Pitt confronts crisis
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Joel Long can’t say what his counterparts are thinking in California, Clarion and Edinboro, or for that matter, Bloomsburg and Mansfield.
But the mayor of Lock Haven knows this: His small Central Pennsylvania community will drastically change if the state-owned university in its confines is diminished. Like other speakers at a virtual town hall Tuesday evening, he said he fears the 150-year-old institution is in jeopardy, and that the State System of Higher Education has stopped listening.
Within weeks, the system’s board will take an initial vote on merging universities in those towns, including Lock Haven, into two enhanced institutions. State System Chancellor Daniel Greenstein says with enrollment down sharply and finances worsened by the pandemic, time for talk has passed — a sentiment that has picked up support within the Legislature and elsewhere by some impatient with system moves.
But a different narrative emerged Tuesday evening. Speaker
after speaker agreed that change is needed, but they do not agree that cutting a third of the faculty, increasing class sizes and offering fewer in-person classes are the right answers. Upward of 130 attended.
It’s not just jobs and municipal income, though both would be hurt, Mr. Long said.
“As a parent, my son goes to Lock Haven — he is in his junior year — I have three other children,” the mayor said. “Having a university close to home is important to us. It’s important to have a place where our children have a real opportunity to pursue their education.”
Jacqueline Martin, superintendent of the Keystone Central School District, said staff in her schools have insight that could help system leaders navigate demographic trends to better inform their decisions about Pennsylvania’s 14 stateowned universities. She pointed out that students in the district are tomorrow’s college students.
“We’ve got the data that can help,” she said. “We’ve [got] the Class of 2034. We’ve got the future. Somebody’s going to have to start listening.”
Sixty-seven faculty positions are due to be eliminated by 2022, almost a third of the teaching force, said Peter Campbell, a professor of sports studies and president of Lock Haven’s chapter of the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties.
Lock Haven had a plan to right its finances in five years, only to have the pandemic move that up to two years, he said. Now, he added, the chancellor is telling the school that $53 million in a reserve fund Lock Haven built up for rough times is not its own to use.
“We’re not deadbeats,” he said. “We’re not leeches.”
Under the system plan, Lock Haven would merge with Bloomsburg and Mansfield universities. California, Clarion and Edinboro would become a single institution in the west.
A 14-to-1 student to faculty ratio that Lock Haven promotes on its website would be increased to 19, complicating efforts to market its small campus, the professors union said. More online courses shared by the universities would make learning less effective and enjoyable, said Kayla Shutters, an English and fine arts double major.
One speaker complained that Mr. Greenstein never mentions Pennsylvania is near dead last among states in taxpayer support of higher education. In fact, he has done so, as recently as Tuesday in a Zoom meeting with another system campus, Indiana University of Pennsylvania.
A student from Maryland asked Mr. Greenstein during the IUP session why an academic program, even with low enrollment, would be cut if it draws students like her from out of state. The chancellor replied that for various reasons, campus priorities must shift as employer demands change.
“We can’t just do everything by addition in a world where — we certainly can’t do it in a world where the state has decided it wants to be 47th in the nation in terms of investment in public higher education.”
He said that in 2018, he was told the system was on target to go through its reserves by 2025- 26 without change. Three years later, problems are still there.
“They have been left unattended to,” he said. “We are at an inflection point. We cannot keep kicking the can down the road.”
They include a 22% or 26,000 student decline across the system, to 94,000 students compared with nearly 120,000 students a decade ago. The higher-education market has shifted away from traditionalage learners. Roughly 47% of adults in Pennsylvania have some postsecondary education, but projections show 60% attainment at that level is needed for future jobs
“The state will or will not invest in our future and our future will be determined by that investment decision,” he said.
Financially ailing schools cannot continue to sustain themselves at the expense of stronger schools without undermining the system, Mr. Greenstein added. He said the 14 state-owned universities cannot afford to see their price advantage over other institutions further erode.
Asked about the Lock Haven comments, State System spokesman David Pidgeon noted on Wednesday that system officials were not invited to participate in that town hall. He said 1,000-plus students, employees, trustees and others had been involved in the planned mergers, holding listening sessions and hearings.
“While we understand that some members of the community are opposed to the integrations effort underway, to say we are not seeking input or listening is inaccurate,” Mr. Pidgeon said.
The State System board of governors meets in two weeks, but Mr. Pidgeon has said officials pressing to finish preparations are considering a later meeting, on April 28, to address the mergers.
Mr. Greenstein told the IUP audience it would be “an absolutely horrific decision’’ to dissolve the State System, leaving its member schools to compete on their own. His comment to the Senate appropriations committee last month that he would recommend such a move if changes were not approved was a single sentence in a two-hour hearing that received outsize attention.