Obituaries

Robert Kopecek, Longtime President of NCC, Dies

President of Northampton Community College for 26 years, Kopecek led while campus, enrollment and community outreach expanded.

 

Robert Kopecek, who led Northampton Community College for 26 years while it significantly expanded course offerings and more than tripled the size of its student enrollment, died at his home in North Carolina on Thursday, the school announced.

A news release on the college Website said Kopecek is “remembered as a visionary and hard-driving leader, determined throughout his presidency to expand access to education, to foster economic development, and to make Northampton a world-class community college.”

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Kopecek took over from the college’s founding president, Richard C. Richardson, in 1977 and remained in that role until his retirement in 2003. He was replaced by a year ago.

While Kopecek was president at Northampton, annual enrollment grew from 7,900 to nearly 25,000 and academic offerings expanded to include more than 100 fields of study.

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He also helped institute new community outreach programs, including adult literacy and English-as-a-second-language programs. Horizons for Youth and Art as a Way of Life, which became a national model for early childhood education, were also implemented under Kopecek.

Kopecek oversaw a growing campus as Communications Hall and a child care center were built and the College Center and Commonwealth Hall were expanded.

Kopecek was also a leader in local economic development, serving as president of the Northampton County Economic Develoment Corp., which later merged to become the Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corp.

He also served on the boards or advisory committees of the Bethlehem Chamber of Commerce, the Lehigh Valley Partnership, the Northampton County Industrial Development Authority, the Ben Franklin Partnership and the Private Industry Council. 

He twice served as president of the Pennsylvania Commission for Community Colleges and once as chair of the Pennsylvania Association of Colleges and Universities, whose membership includes almost all of the public and private colleges and universities in the Commonwealth.

He is survived by his wife, M. Suzette and two adult children, according to The Express-Times.

No information was available on a funeral or memorial services.


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