ST. CLAIRSVILLE — Paul Gasparro is the president of Belmont College, a two-year technical school in St. Clairsville and one of only six technical colleges in the state of Ohio.

The school offers specialized skills for a variety of industries including the trades, while providing a well-rounded education by teaching English, math and the sciences as well.

Gasparro grew up in Upstate New York where he fell in love with small town life. After a year of college, he was drafted into the military, where he stayed in the U.S. Air Force for 25 years and left as a major.

After the military, Gasparro has spent over 30 years in higher education, moving between several administrative roles for a few small colleges.

One major change Gasparro has seen over time is there is no longer a unilateral push for graduating high school seniors to go to a four-year college and get their bachelor’s degree regardless of their goals.

Now, Gasparro said, it is becoming much more acceptable for students to follow whatever educational path is necessary for their individual career aspirations. In fact, a lot of students do not end up needing an advanced degree at all.

“For the majority of people, you don’t need a doctorate, a master’s, a bachelor’s degree even. You may not even need a two-year degree. What you need is certifications,” he said.

One important aspect of the work that Belmont College does is “change on the dime” to adapt to the needs of the Ohio Valley, Gasparro said. This means quickly working to expedite new programs and certifications as industries and job opportunities in the region change over time.

“Businesses won’t come if you don’t have an educated workforce,” he said.

In other areas, such as evolving demographics of the student body, change is slower. Gasparro said he hasn’t seen the population of the Ohio Valley change much over the time he has been here, so student demographics haven’t either.

“It starts at the bigger places. It starts in the cities, it starts in more populous states and then it kind of spreads,” he said. “It takes industry change. It’s happening slowly, and the demographics will change as that happens, too.”

One big change in higher education has been the rapid expansion and development of new technology and the rapid rise of social media. While technology used to change every decade, then every five years, now it changes extremely rapidly, which brings about both benefits and challenges, he said.

“Now it’s just constantly changing,” he said.

Having laptops and tablets in class allows for new teaching strategies and online learning systems such as Canvas, which allow for both synchronous and asynchronous learning opportunities.

However, while students and faculty can get updated information much more quickly, there is also the new challenge of artificial intelligence, which Gasparro said can allow for plagiarism and discourage learning.

He said faculty and administrators are constantly working to combat that.