Aug 18, 2003 By Amanda Clegg 7 min read

On the campus of Penn State Fayette, the skeleton of a future community center forms a grid against the sky. Diagonal from the construction site sits University House, a two-story, brick house tucked in a corner of the campus. As the belly of a cement mixer spins and a bulldozer pushes forward, inside the house a clock chimes a new hour.

Dr. Gregory Gray, sitting at his desk on the second floor of the house, can relate to his surroundings.

He is in transition, too, letting go of one career and embarking on the next.

“I happened to have been here when there was a lot of growth, so when people look at some of the buildings around here they’ll say, ‘That’s when Gray was here. Things were growing. Student enrollment was growing. And some Penn State pride was growing,'” said the 54-year-old chief executive officer for Penn State Fayette.

After five years as CEO, Gray is leaving the school to become president of the International Academy of Design and Technology in Pittsburgh, a division of the Chicago-based Career Education Corp. The corporation has 75 campuses worldwide, and the international division has seven campuses in Canada and the United States.

“It’s the hardest decision I ever made in my life, because I love Penn State, I love my job here, but I’ve always had an interest in for-profit education,” said Gray, who earned his bachelor’s degree in business from IUP in 1970, his master’s degree in business from the University of Pittsburgh in 1973 and his doctorate in vocational education from Penn State in 1977.

Gray began his career in public education in 1976 as a faculty member at Buffalo State University, where he taught business. He then held the title of dean at State University of New York, Morrisville, from 1987 to 1996. And before coming to Penn State Fayette in 1998, he was vice president for academic affairs at City Colleges of Chicago.

A recruiter who was working for Career Education Corp. contacted Gray a couple months ago with the job proposal, and after several interviews and trips to Chicago, Gray said, the corporation “made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.”

He plans to use the experience he gained at Penn State Fayette in his new career.

“The experience I’ve been able to attain at Penn State has given me an awful lot of leadership experience in dealing with the campus faculty, staff and students and being able to articulate the needs of this campus with the university,” he said. “What I am moving into, although they’re not called branch campuses, is a similar situation where I will have to articulate the needs of our faculty, staff and students at Pittsburgh to the overall corporate goals of Career Education.”

Gray said his new position requires “complete responsibility for all aspects of the school, ranging from the academic classes and programs that we offer to student services and financial aid.” As president, Gray also is responsible for program growth, student numbers and revenue.

“One of the more interesting things I am responsible for is the total profit and loss of the campus,” he said, adding that he would determine tuition increases.

With state funding dropping and tuition rising, Gray said the gap between a for-profit education and a state-supported education is closing.

“One of the things that has intrigued me about the difference between for-profit and state-supported is that states are providing less and less and less dollars for higher education, and as such tuition is going up,” he said. “And as those tuition dollars go up, the tuition being charged by a for-profit as compared to a public – there’s not much of a gap anymore.”

Penn State’s tuition rose 9.8 percent in the last year, an increase of $394 a semester.

The biggest challenge Penn State Fayette faces in the future is the cost to students, Gray said.

“As we raise our tuition, I’m afraid that the cost may be such that some students will not be able to get our education,” he said.

Tuition at Penn State Fayette is more than $4,000 a semester.

“We’re in one of the poorest areas in the state, so that’s a lot of money” Gray said. “Therefore the challenge is to help each and every one of our students achieve the most financial aid possible.”

Gray said private scholarship dollars and money donated from the county commissioners for county residents help to “backfill the gaps” financial aid does not cover.

The county commissioners donated $20,000 to Penn State Fayette this year, and more than 150 scholarships were awarded last year to students enrolled at the school, Gray said.

“I think the hope of the campus is that next year the county commissioners will see fit to actually put a bit more in, because it is an investment in the people of this county,” he said. “I always talk about the outstanding education students get when they come here and they simply have to be able to pay for it.”

Gray said Penn State Fayette has changed since he was hired as the school’s CEO in 1998.

First, he said, the campus has grown, resulting in increased funding from the university because of rising enrollment. Since 1998, Penn State’s student body total has risen from 870 to 1,150, Gray said, adding that this fall will mark the school’s seventh consecutive semester of record enrollment.

During his tenure, Gray has witnessed more than just a rise in student enrollment. In the past five years, $22 million was raised during Penn State’s Grand Destiny campaign, an initiative focusing on endowments for undergraduate and graduate student support, faculty, and programs. A goal of $1 billion was established when the campaign began in 1996; however, the goal for the campaign was raised to $1.3 billion in 2001.

Another difference Gray said he has noticed since he began his career at Penn State Fayette is the appreciation from local residents.

“People in the community now appreciate the resource that Penn State University brings to this area from an economic standpoint, a social and cultural standpoint as well as educational.”

Gray said his greatest accomplishment as CEO was the excitement for learning he stirred among faculty, staff and students.

“I arrived here at a time when the campus was ready for somebody to look at the good things,” he said. “I wanted to impress on people, when I first got here, the number of good things that were already happening, and with that a snowball began and some magic that has led this campus to be right at the top of the heap as it relates to all of the campuses at Penn State.”

He can’t help but praise Penn State Fayette. He said the school is number one in fund-raising, no school has better facilities and “nobody beats” the academic programs offered. He predicts the school will continue to grow over the next 10 years.

“It’s really poised to get bigger and better, and that positive snowball I talked about will get bigger and better as well,” he said. “Certainly there’s no reason [student enrollment] shouldn’t be up in the 2,000s in the next five to 10 years.”

Diane Disney, dean of the Commonwealth College System, said Gray brought a “positive atmosphere” and “teamwork” to Fayette Campus

Gray was a “strong, creative leader,” Disney said, and she wants to “continue that tradition” with a new CEO. Sandra Gleason, associate dean of faculty and research for the Commonwealth College at University Park, has been named interim CEO.

Gray said he and his wife, Donna, plan to continue living in the Uniontown area, and he will commute to Pittsburgh. The couple have two children: Christine Tinnesz, 29 and Greg Jr., 27.

For Gray, leaving behind public education does not mean an end to what he loves to do. “I’ve been in public education all my life, and now I’m leaving that comfort and going into a private corporation,” he said. “There’s a little different culture, I’m sure, but basically they do the same thing. They provide quality education programs, and that’s what I’m supposed to do.”