Keystone College


Keystone College is a private college in Northeastern Pennsylvania. Although the college's official mailing address is La Plume, Pennsylvania in Lackawanna County, much of the campus is in Factoryville in Wyoming County. The school was founded in 1868. Enrolling approximately 1,300 students, Keystone offers around 40 undergraduate and graduate degree programs.

History

Keystone Academy was founded in 1868 by Dr. John Howard Harris. The Academy was originally chartered by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in 1868, with instruction beginning the following year in the local Baptist church in Factoryville. At the time it was chartered, Keystone Academy was the only high school between Binghamton, New York and Scranton, Pennsylvania. In 1934, Keystone Academy was rechartered as Scranton-Keystone Junior College.
In 1944, the name was shortened to Keystone Junior College. The current name Keystone College was adopted in 1995.
In 1998, the school received formal approval from the Pennsylvania Department of Education to offer baccalaureate degree programs. A monumental step in Keystone's history and a signal of the college's continued progress, Keystone received approval to offer master's degrees in 2014.
Since its founding in 1868, the school has had several bands and orchestras. New musical opportunities were made available to the campus and surrounding communities in 2014, through the newly formed Department of Performance Music. In a return to its athletic roots, Keystone reintroduced wrestling in 2016 and announced plans in 2018 to field a football team in 2019.
In 2019, the college announced several changes to better position students for success. As part of a long-term and comprehensive approach for the present and the future, the traditional Visual Arts program will transition to a program focused on digital media and the Geology program will become part of the current Bachelor's degree in Environmental Science. Due to decreasing student participation levels, men's and women's golf and tennis were eliminated. To better align Keystone with current and future needs, the college reduced staffing levels.

Campus

Keystone's scenic 276-acre campus, located at the gateway to the Endless Mountains of Northeastern Pennsylvania, features hiking trails and a freshwater stream. The campus is 15 miles northwest of Scranton on U.S. Routes 6 and 11, and is located in both Lackawanna and Wyoming counties.

Woodlands Campus

Keystone's 170-acre Woodlands Campus features approximately seven miles of hiking trails that are open to students and the public seven days a week from dawn until dusk. In partnership with the Countryside Conservancy, the College opened a 1.7-mile segment of the Trolley Trail during a ribbon cutting ceremony in 2017. The Trail, which serves as a community benefit for all of Northeastern Pennsylvania, is a critical piece of Countryside Conservancy's envisioned 14-mile public hiking and biking trail that follows the abandoned Northern Electric Railroad Line which will ultimately run from Clarks Summit to Lake Winola

Campus

Academic buildings

Keystone College offers around 40 degree options at the undergraduate and graduate levels in several academic programs within two schools. The College is accredited by the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.
Turock School of Arts and Sciences
School of Professional Studies
Keystone College offers graduate programs in the following areas and delivery formats:
Keystone's 18 teams compete in the Colonial States Athletic Conference as a Division III school under the NCAA. Teams are known as the Giants, named after the baseball team that alumnus Christy Mathewson played for.

Men's teams

The Key is the student newspaper.
The Keystonian is the college magazine for alumni and friends.

Notable alumni