not be capturing, for example. Water is also being lost to evaporation and sublimation as a result of higher temperatures. “It’s not clear what fraction of the snowpack is just disappearing into the atmosphere,” she said. A study published last fall proj- ects that persistent low-to-no- snow conditions in the Sierra and in the Mountain West could become the norm if climate change continues unabated. In the western United States, climate warming has already brought substantial declines in mountain snowpack, with peak snow water equivalent dropping by about 20 percent since the 1950s, according to one study. It has also shifted the timing of snowmelt to earlier in the spring. “The days when we had snowmelt occurring through June — those days are over,” Dahlke said.

Diana Leonard is a science writer covering natural hazards. You can follow her on Twitter @HazardWriter.

BY DIANA LEONARD

California’s mountain snowpack is rapidly shrinking after the driest start to the calendar year on record and a late-March heat wave. Melting could accelerate with another heat wave next week. The snowpack outlook looked encouraging near the beginning of winter. Prolific December storms built the snowpack to 160 percent of average by Dec. 30. At the time, the state was entering the wettest months of the year with a promising surplus that boosted hopes for drought recov- ery. But those gains have been lost. On Friday, the California De- partment of Water Resources con- ducted its monthly snow survey at Phillips Station in the Sierra Ne- vada. Standing in a nearly snow-free meadow, Sean de Guzman, man- ager of the department’s Snow Surveys and Water Supply Fore- casting, measured only 2.5 inches of snow depth — only 4 percent of average for the date at that loca- tion. “With below average rain and snow statewide, California is now facing a third consecutive year of dry conditions and extending this ongoing drought,” he said. “This past January, February and March have been actually the driest period on record in the Sierra Nevada dating over 100 years.” Statewide snowpack now sits at 38 percent of average, about a third of where it should be this time of year. California is poised to enter a third consecutive summer in drought, with serious im- plications for water supply and wildfire in the months ahead. “The conditions we are seeing today speak to how severe our drought remains,” Department of Water Resources director Karla Nemeth said on Friday, calling on all Californians to conserve water in the face of a third dry year. The deficits are particularly striking in Northern California, where the state’s largest reservoirs are located and where ex- treme drought has re-emerged and expanded in recent weeks, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

“Northern California in partic- ular did not get enough precipita- tion this year,” said Helen Dahlke, an associate professor of hydrolo- gy at the University of California at Davis. “We are supposed to be the water tower for the state.” According to California State climatologist Michael Anderson, average snow water equivalent — the amount of water held in snow — peaked statewide on March 8. Snowpack has historically peaked on April 1 — a milestone date for water resources in Cali- fornia and other parts of the West — after which it begins to melt because of the higher sun angle and increased solar radiation in spring. Under normal conditions, that melting should continue through the spring and well into summer, filling the state’s man- made reservoirs and moistening soils and plants. Slow and steady melting doesn’t appear to be in the cards this year. “We’ve already seen pretty sig- nificant melt this year, and we expect that to continue,” said An- derson, who works at the Califor- nia Department of Water Re- sources. The snowpack took an especial- ly hard hit during a recent heat wave, with the Northern Sierra losing more than a quarter of its snow water content March 19-26. Forecast models show an in- tense heat wave could build over the western United States next week. In fact, the Climate Predic- tion Center has placed a bull’s eye over California, signaling a very good chance for much-above-normal temperatures in early to mid- April. The early snowmelt could mean that there will be less water available for irrigation and for fish downstream of reservoirs during the heart of the summer dry season. The landscape will also dry out sooner, even at higher elevations, leading to a prolonged stretch of abnormally parched conditions. Current wildfire outlooks predict an early start to the large fire season, which this year is expect- ed to ramp up in May in some areas. Last year, after a warm and dry spring, the state’s snowpack hit

Calif. snowpack vastly

depleted after dry start

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