Penn State Administrators Avoid Direct Comment On Potential Closure Of Commonwealth Campuses

Leaders from Penn State’s administration declined to directly answer a question asking if the university’s Commonwealth Campuses were slated for closure at a meeting of the university’s Faculty Senate on Tuesday.
Margo DelliCarpini, the vice president for commonwealth campuses, repeated previous messages from the administration that the university was looking at several options in regard to the future of Penn State’s 20 Commonwealth Campuses spread throughout the state.
Julie Gallagher, a professor of history and American studies at Penn State Brandywine, directly asked President Neeli Bendapudi if Penn State was going to close campuses. Bendapudi directed DelliCarpini to answer the question.
“Higher ed is in a challenging time, specifically regional campuses across the country around enrollment trends,” DelliCarpini said. “And this is something that we continue to struggle with at our campuses. Student success and the student experience is the central decision-making and guiding light that we use to make decisions around what we do for the future. And we are actively looking and working to synthesize inputs from the collaborative planning sessions that our campus is engaged in…
“And we’re looking incredibly carefully at the enrollment data, and this is 10-year projections from a historical standpoint, very specifically by campus, by region. But then looking at the external data, what are the projections out to 2030 for enrollments, looking at numbers of students in kindergarten, looking at numbers of students who are graduating, looking at these demographic trends that many of our counterparts across the country are struggling with in similar situations.
“So what is clear to us as a result of, of looking at all of this is that our current campus ecosystem, which we know was created decades ago when things were very different in higher education, it’s not sustainable in the way that it’s operating, the way that it looks currently. So we are looking at a number of ways to think about the best path forward. We’re exploring creative avenues to keep our campus ecosystem vibrant, looking at economic and workforce development hubs, applied research and community impact hubs, establishing dual enrollment pathways, thinking about how we can partner with ourselves to build capacity.
“And I just want to let you know that we are committed… We are just committed to continuing to serve our students and to the commonwealth in the most effective ways possible, but also understanding that we are really looking at challenging landscape ahead of us. And so I just want to just want to share where we are. We’re looking at data. We’re not taking decisions lightly that we have to make, but we’re also operating within the current realities of the day that we’re in right now and looking at how we create a sustainable ecosystem for the future.”
Gallagher, who said she felt campuses would “probably” close, also expressed concerns about professors on tenure tracks deciding if they should remain at their schools, buy a house, and send their kids to schools in the area.
“I’m going to do everything I can to center our people and to make sure that we’re operating in a way that honors the work that they do,” DelliCarpini said. “The commitment that all of you, every time somebody talks and, Julie, what you said earlier, I couldn’t be more in agreement with that — the deep commitment that people have to the work that’s being done, I want to make sure that we’re honoring that.”
Penn State has struggled with deciding the future of its Commonwealth Campuses for several years. In a live stream and later meeting with student media, Bendapudi and DelliCarpini also said they were looking at “budget realities” and that there wasn’t an easy path forward for Commonwealth Campuses.
Penn State also offered severance packages to Commonwealth Campus faculty and staff in the summer, which 10% took advantage of.
“Our campuses have evolved to be very working in isolation from each other, although we’re part of an amazing interconnected network of Penn State University,” DelliCarpini said in September. “Regardless of budget challenges, we really need to look at how to modernize our business model, to be responsive, to be proactive, and to weather ourselves against the storms that we know continue to arise in higher education.”
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