ON A BLUSTERY SPRING DAY, Megan Coval wastes no time leading a band of first-time visitors across the handsomely rustic Butler County Community College (BC3) main campus. In her first week as the college’s president, the seasoned higher education professional is swift in expressing her confidence in BC3, as the institution is widely known. “BC3 very quickly developed a good reputation after it was established,” Coval states. “There were lots of students interested in going to college. We had flexible classes where you could work and attend at night, and so we grew to expand with that interest in mind.”
Go West
Her assurance in the employees, Board of Trustees, and friends of BC3 is well-placed. “This past fall we had roughly 2,200 students taking credit courses, and in the most-recent academic year nearly 16,000 on the noncredit side,” Coval states. Of the students taking credit courses in fall 2024, 39% attended full-time and 61% part-time. While 70% of students receive financial aid, 68% of the Class of 2024 graduated debt-free. The total scholarship amount awarded in 2023-2024 by the BC3 Education Foundation exceeded $215,000. BC3 has more than 26,500 alumni since opening its doors.
Employing a workforce of over 500, BC3 has a nearly $30 million annual operating budget. Tuition comprises $12 million of the total, with county and state monies adding the rest. And the college’s very active Education Foundation supports special projects for the college. The local community steps up wonderfully also. “Every year, for either big capital projects or things like scholarships or one-off projects, we have an incredibly generous community,” Coval adds.
This year marks BC3's 60th anniversary. Chartered in 1965, the college began to offer courses the following year. Four wood-and stone structures, blending in nicely with the wooded surroundings, comprised the original main campus. They remain, forming the core of the 13-building campus, which has spread out in all directions on BC3’s 330- acre grounds. “We were the first community college in western Pennsylvania, a big point of pride for us, and it's the genesis of our mascot and our name, the Pioneers,” Coval states. “That nickname came from Governor Scranton, who made the comment that ‘BC3 was the pioneering community college in the western side of the state.’”
A New Hand at the Helm
On March 19, 2025, in a 15-0 vote, BC3’s Board of Trustees appointed Coval the college’s ninth president, elevating her from her interim president post. The Butler native was hired by BC3 in September 2021 to fill the role of Executive Director of the BC3 Education Foundation and External Relations after a nationwide search. Coval was central to the Foundation raising nearly $7 million in private contributions toward construction of the Victor K. Phillips Nursing and Allied Health Building. She also procured a $500,000 federal grant to purchase equipment and technology for the facility.
Coval brings considerable experience in higher education, leadership, and government relations outside of her BC3 work. Prior to the college, she served as vice president of policy and federal relations at the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators in Washington, D.C. and, previous to that, she was director of government relations for the U.S. Department of Education’s Advisory Committee on Student Financial Assistance.
Coval holds a Master of Education degree in Higher Education Administration with a policy focus from The Pennsylvania State University and a Bachelor of Arts Degree in Political Science with a Communication Arts minor from Allegheny College.
Education for Everyone
The rise of community colleges “is really aligned with the civil rights movement,” Coval adds. “That's an important parallel to make, regarding the work that we do and who we serve. It was the first moment in time in higher education where the country came to a realization that maybe not everyone can go away to a four-year institution, that education should be for everyone, and not just the elite.”
Today, BC3 offers certificates and associate degrees in business and information technology, liberal arts, education and behavioral sciences, nursing and allied health, and in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Additionally, five associate degrees and nine certificate and workplace certificates are offered fully online. “Our transfer programs allow students to earn credit toward completing a bachelor’s degree at a four-year institution,” Coval states. “Students in our career programs, and in our certificate programs, can develop the skills needed to enter the workforce immediately after graduation.”
Additionally, BC3 offers noncredit courses. “Those encompass continuing education, recertification, reskilling, or upskilling,” Coval says. “Noncredit is more flexible. If there's a business looking for a certain type of training, we can put that together for them apart from our academic programming.”
“Our noncredit programs, like our workforce development training in business, public safety and industrial safety, and our personal
enrichment courses that we call ‘Lifelong Learning,’ are for community members of all ages. Perhaps they’re following a personal interest—‘I just want to learn about United States history from the ’60s to the ’80s’ or they need a heightened proficiency in Excel due to a new position. We provide that,” Coval explains.
Farmers National Bank—Partners in Regional Education
Farmers’ relationship with the college goes back decades. “The Bank has provided full-platform banking services for BC3 including treasury management, card management, depository services, building financing and liquidity credit lines since 2010, and we have been partners in other endeavors long before that,” states William Marsh, Farmers Senior Vice President, Market President, Pennsylvania.
“On the community side, we have a tremendous relationship with Farmers,” Coval adds. “Farmers has for years been the title sponsor of our annual golf outing, the major fundraising event of our year. But they don't just give to the golf outing. They come to the golf outing. Kyle Hilfiger, from our local Farmers branch, sits on the organizing committee and works the event.”
William Marsh agrees. “We regularly participate in and support annual student activities like their investment club and foundation donations,” he continues. “Farmers considers the college a community partner, we have worked with them in the past for employee recruitment.”
President Coval also is a member of the local Farmers Community Advisory Board. “Having a seat at that table is incredibly important to BC3,” she states. “We’re training and educating the people who work in the industries sitting around the table with us. Today, a college president's role has to focus more on being proactive and connecting with those representatives.”
“Even Better Teachers.”
“My students,” comes the quick and firm reply from associate professor Annie Lindsay when asked what she is most proud of in her
timeat BC3. “I love hearing about where they are when they have their own classrooms, everything that they get to do. But I'm also really
proud of this project.”
“This project” is the room we are standing in, the Dr. Robert L. Paserba Teaching and Learning Lab, named in honor of the former Butler Area School District teacher and superintendent and longtime advocate for early childhood education. Lindsay and BC3 have ingeniously turned this former college classroom into a preschool one, which “allows my students that hands-on experience of setting up a classroom,” Lindsay states. “Think about it this way—when you go into student teaching, everything is already set. All the rules are already in place. So here they experience what they need to do in order to complete all that preparation, which I don't think a lot of people teach in education, and is one of the major stressors for first-year teachers.”
Lindsay invites preschoolers from the on-campus Amy Wise Children’s Creative Learning Center to receive instruction from her students under her supervision. “I’m showing my students new, innovative ways to teach, new worksheets like ‘Let's do something creative, let's be fun, let's really engage our children,’ and those engagement strategies will allow them to be even better teachers.”
The Sky’s the Limit
Even with an azure sky above, on this crisp afternoon students are wasting no time scurrying across the BC3 campus. After all, there are classes to get to, lab work to accomplish, careers to establish. Scanning this busy scene, Megan Coval is in her element. “This is a very meaningful position to be in because I am back in my hometown, working in a field that I care deeply about. Providing quality, accessible and affordable higher education to individuals, allowing them a better chance at a higher quality of life.”