A little more than six months after its official ribbon-cutting, Allegheny College’s branch campus in Meadville — the Allegheny Lab for Innovation and Creativity, also known as ALIC @ Bessemer — is entering a new phase of growth. The lab, which serves as a bridge between Allegheny’s liberal arts education and the region’s advanced manufacturing community, recently received a $400,000 grant from the National Science Foundation through the foundation’s Enabling Partnerships to Increase Innovation Capacity program. The grant marks a major milestone for the college’s commitment to economic development and workforce innovation in northwestern Pennsylvania.

ALIC @ Bessemer was established in 2024 as part of Allegheny’s mission to connect classroom learning with real-world application, an effort that has already earned praise from state leaders, including Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who called Allegheny “a model institution” and “a point of pride here in the commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” according to Campus reporting.
Now, with the new NSF EPIIC funding, that mission is expanding further.

“We’ve partnered with two other schools, Xavier University in Louisiana and Southern Connecticut State University,” said Byron Rich, assistant provost for academic innovation at Allegheny College and one of the co-principal investigators for the grant. “Basically, how EPIIC works is you submit an application, and if it’s approved, you’re part of a cohort. We went to Atlanta, met other schools in the first round and built relationships. That’s how we determined that us, Xavier and Southern Connecticut had the most overlap in our goals for what this EPIIC funding would allow us to do.”

For Allegheny, those goals focus on connecting four-year liberal arts students with the region’s manufacturing sector.

“What we’re really trying to do is get our four-year degree-seeking students involved in what’s called use-inspired research with the manufacturing community,” Rich said. “It’s basically just applied research, something Allegheny already excels at. The EPIIC funding will help us develop a cohesive R&D (research and development) ecosystem that gets our students working alongside our industry partners on real-world research challenges. It takes the best of our liberal arts education and projects it into the community in a new kind of way.”

Unlike traditional research grants that fund specific projects, the NSF EPIIC award is about building systems and partnerships that make collaboration sustainable. The program spans three years and emphasizes developing processes that enhance both education and economic impact.

“The grant isn’t about funding projects per se,” Rich said. “It’s about funding processes to allow our students to transform the experience. We’re developing a world-class research ecosystem that combines the best of our liberal arts with the needs of our region in advanced manufacturing.”

That approach echoes the founding vision of ALIC @ Bessemer, which President Ron Cole, ’87, described at the site’s grand opening as a way to “respond to the challenges” facing western Pennsylvania — such as an aging workforce, population decline and shifting economic needs — ”with full action.” Cole framed ALIC as a place where higher education can be “rooted in community needs and aligned with regional opportunity.”

ALIC’s philosophy is to integrate liberal arts thinking — critical analysis, creativity and problem solving — with the practical skills required in modern manufacturing and technology-driven industries. Courses at ALIC are taught by industry professionals rather than full-time instructors, and the campus emphasizes modular, stackable learning that allows both students and local professionals to build skills flexibly.

With the NSF funding, that collaborative ecosystem will only deepen. The grant will support new partnerships, training for faculty and expanded opportunities for students to engage with industry partners.

“Our goals between the three schools — Allegheny, Xavier and Southern Connecticut — are to develop a cohesive undergraduate research model focused on regional economic strengths, to innovate in industry partnerships and to promote professional development for all stakeholders,” Rich said. “We’ll be working with faculty to incorporate use-inspired research experiences into our courses, providing training for both faculty and industry partners and helping students work together to solve industry-defined problems.”

He added that part of the funding will go toward developing intellectual property and technology transfer agreements, important steps for students who might turn their research into start-ups or products. Faculty and staff will also receive training in grant management and collaboration with industry, ensuring that the momentum continues beyond the life of the NSF award.
Rich emphasized that ALIC’s growth doesn’t replace Allegheny’s existing programs but strengthens them.

“This is in no way, shape or form replacing the amazing work of faculty or programs like ERSCA,” he said. “We’re just trying to help enhance the tremendous opportunities that they already provide to our students and faculty.”

The early stages of the EPIIC partnership are already underway. Rich and co-principal investigator Amber Pouliott, ’07, the director of foundations and corporate relations, recently met with peers from the other participating institutions and are preparing to attend a national conference in Washington, D.C., in November. Implementation of the grant’s initiatives will begin in earnest this spring.

“ALIC is thriving right now,” Rich said. “We’re in an immense growth phase. We just received the NSF funding a few weeks ago, and the work is just beginning, but it’s very exciting. It’ll really enable meaningful research opportunities for students from a number of different disciplines across campus.”

Ultimately, Rich said ALIC @ Bessemer stands as a living example of how a liberal arts education can remain relevant in the 21st century, by embracing collaboration, innovation and regional engagement.

“The biggest thing to note about Bessemer is that we’re just trying to show how powerful liberal arts experiences are,” Rich said. “Bessemer is a mechanism to show how that thinking is lived in the world post-graduation. We’re not changing what Allegheny has historically done, we’re just providing another opportunity to show off what a world-class education our faculty and staff provide.”