Neslihan Alp is the new vice president for academic affairs and provost at the Pennsylvania College of Technology in Williamsport. The post is the institution’s highest-ranking academic officer.
“This is the environment I want to work in,” Dr. Alp said.” I like the people, and unlike my other schools, I don’t have to prove the importance of engineering and technical programs. I was shocked when I was walking around on the first day of school. Students were in the lab. They were already building things!”
The Pennsylvania College of Technology enrolls about 4,200 students, according to the most recent statistics from the U.S. Department of Education. Women make up just 37 percent of the student body.
For nearly 30 years, Dr. Alp has paired an engineering background with a passion for higher education, advancing from instructor to department head to associate dean at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga before serving the past four years as dean of the College of Technology at Indiana State University.
Dr. Alp was raised in Istanbul, Türkiye. She earned a bachelor’s degree in engineering management and a master’s degree in industrial engineering at Istanbul Technical University. She later earned a Ph.D. in engineering management at the Missouri University of Science and Technology.