October 07, 2015
Chancellor Brogan calls for even greater creativity, innovation in ‘State of the System’ address
Contact: Kevin Hensil, khensil@passhe.edu
Harrisburg – Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education is at a crossroads and must become
even more creative and innovative to ensure both the viability of the System and to
best meet the needs of students and the Commonwealth in the future, Chancellor Frank
T. Brogan said today in his second State of the System address.
“We must be willing to challenge every assumption in order to ensure a sustainable
future for each of our 14 universities within the System,” Mr. Brogan said. “We must
innovate and collaborate to achieve greater efficiencies as we work to deliver Pennsylvania’s
best value in higher education.”
Mr. Brogan highlighted the many successes the State System experienced over the last
year, while also outlining the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead. He spoke
during a luncheon held at the Dixon University Center prior to the beginning of the
two-day, quarterly meetings of the State System’s Board of Governors.
“It’s important for an organization—from time to time—to pause and take stock of itself,”
Mr. Brogan said. “That is what we’re doing here today. We’re here to celebrate our
successes of this past year and outline the opportunities and challenges that lie
ahead for us in 2015-16.”
Board of Governors’ Chairman Guido M. Pichini also addressed the audience attending
the event, speaking about the Board’s efforts to increase communication with the campus
communities and its commitment to “striking the right balance between System coordination
and local decision-making.”
“In a very real sense, this Board is becoming a model of 21st century governance in
higher education,” Mr. Pichini said. “The Chancellor and our Board recognize that
effective leadership cannot be ‘hands-off,’ so we engage with our presidents and trustees
on and off campus throughout the year. We are continuing to work with the universities
to identify additional ways they can benefit from being part of a system while also
providing them with greater flexibility in how they operate their campuses.
“With every decision we make—regardless of the issue at hand—we always must ask ourselves:
How will this benefit students? Students are why we are here; we must never forget
that.”
Chancellor Brogan picked up where he left off in his first State of the System address.
“When we gathered here a little more than a year ago, I shared our vision to make
the State System the most flexible, collaborative and student-focused university system
in America,” Mr. Brogan said. “What does it mean to be student-focused? Reiterating
the chairman’s remarks, ‘In everything we do, we must always remember that we are
here for students.’ ”
The caliber of those students is unparalleled, Mr. Brogan said, citing several examples
of outstanding student success, including May graduates Lucy Kauffman and Travonya
Kenly, both of whom were recognized earlier this year by the Board of Governors.
Kauffman, a biology major and an outstanding field hockey player at Shippensburg University
of Pennsylvania, was one of only two recipients of this year’s Walter Byers Scholarship,
which is considered the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s top academic honor.
She was just the eighth Division II athlete to receive the prestigious award in its
27-year history. This year’s other recipient was from the University of Auburn.
Kenly, who earned a degree in environmental biology/ecology from Cheyney University
of Pennsylvania, won the State System’s 15th Annual Syed R. Ali-Zaidi Award, which
is presented each year to a graduating senior at one of the 14 universities in recognition
of outstanding academic achievement and participation in extra- and co-curricular
activities. While at Cheyney, she completed study programs at Duke University, Miami
University of Ohio and the University of Oxford, and served internships with the Scripps
Institution of Oceanography in San Diego and the Institute of Marine and Environmental
Technology in Baltimore.
Mr. Brogan noted that State System university students received a number of other
prestigious national awards in the past year, including several Benjamin A. Gilman
International scholarships and Fulbright awards. Student athletes from California,
Clarion, Kutztown and Millersville universities all brought home national championships
during the 2014-15 academic year.
The chancellor also cited the outstanding efforts of the State System’s “world-class”
faculty, including Jonathan Warnock, a geoscience faculty member at Indiana University
of Pennsylvania who spent the summer unearthing and imaging dinosaur bones from Utah’s
Jurassic “Death Pit” and who had his work featured in the July issue of Smithsonian
magazine, and Aaron Haines, an assistant professor of biology at Millersville University
of Pennsylvania, who led a class of 13 students from five State System universities
on a field study at Chincoteague Bay Field Station in Wallops Island, Va. Among their
research, the group identified three species that were not previously documented by
the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
“That last example points to something else we can be especially proud of in the State
System—the myriad opportunities our undergraduate students have to participate in
real, practical research,” Mr. Brogan said. “And it’s our faculty who lead those efforts.”
The State System universities continue to adapt their programming to meet the needs
of students and the Commonwealth, Mr. Brogan said.
“Since July 2014, the Board of Governors has approved 29 new academic programs, including
five doctoral degrees,” he said. “These programs were developed with the future in
mind—in fields where there is growing demand for well-educated, well-trained professionals.
A number of these programs are collaborative efforts among two or more State System
universities. More and more, we are recognizing the power of collaboration.”
Over the last five academic years, the 14 State System universities have introduced
276 new degree and certificate programs, while at the same time they have discontinued
143 programs, placed 246 programs in moratorium and reorganized 99 others to meet
new market demands.
Even more work needs to be done, the chancellor said.
“This year, we’ll take an exponential step forward in ensuring even greater alignment
of our degree programs with the demands of students and the Commonwealth,” Mr. Brogan
said. “We’re conducting a system-wide supply/demand gap analysis that will enable
us to see—region by region—the kinds of degree programs that are needed in areas such
as science, technology, the arts, the humanities, health, business, education and
so much more.
“This effort underscores why the State System plays such an important role in the
economic health of the Commonwealth. In fact, this year a new economic and workforce
impact study was conducted, and the results are impressive. The study found that the
State System generates more than $6.7 billion annually in economic activity across
the Commonwealth.”
In addition to the approximately 12,000 employees who work at the universities, the
System also supports about 62,000 external jobs statewide, including with the literally
hundreds of small businesses that thrive in the campus communities, the study reported.
Each university has an average economic impact of more than $300 million and supports
about 4,400 external jobs in its community, region and state.
“In the simplest terms, the State System produces nearly $11 of economic impact for
every $1 invested by the Commonwealth through its annual appropriation. That’s a tremendous
return on investment,” Mr. Brogan said.
Nearly 90 percent of the students attending the State System universities are Pennsylvania
residents and almost 80 percent of graduates will remain here to live and work after
receiving their degree.
“The connection between the State System and Pennsylvania’s economic vitality is undeniable,”
Mr. Brogan said. “Our successes, our challenges, our opportunities are the foundation
of Pennsylvania’s future.”
The State System has taken significant steps in recent years to demonstrate those
successes, challenges and opportunities, including being more transparent in everything
it does, the chancellor said. That includes the development of individual university
“financial dashboards” and “action plans” that detail the universities’ performance
and goals for everyone to see.
“This year, we will extend our efforts toward greater system-wide transparency and
accountability by building a Student Success Dashboard,” Mr. Brogan said. “This will
help us track the progress we are making on metrics such as graduation rates, time
to degree, retention rates and more.”
The System also will take major steps to update its nationally recognized performance
funding program, now nearly two decades old.
While calling for increased support from the state—following four straight years of
level funding and a nearly $90 million funding cut the year before that—the chancellor
acknowledged that the System also must be more creative with the resources it has.
“Our system is at a crossroads,” Mr. Brogan said. “We have accomplished much this
past year, but there is more work ahead of us. With any new investment from the Commonwealth
must come an expectation for continued innovation on our part as a System. With that
in mind, this year we will tackle the need to expand online learning opportunities
and also take time to review our general education program.”
The universities’ current enrollments reflect the fact that fewer high school graduates
are coming out of Pennsylvania’s high schools. In the next few years, those numbers
are expected to turn slightly upward, and enrollment in the State System universities
likely will follow.
“The decisions we make today will determine what kind of System we will be when those
numbers start to turn around,” said Mr. Brogan. “While we have high hopes for new
state investment in our state universities—and we appreciate everything the Governor
and General Assembly are doing to make that happen—we cannot simply rely on more money
as a panacea.”
While it is important that the universities continue to serve their traditional student
base, they must do more to make themselves more accessible to community college transfer
students and adult learners who want to pursue a degree while maintaining their careers
and families, Mr. Brogan continued.
“This will require us to offer more programs in flexible times, places and modes of
delivery,” he said. “Think about this: there are more than 1 million Pennsylvanians
who started a degree but never finished. We must reach out to those individuals to
let them know they have options at a State System university, and ensure we are organized
in a way to meet their needs.
“If we do the hard work and rethink how we approach our business model, I firmly believe
we could significantly increase the number of transfers and non-traditional students
we serve. Right now, we must be ready and able to make some hard decisions about the
programs we offer, the way we’re organized, and how we operate to ensure we are as
effective and efficient as possible.
“We owe that to our students. We owe that to the communities we serve. We owe that
to the Commonwealth.”
Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education is the largest provider of higher
education in the Commonwealth, with about 107,000 degree-seeking students and thousands
more who are enrolled in certificate and other career-development programs. Collectively,
the 14 universities that comprise the State System offer more than 2,300 degree and
certificate programs in more than 530 academic areas. Nearly 520,000 State System
university alumni live in Pennsylvania.
The State System universities are Bloomsburg, California, Cheyney, Clarion, East Stroudsburg,
Edinboro, Indiana, Kutztown, Lock Haven, Mansfield, Millersville, Shippensburg, Slippery
Rock and West Chester Universities of Pennsylvania. The universities also operate
branch campuses in Oil City (Clarion), Freeport and Punxsutawney (IUP), and Clearfield
(Lock Haven), and offer classes and programs at several regional centers, including
the Dixon University Center in Harrisburg and in Center City in Philadelphia.