Mark B. Cohen - Expansion of Educational Opportunities and Funding For All Pennsylvanians

Expansion of Educational Opportunities and Funding For All Pennsylvanians

Working with Dr. Miguel Cortes, a full-scholarship graduate of the medical school of the University of Guadalajara, Cohen co-sponsored and actively pushed legislation introduced November 25, 1975, enacted in 1976, to enable an American citizen who was a foreign medical graduate to complete a 5th Pathway Program to receive a license to practice medicine in Pennsylvania. The 5th Pathway Program peaked nationally in 1979-1980, and ultimately the expansion of the programs offered by the Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates led to its falling-off and eventual elimination by the Council on Medical Education of the American Medical Association.

Cohen introduced House Resolution 313 on June 11, 1986, which established the Select Committee to Study the Feasibility of a Harrisburg Law School. After this resolution was approved by a 98 to 97 margin on June 18, 1986, Cohen chaired the committee, which strongly recommended that a Harrisburg law school be created and drew the interest of Delaware Law School of Widener University. Delaware Law School did its own feasibility study, confirming the value of establishing a Harrisburg campus, gained funding from John Vartan, and ultimately changed its name to Widener University School of Law. Cohen's leadership in inspiring the creation of the Harrisburg campus of Widener University School of Law was noted on Volume 1, Page 1 of the Journal of the Harrisburg Campus of the Widener School of Law and other sources. The law school opened in September, 1989, and graduated its first class of full-time students in May, 1992. The first evening class, of which Cohen was a member, graduated in May, 1993.

The Select Committee's law school feasibility study, of which House Local Government Committee Legal Counsel William M. Sloane was primary author, documented that Pennsylvania ranked lower than many other states in law schools per person, lawyers per person, and percent of lawyers working for state government. It compared lawyers in the state capitol of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania with lawyers in the state capitols of Lansing, Michigan and Trenton, New Jersey, both of which had evening law schools, and found that the Harrisburg attorneys were significantly less likely to have earned degrees at age 28 or higher, when they were more likely to be tied to a job. It found that 11 state capitols had law schools offering evening courses, and one state capitol had a law school offering part-time day courses. It found that there were 3.65 million Pennsylvanians for whom a law school in Harrisburg would be closer than any existing law school.

The success of the Widener University School of Law led to emulation in law school expansion by other Pennsylvania educational institutions. Dickinson School of Law of Pennsylvania State University opened a campus in University Park, Pennsylvania in 2006. The Earle Mack School of Law of Drexel University also opened in Philadelphia in 2006. Wilkes University has announced intentions to open a law school by 2014, after taking steps with an earlier opening date in mind.

Cohen introduced House Resolution 323 on April 25, 1990 which, upon its adoption by the state house, created the Select Committee to Study the Feasibility of a Harrisburg University. Speaker Robert W. O'Donnell appointed Cohen to chair the committee, which held hearings without producing a consensus and concluded that "further study" was needed. Further study, from the office of Harrisburg Mayor Stephen Reed and in the private sector, did take place, and the Harrisburg University of Science and Technology was chartered in 2001 and opened in 2005. Its affiliate, SciTech High, opened in 2003. Harrisburg University's website credits "the idea for the university" to "business leaders, government officials, and the regional news media." Harrisburg University's website also says that "The University is a model of public-private partnership. The University receives external support from the corporate sector, private individuals, and state and federal government. Fortune 500 companies and other leading companies such as Hershey Company, Select Medical Corporation, PPL (utility), Cleveland Brothers Equipment Company, Tyco Electronics, and Penn National Insurance all support the university."

In working successfully to establish Harrisburg University, Cohen and others reversed many years of elite indifference to educational opportunities for Harrisburg, Pennsylvania students and others who worked in Harrisburg or would have been interested in being educated there cited by columnist and historian Paul Beers in a long series of columns written for the Harrisburg Patriot-News from February, 1983 through March, 1984, in which he complained that "The gentry never considered establishing a college. Its feeling was that proper Harrisburgers could always be admitted to Yale--(former early 20th century Harrisburg mayor and longtime Harrisburg Patriot-News publisher) Vance McCormick was on its board for 23 years--or Princeton, or Penn, or Dickinson, or even rural Penn State--where McCormick also was a trustee for 38 years. The result was that Harrisburg was Pennsylvania's last major city to get a college." Continuing in the same vein, Beers wrote "The local civic achievement of the mid-1960s was strictly non-political. The founding of Harrisburg Area Community College represented an outflanking of the old-guard politicos who seemed indifferent to Harrisburg as the last major city in Pennsylvania without a college....(Affluent and elite)Front Street for decades maintained its noble and lofty ideals by sending its offspring to Yale, Princeton, Penn and occasionally Dickinson. Only the rare and ambitious from the rest of town made it to college. As late as Sputnik in 1957, the Harrisburg area shamefully endured a high dropout rate and fewer than 20% of its seniors entered post-secondary education. Though imported college night-school courses were offered since the early 1930s, there were no state or Catholic colleges here. York, Lancaster, Wilkes-Barre and Williamsport were college towns, but not Harrisburg...."

At the beginning of the Gulf War, Cohen introduced House Bill 2949 on October 2, 1990, to "reaffirm the support of this Commonwealth for members of the National Guard and other reserve components of the United States" and to declare "that the laws of this Commonwealth, providing support for the National Guard and other reserve components should be updated in light of the current duties and responsibilities of the National Guard and reserve component forces as part of the total force." Section 7313 of this bill provided for an "Educational Leave of Absence" for a Guard member "called or ordered to active duty" during their time of service, with restoration "to the educational status they had attained prior to their being ordered to military duty without loss of academic credits earned, scholarships or grants awarded or tuition and other fees paid prior to the commencement of the military duty." Educational institutions were required "to refund tuition or fees paid on a pro rata basis or to credit the tuition and fees to the next semester or term after the termination of the educational military leave of absence at the option of the student...."

On November 13, 1990, Cohen introduced Amendment A3959 to Senate Bill 1366, which incorporated the above educational leave of absence language in Section 7313. Cohen's educational leave of absence amendment unanimously passed the House, as did the bill. Senate Bill 1366, as amended by Cohen, was signed into law by Governor Robert P. Casey on December 17, 1990, becoming Act 174 of 1990. Cohen then, in the 1993-1994 legislative session, introduced legislation for "educational assistance grants" for members of the Pennsylvania National Guard; this program became, as a result of a House Appropriations Committee amendment to Senate Bill 698 passed by the House on May 21, 1996, with Cohen publicly supporting suspending house rules to expedite its passage, act 56 of 1996, signed into law by Governor Thomas J. Ridge on June 19, 1996.