Penn State is looking for more ways to regionalize its commonwealth campuses and has started a new initiative for campuses to emphasize local strengths and create “structural efficiencies.”
In a news article , the university outlined “Future State,” a new initiative that will bring together the Office of the Vice President for Commonwealth Campuses, campus chancellors and other teams to meet with stakeholders to identify ways to create “regional synergies” across neighboring campuses. This work has been in development since the spring and restarted again in August. It is expected to continue through the fall and proposed models will be shared with senior leadership at Penn State to review by December.
Margo DelliCarpini, vice president for Commonwealth Campuses and executive chancellor, in the release said the goal is to find areas of strength for the campuses that could be scaled up, while also looking at the needs of the communities the campuses serve.
“We also are exploring how we can create synergies so that no campus operates in isolation, but instead collaborates to address these regional needs,” DelliCarpini said.
This is working alongside Penn State’s academic portfolio and program review, the release states. DelliCaprini will work with the University Faculty Senate and academic affairs leaders to find challenges and unsustainable practices in instruction to define academic offerings, according to the release.
Thursday’s announcement comes months after the university rolled out a buyout program at the commonwealth campuses; 383 Penn State commonwealth campus employees opted to participate. With that, the university implemented a new shared regional administrative model for the commonwealth campuses.
Additionally the university will look at more shared service opportunities in areas where regional or central teams and provide support to groups of campuses, the release states. This would be similar to the “optimized service teams” the university instituted in the summer at commonwealth campuses.
“We are responding to fiscal needs, but we are taking a strategic approach and also looking at how we can expand our capacity and access at our locations across Pennsylvania,” DelliCarpini said. “Currently, on many of our campuses, the absence of a staff member — whether due to retirement, resignation or vacation — results in their responsibilities being temporarily shifted to others who may work in entirely different fields. By building teams of cross-trained professionals in specific areas, we can improve how we serve our students and respect the expertise of our staff by allowing them to immerse themselves in their chosen profession.”
She expects to have a fuller understanding of what the commonwealth campuses will look like at the conclusion of the regionalization efforts, Future State and APPR. But the full transition will take several years.
In the next year, there will be three phases of restructuring service teams. The release states that this will be modeled on a similar enrollment management restructuring that Penn State began with its western campuses in 2022. At that time, separate offices of enrollment management at Beaver, Fayette, Greater Allegheny, New Kensington and Shenango were put into one team under the leadership of a regional director.
The phases include:
Phase One: Staff in continuing education, enrollment management and the registrar. This is currently underway. DelliCarpini touted the model for the regional approach to enrollment management in the west that they’ll be expanding to regional teams in other parts of Pennsylvania. A similar approach will be taken for the services in the registrar’s office. For continuing education, they’ll find unmet needs in the communities served by the campuses with the Future State initiative, and better align each campus’ offerings with things like regional workforce demands in conjunction with the APPR.
Phase Two: Advising and instructional design transformation will begin in early fall. The university is developing benchmarks to determine staffing needs for all of the shared services teams, but especially in advising. The number of academic advisors at each campus depends on the enrollment, the release states, and there are some inequities among campuses. With regional teams, campuses can share advising services.
Phase Three: The last phase will restructure services provided by strategic communications and student affairs into shared service teams later in the fall semester.
With the regional leadership model the university put into effect in July, it has led to many commonwealth campuses being led by one administration. Several chancellors retired, left for other jobs or took a buyout and the university restructured the leadership. With the new model, the following Penn State commonwealth campuses are or will be led by one chancellor:
- Beaver and Shenango
- Fayette, Greater Allegheny and New Kensington
- Wilkes-Barre, Hazleton and Scranton
- Brandywine, Mont Alto and York
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