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<p>WILKES-BARRE &#8212;A shrinking pool of high school graduates looking to further their education has King&#8217;s College shifting gears, The Rev. John Ryan said, with a push to draw more international students and expand sports offerings and facilities.</p><p>The college president outlined what he called &#8220;incremental changes&#8221; King&#8217;s is making to stay competitive and keep enrollment up, including drawing an English as Second Language teaching program to the campus which, in turn, increases the lure of international students.</p><p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve gone from one international student in 2014 to 100 today,&#8221; Ryan said during a visit with the Times Leader Opinion Board Tuesday.</p><p>The school is also adding sports teams and facilities, with groundbreaking soon to occur on a $3.5 million facility for the recently added track and field teams, and ice hockey to be added for the 2017-18 school year. With men&#8217;s and women&#8217;s hockey teams, King&#8217;s will have 25 sports, more than most other Middle Atlantic Conference schools, Ryan said.</p><p>Providing more sports options helps lure prospective students, he added. &#8220;If I&#8217;m an accounting major and I have four accounting programs I&#8217;m looking at and I&#8217;m a wrestler, if you don&#8217;t have wrestling, guess what, I&#8217;m not coming here.&#8221;</p><p>Noting King&#8217;s is a Catholic institution established by the Congregation of the Holy Cross &#8212; the same group behind Notre Dame University &#8212; Ryan joked that &#8220;we call it Catholetics.&#8221;</p><p>The Notre Dame connection provides another lure, he noted, as the two institutions have formed partnerships in education offerings. &#8220;We have 13 students going to Notre Dame for their engineering degrees,&#8221; Ryan said, thanks to a program that lets those students get a degree in three years at King&#8217;s and a second degree with two more years at Notre Dame.</p><p>The Notre Dame affiliation has also helped improve King&#8217;s endowment, currently at about $70 million, because the local college&#8217;s money is pooled into Notre Dame&#8217;s and managed by one of the most successful fund managers in higher education, Ryan said.</p><p>King&#8217;s is &#8220;constantly re-engineering itself,&#8221; Ryan said, but big changes are too much of a gamble for a small private school. &#8220;We work on prudent, thoughtful and incremental changes that enhance our core mission,&#8221; he said, which has always been a strong liberal arts education that &#8220;teaches you how to make a living and make a life.&#8221;</p><style>
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<div class="neCaption">King&#8217;s College President Rev. John Ryan talks with the Times Leader editorial board in Wilkes-Barre on Tuesday. </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/web1_TTL031616ryan1.jpg</photo0><caption0>King&#8217;s College President Rev. John Ryan talks with the Times Leader editorial board in Wilkes-Barre on Tuesday. </caption0><photoCredit0>Sean McKeag | Times Leader </photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Mark Guydish</p><p>mguydish@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div><div class="metaInfo"><shirttailMeta><p>Reach Mark Guydish at 570-991-6112 or on Twitter @TLMarkGuydish</p></shirttailMeta></div>

King’s College looks for more international students and offers more sports, school president says