DUNMORE, Pa. \u2014 Joseph P. Clifford enrolled at Penn State Scranton \u2014 then-named Penn State Worthington Scranton \u2014 in 1970 as a first-generation student, the first in his family to attend college. He said he chose the Commonwealth Campus because it was close to home (he\u2019s a West Scranton native), and it made the most sense financially.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was a first-gen student,\u201d he said. \u201cI couldn\u2019t at the time afford the higher tuition at some of the other colleges.\u201d<\/p>\n
Little did he realize at that time that his pragmatic decision would connect him to a professor who would help shape his future and leave an indelible, lifelong impression on the young man. Clifford graduated in 1972 with his electrical engineering technology degree \u2014 now, he has created a scholarship that will help future students to find their own path to success at the campus.<\/p>\n
After graduating, Clifford started his career at PP&L and built a rewarding career, retiring from PPL Solutions, a subsidiary of PPL Corporation, as vice president of business development. However, he said, he never forgot Michael Abdalla, an assistant professor who taught math, physics and engineering at Penn State Scranton.<\/p>\n
Abdalla, who retired from Penn State Scranton in 2005 after 38 years as assistant professor and serving as the varsity men\u2019s basketball coach for over 17 years, said he had not realized the impact he had had on Clifford all those years ago until recently, when Clifford established a scholarship in his mentor\u2019s name as a way of honoring the man he credits with helping him to be prepared for his professional career and life.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not an educator, but Mike had a way of teaching \u2014 a model, if you will \u2014 that we need to get back to. He made [the subject matter] interesting and relevant, as well as challenging. He wouldn\u2019t let anyone be mediocre,\u201d Clifford recalled. \u201cI got the education at Penn State Worthington to become a professional engineer. I learned a lot from him. Most importantly, I learned how to learn. Learning to learn was more important than the subject matter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Back when he was a student, the campus operated on trimesters, as opposed to semesters, so students took 10-week courses.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was intensive and people couldn\u2019t afford to fall behind. And Mike realized that and worked with his students make sure that they would succeed,\u201d Clifford said.<\/p>\n
One class Abdalla taught had 25 students, which was small enough to allow him to give more personal attention to each one, which was key, Clifford recalled, because the class was made up of recent high school graduates, military veterans and students of various ages and backgrounds.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DUNMORE, Pa. \u2014 Joseph P. Clifford enrolled at Penn State Scranton \u2014 then-named Penn State Worthington Scranton \u2014…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196799,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[178,180,179],"class_list":["post-197155","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-scranton","tag-scranton","tag-scranton-headlines","tag-scranton-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197155","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=197155"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197155\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=197155"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=197155"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=197155"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}