SETS HIS SIGHTS HIGH FOR PCOM
SKY’S THE
THE
LIMIT
NEW PRESIDENT
Matthew Schure, PhD, PRESIDENT & CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER
We all have days like this etched deep in our minds – days when we experienced something that changed the course of our lives, made us take a different path. It usually happens by chance, without warning, and that’s exactly how it was for PCOM’s new president and CEO Matthew Schure, PhD, one day in 1969. He was starting his career in psychology as a research associate at New York Institute of Technology (NYIT) on Long Island. Because it was hard to find professors to teach on Friday afternoons, the psychology department asked him to teach a class. He was petrified. He was, after all, only 21 years old. To further chip away at his confidence, while walking to the first class two students mistook him for a freshman. Once there, a student said, “Why are you standing up there? Just sit down and wait for the teacher.” But once he started teaching, he was hooked. “Sharing one’s knowledge was so profound – it was life-changing,” recalls Dr. Schure. “Helping people maximize their potential is so special, I think that being in higher education is the greatest blessing one can be afforded. When I taught that first class, I knew I was going to spend my entire career in higher education.” And that’s exactly what he did. He spent the next 30 years at NYIT, holding a variety of positions including professor of behavioral sciences, associate
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dean for academic assessment, chairperson of the department of community medicine and several top administrative posts before becoming president and CEO in 1991. When the PCOM opportunity presented itself, he had just reached all the academic and financial goals he had set for NYIT, an eight-college institution that includes New York College of Osteopathic Medicine (NYCOM). Under Dr. Schure’s leadership, NYIT flourished. Its financial troubles were turned around, its mission became more clearly defined and the school grew to its current size of about 10,000 students on three campuses. There’s no mistaking the satisfaction on Dr. Schure’s face when he notes that NYIT was included in the “Best Colleges” issue of US News & World Report. He is justifiably proud of increasing the use of technology in learning by wiring all three campuses with fiber optics, developing online courses and using Internet-based programs such as chat rooms to complement classroom learning. But as proud as Dr. Schure is of these institutional accomplishments, he’s equally proud of what he calls “interpersonal connections.” Like the time he ran into a former student who told him, “You changed my life.” After hearing Dr. Schure lecture on the needs of dying patients and their families, she had decided to become a psychiatrist so she could help these patients and their families cope.