- [Announcer] Live from your public media studios, WVIA presents Keystone Edition Reports, a public affairs program that goes beyond the headlines to address issues in Northeastern and Central Pennsylvania.

This is Keystone Edition Reports.

And now, moderator Larry Vojtko.

- Hello, I'm Larry Vojtko.

A year ago, the Pennsylvania state system of higher education was in the planning stages of integrating six of its universities into two.

Now, a year later, that plan has come to fruition, but what does that integration mean for students and their families and the state system as a whole?

We have some answers now that we didn't have a year ago.

If you'd like to share your thoughts on the integration, call 1-833-408-9842, or send an email to keystone@wvia.org, or tag us on social with the hashtag KeystoneReports.

But first, WVIA's Paul Lazar explains what happened over the past year.

(whoosh) - [Paul] A lot has happened in the year since the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education finalized the plan to integrate six schools into two entities.

The Board of Governors officially approved the plans last July.

The new names for the post integration schools were released in October.

California, Clarion, and Edinboro Universities became Pennsylvania Western University.

Bloomsburg University, Lock Haven University, and Mansfield University are now Commonwealth University.

However, each of the six schools will retain its own name, athletic teams, and mascots.

But what does the integration mean?

The fall 2022 semester will start seeing the first changes with the full integration expected to be complete by 2024.

As of now, students can complete their general education requirements at each campus, but the plan is to have a single faculty and single curriculum for majors.

That is, each campus will not have its own version of a major.

Students may have to go to a different campus to complete their major.

Both Pennsylvania Western University and Commonwealth University have a president that oversees the three schools under each university's umbrella.

The integration was a move to save money and improve student retention.

One thing that's not changing this fall is the tuition.

The State System of Higher Education's Board of Governors voted last month to freeze tuition for the fourth year in a row.

For more information about the university integration, visit WVIA.org.

For Keystone edition reports, I'm Paul Lazar.

- Now we need to hear from you.

We're ready to take your calls at 1-833-408-9842.

You can also email keystone@wvia.org or message us through our social channels using the hashtag KeystoneReports.

Well, joining us tonight is WVIA news reporter, Sarah Scinto.

Welcome, Sarah.

- Thank you.

- You're going to help explain this issue and what the future holds for the students in the state system.

What's coming up a little bit later?

- Yeah, so the WVIA news team has been out in the community really doing a lot of reporting on this.

Kat Boils spoke with a Bloomsburg University faculty member about their concerns, and Tom Reese met a member of a group called Passhe Defenders who have raised their own concerns about the integration plan, and I spoke with some students today.

- Great, so that's what's coming up a little bit later, but first, just a couple of days ago last week, I had an opportunity to talk with Dr. Bashar Hanna, the president of Bloomsburg University, who is also acted as interim president of Lock Haven University and Mansfield University, now the three schools that are making up the Commonwealth University, and he shared a progress report on the integration so far.

(whoosh) The integration plan that was approved last summer now is going through almost a whole year.

So let's start there, Dr. Hanna.

Give us a status report of the implementation of that plan.

- For the better part of an academic year, my faculty and staff colleagues have been working around the clock to really prepare for July 1 of '22, which is the official integration date of our three universities in the Northeast and our three universities in the west.

Most importantly, the faculty really have worked a lot on building the integrated curriculum, which will be phased in over the next three years.

In March, we were granted approval by our accrediting body, the Middle States Commission on Higher Education to proceed with the integration.

And most recently, last week, then the NCAA gave their blessing for all of our schools to continue with their athletic programs as they are today, and continue competing as individual entities after integration.

From the student experience perspective, if I could just add one more comment, Larry, our students will experience nothing different.

From the beginning, we have committed to and are moving forward with making certain the student experience and all student facing operations on all the campuses remain.

Everything we're doing is really intended to serve our students better, to make certain that our number one priority is student success all the way through to graduation and then the workforce.

- Now, Dr. Hanna, the chief reason that this integration plan was put forth is really a financial reason.

There were some difficulties, financial difficulties among some of the universities in the state system.

Enrollments have not kept up with expectations.

Could you give us a brief accounting of the circumstances that led to making this plan, to developing the plan, and also, what is the current status when we're talking about enrollments and the financial situation right now?

- Sure.

You know, Larry, finances were a part of the decision, but really the biggest driving force was to make sure that we expanded opportunities for our students in every part of the Commonwealth.

And that was going to be very difficult to do at our smallest rural campuses.

Because as you said, the enrollment had declined, in some cases, severely.

And when the enrollment declines, an institution has to make some hard decisions about what programs, what academic programs is it going to offer?

And it becomes harder and harder to remain a full, comprehensive regional university if the enrollment continues to decline.

So in reality, yes, you're right.

It was part financial, but the driving force was really expanding student opportunities.

And on that note, our students at Mansfield, which is the smallest of the three campuses, is 1600 students.

And with 1600 students, it's very difficult to offer a full compliment of academic programs.

Through integration, the Mansfield students will now have more than a doubling of academic program opportunities to participate in.

Same with our next smallest campus, which is Lock Haven.

Our students at Lock Haven, excuse me, will have about a 70% increase in the number of academic programs that they can study.

So it really is a multi faceted process that we've been going through to make certain, one, that we can be financially sustainable, absolutely, but two, to not limit or diminish the opportunities for our students.

The second part of your question is the status quo today.

We're expecting roughly about the same size class as last year.

So financially, I think what we have done in the last year is really to make sure that there's one leadership team on the campus, and investing in student scholarships, investing in student services so that when the students do come to our campuses, that we are spending the largest amount of every allocation.

You know, a lower to middle class family in Pennsylvania's average income is somewhere around, depending on the zip code in the county, $40,000.

Without significant aid, some of those families have to spend 50% of their household income on a child's education.

No family or very few families are able to carry that burden.

So the third reason that we integrated was to keep the financial burdens off our students' backs and continue to offer the high quality programs we can.

- Has the integration affected personnel?

The level of personnel?

Can you explain that and give us some information regarding how it's affected the staffing?

- Certainly.

We have not had to furlough any non-faculty employee.

We've right sized our workforce through either resignations or retirements.

And with our partnership with the General Assembly and the governor was incredibly positive in this case where the faculty that were eligible for retirement could have a two year window where there is some money set aside from the General Assembly to allow those faculty to remain with us for two years after this year.

So in order to provide for them an opportunity to seek other employment or retire fully.

So we do have some intent to retrench letters.

Two of the campuses, Lock Haven and Mansfield, and we continue to work with our faculty leadership to dwindle those numbers.

At Lock Haven, that number started out at 51, and we're down to 18.

But we're working very, very hard to make sure that the ultimate impact is very minimal on our colleagues.

- Now, in your estimation, had not this integration plan go forward, if it had not been implemented or in the state of being implemented, what would've been the consequence for the six universities affected and the state system as a whole?

- Great question, Larry.

I'll use Mansfield, if I may, as an example.

I mean, Mansfield University for the last three years has been receiving loans from the state system in order to just be able to pay its bills.

Our expenditures at Mansfield have been about $6 million per year ahead of our revenues.

So on that trajectory, and Mansfield has zero reserves.

On that trajectory, you would expect either the state system to continue writing loans, which would take money from other state system university, or ultimately, Mansfield would have to continue dwindling, which is one of the major reasons why integration was sought because we didn't wanna create a higher ed desert, a public higher ed desert in any part of the Commonwealth.

So to your question, we would've continued to basically create more negative numbers, create more unsustainable situations.

So ultimately, what would've kept happening is money would have been shifted from the more stable institutions to the less stable institutions.

And ultimately, we all would've become unstable.

The alternative is raising the tuition on the citizens of the Commonwealth.

And that was the decision that our chancellor in partnership with the presidents and the Board of Governors and the General Assembly really thought hard about.

How do we not pose this and put it on the backs of our students?

How do we work together to continue providing the opportunities?

And that's really when integration became part of the system redesign in order to save all 14 campuses of Pennsylvania System of Higher Education.

(whoosh) - That was Dr. Bashar Hanna who is the president of Bloomsburg University an interim president of both Lock Haven and Mansfield universities.

And I asked him about the effect on staffing and personnel, and we didn't get actual numbers.

He was explaining the process about that.

But according to a report last November on Pennlive.com, the number of employees that accepted the most recent retirement settlement was 280.

There were two previous early retirement offers as well.

And adding in those individuals, the total number of employees, instructors who have ended or will end their career within the system is 881.

- And WVIA news' Kat Bolis spoke with a professor at Bloomsburg University.

Dr. Hallen shared his thoughts on what the integration means for the future, and the importance of the state system to Pennsylvania's economy.

(whoosh) - I think the problem many of us have is the decision did come down from a high that we're gonna do this consolidation for them.

The reasons behind it, I personally was never really sure why we were doing it.

Our goal really was to keep the state on track to make sure that we had a plan, and if the plan was being removed.

I think for this fall, we're not gonna see anything different.

The only difference might be there's a new letterhead that said Bloomsburg University, a division of Commonwealth University, Pennsylvania or something like that.

But I know think we'll see a lot of changes this fall.

Next fall, I don't know.

It could get interesting.

Well, I think one of the big fears we had for consolidation was the recruitment and retaining of students.

And that's still a big fear.

When NCAA said you can keep the team, your choice.

'Cause the coaches do a great job.

Our student athletes tend to be some of our better students because they've been trained to think about time, and they use their time wise.

And I'm hoping now we can start to bring in more of these student athletes.

But for retaining students, if classes get too big, if it's harder for a student to find me 'cause they have a question, if the price of the education keeps going up because inflation keeps going up, are we gonna be able to retain these students?

We have seen the change in management map where we have, we do have fewer managers in the prime positions where instead of having three presidents, we've gone to one.

As provost lead, we've gone to one.

And that has made the provost more unavailable.

You can't easily get an appointment with someone who's already got nine appointments.

And so there has been some solid change there.

And I think it's only gonna get worse as we end up with this in the Dean for three different campuses.

If we can do something to lessen the debt for students, to make it so the education is attainable financially, and then give them the classes that you, we can make Pennsylvania proud again.

We are one of the economic drivers in the system.

(whoosh) - Well, we've been inviting comments from audience members, viewers through social channels.

You can get to us using a hashtag KeystoneReports.

And we had something that came in, what, on Facebook, was it?

- Yes, so Jennifer commented on Facebook that for her four children, the integration means that none of them will attend LHU, that's Lock Haven University.

She says, this is after my husband worked here for 18 years.

He's being retrenched just as our oldest graduates high school.

- You know, that's a term that's been coming up, retrenchment, retrenchment.

When the news team was going out getting the information, did that come up a lot, that word?

- Not that specific term, no.

- Yeah, and it's come up a couple of times.

It's really a notice given to employees informing them that their services are no longer required.

So I talked to a source in the administration of the system who said retrenchment letters would be sent out should there not be enough enrollees to make a program continue to go, and you know, if it's determined there aren't enough to keep that program going.

And of course, with the implementation plan, some of the programs that some of the campuses would be integrated into other campuses.

And I was assured that these retrenchment letters go out with plenty of time for the employee to make some other plans when they get that unwelcome news.

Well, in that, there are employees that are being let go.

News came out last week that State System of Higher Education is freezing tuition for the fourth year in a row.

It seems like an odd move for a system with schools that are having money troubles.

Well, WVIA news reporter Tom Reese talked to a representative from a group who thinks that a tuition freeze isn't what current and future students need.

(whoosh) - [Tom] The group Passhe Defenders is preferably fighting for tuition free public higher education in Pennsylvania, but they're not satisfied with the state school system redesign and consolidation either.

Nick Marcil is a co-founder of Passhe Defenders and member and organizer with the Debt Collective.

- We had started sort of back in, I guess, April, May or so of 2021, and sort of bringing together students, faculty, staff, and allies sort of across the state to try to fight for a fully funded state system of free public higher education.

We're one of the big groups and just forces, you could say, in fighting against the consolidation happening to the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education.

- [Tom] Marcil has written several articles about higher ed and specifically PA state school funding for the university paper and the Bucks County Beacon.

- Out of that, sort of Passhe Defenders was born.

We had had like a zoom call with, I think, like 60 people or so statewide, which was great.

And it was really getting, I would say the facts out there of the harm of this consolidation, whether that was shown through the Peri Report or whether that was shown through the various stories of faculty being slated for retrenchment or students feeling fearful of what it meant for them.

- [Tom] Marcil is a second year grad student in higher education policy in student affairs at Westchester University, which isn't one of the schools slated to be consolidated as of July, 2022.

So why is he worried about other state schools?

- I care because those people's lives, jobs, and sort of the future, in my opinion, of public higher education in Pennsylvania has been at stake and is still at stake because of that.

And, you know, we very much wanted to fight back against that because instead of the chancellor, the Board of Governors, and others fighting for a fully funded state system of free public higher education, they've, in my opinion, and others just have continued this sort of austerity model of, instead of fighting for more funding, we're just going to consolidate, merge, layoff, cut.

- [Tom] Marcil said Passhe Defenders and other groups are mostly asking for more money from the state.

- Going to the state legislature, the governor, and such, and actually asking for, you know, real funding, right?

Because historically, the state system has had a lot more money.

If you actually look from about when Passhe started in 1983 to about like 2008, 2009, so sort of like right before the recession, Passhe never had below $640 million adjusted for today's inflation in terms of the state funding, like general appropriations money.

So the chancellor and the board asking for 550 million now when just over the past couple years we've been in the 400s, that's not nearly enough.

- Well, Keystone Edition Reports always wants to know what you have to say, and we have a phone number 1-833-408-9842.

1-833-408-9842.

Now that number is open all the time for Keystone Edition Reports comments, and you can leave a voicemail for us at any time.

- Yes, and we received a voicemail from Michael Ballard Jr. From Cleveland.

- [Micheal] Why is the chancellor of Passhe she failed to address possibly one of the most catastrophic parts of probably the consolidation process, which was likely drop enrollment that's happened from students who have chosen to not come to state system because of the turmoil that consolidation has put it through?

- Well, that comment came from Michael, a former student at Edinboro University, and there has been much speculation that the integration will affect enrollment in the future.

However, in the interview early in the program, Dr. Hanna stated that enrollments for the fall are on track to meet last year's numbers, and the final enrollment figure won't be known until the fall semester begins.

Indeed one of the outcomes of this plan, as hoped for by the Board of Governors, is that enrollment will stabilize.

However, it's probably too early to tell what kind of impact the integration will have on enrollment.

We'll just have to wait for perhaps a couple of years before any reliable data is available.

This is just one aspect of the story that WVIA news will be covering and to follow.

Well, Sarah, you were on the Bloomsburg campus earlier today.

What did you find?

- Yes, I spoke to several students, and most of them said the changes that integration will bring won't be too difficult for them to handle.

(whoosh) The team of students working in admissions and tours at Bloomsburg University know a little bit more about the upcoming redesign of the state school system than some of their peers.

They have to ex explain it to incoming students and their parents.

- The way I like to tell parents and kids is that to look at it more as like there's three campuses within one university.

So you could pick to go to Bloomsburg, but still take gen ed math or other major courses that we might not offer that Lock Haven or Mansfield might offer that you could take online through them.

- [Sarah] For freshman Mia Perez, her main hope for the redesign came true.

Bloomsburg, Mansfield, and Lock Haven Universities will all retain their separate names, logos, and mascots.

- I think that was my main concern because, you know, when I first was coming into college, I always wanted to make sure I could stay true to my one university and be Bloomsburg and have Roongo our Husky be our mascot.

I think that was just mainly the one thing.

But now that that's clear that we're gonna stay that, honestly, I don't think that there's really any negatives at all.

I do think it's a pretty positive thing, and I try to share that with students who come on tour and even my friends who are like, oh, I don't know how to feel about this.

I'm like, guys, it's really not gonna be that big of a change.

- [Sarah] Anthony Allen, a junior, is excited to see some of the changes implemented, but says most students still have a lot of questions about the redesign.

- I think the student body is pretty unaware of what's going on, which really shouldn't be the case, but there's just a lot of gray areas, and I understand they're still technically trying to figure different things out and that's really, so hopefully in the future, we'll definitely get a lot more information.

- Well, we had a comment come in on Instagram from a communication student at Lock Haven University, and he says, it's been frustrating these last few weeks and overall.

One thing that has been overlooked is that there's a claim that we'll have access to online courses through Bloomsburg, which is okay, fine.

This isn't the faculty, though, that we came to LHU for.

That being said, in the communications department, professor, and he names the professor, is retiring after the spring semester ends.

She is the only journalism professor in the department.

The university did not look for a replacement.

Students who are on the journalism track are having to take classes that are required for graduation online now through Bloomsburg, but there were snags during registration.

And it goes on into detail about technical problems that I think have to deal with the actual web portal at Lock Haven University.

And he continues, once we did have access, there were only three spots available while there are more than three journalism students in the comm department.

And he just ends by saying, it's incredibly disheartening to hear about the majors that have been cut and the faculty who have been retrenched.

The faculty and staff members are integral to keeping students at this school.

Current Lock Haven University students are not here because we were sold on Bloomsburg University faculty, we're here because as we're sold on getting our education from LHU faculty.

So another comment and the story goes on, I think, Sarah.

From what we've learned in the short term, well, in this coming school year, very few changes will be apparent.

Real change will unfold throughout the next few years as the implementation plan goes forward.

Well, I want to thank the WVIA news team.

Kat Bolis, our community reporter, Tom Reese, WVIA's host of Morning Edition, NPR's morning edition, and of course, Sarah Scinto, my co-host this evening, and WVIA's host of NPR's All Things Considered.

WVIA news director is Julie Sedony.

Learn more and keep informed at wvianews.org.

And remember, you can view this episode online at wvia.org.

Sarah, thanks so much for joining me today.

- Thank you for having me.

- And thank you for watching.

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