The System Redesign site is the source for progress reports. Read Chancellor Dan Greenstein's note below:
Dear Friends,
I was so excited to spend some time earlier this week with colleagues who will be leading our work developing plans to integrate universities in the west (California, Clarion, and Edinboro), and the northeast (Bloomsburg, Lock Haven, and Mansfield). They are thinking boldly and ambitiously about the future of public higher education in this commonwealth; in this country. Bluntly, I am blown away by their vision, their energy, and their commitment.
Have a look at the goals and objectives toward which they are designing. This is not today’s university they are building, it is tomorrow’s. Where to begin? How about with the goal of reducing by 25% (that’s a quarter) the net average price a student pays for their postsecondary education? Or maybe with the commitment to eliminate persistent opportunity gaps that see black and brown students graduating at significantly lower rates than their white and Asian peers? Or maybe we should turn to the commitment they are making to serving all Pennsylvanians – including the post-traditional students who are looking for fully online undergraduate degree and degree completion programs, or those looking for short course certificates that give them a bump in the labor market while contributing cumulatively to their postsecondary education.
Our colleagues aren’t thinking about how to adapt students to our universities; they are designing our universities to adapt to our students.
This is exactly what we should be doing across all of public higher education – not just in this commonwealth, but across this country. And I am enormously proud that our State System universities are ahead of the pack – establishing their rightful place as leaders in the construction of a public postsecondary system that our nation and this commonwealth demand and deserve.
From our System Redesign site, you may follow and contribute to the work as it unfolds in real time. It will not have all the answers you may be looking for (because the process is engaged transparently to raise the questions and identify their answers), but it will provide real-time information about what we know and where we are headed by when.
Last month, we added alignment analysis and financial review presentations to our integrations page that reflect some the work that occurred throughout the process. With the initial meeting of the working groups now complete, we wanted to make sure you had access to the leadership orientation presentation that lays out my charge to the groups leading the integrations planning. This document contains information that will drive our work to continue building for the future, including guiding principles, goals and objectives, and more. You can also watch a recording of the integrations leadership orientation.
Within a couple of weeks, expect to find even more detail about how our teams are populated, and the consultation processes they are engaging to ensure all voices are heard and all perspectives brought to bear in the planning. This website will serve as the primary repository of information on the work being undertaken by colleagues from across the System, and we hope you will use it to follow our progress.
Enjoy, engage, use your voice.