Here’s a look at how each Penn State commonwealth campus was affected by buyouts

Penn State administrators presented data to the faculty senate Tuesday related to the recent buyout program at commonwealth campuses, but questions and confusion about the process still linger.

Tracy Langkilde, interim executive vice president and provost of Penn State, and Margo DelliCarpini, vice president for commonwealth campuses and executive chancellor, gave an overview of each campus and shared updates. They presented data on the percent of staff and those in academic positions that participated in Penn State’s recent buyout program, which resulted in an overall 10% reduction in personnel.

In May, the university announced 383 Penn State commonwealth campus employees opted to take part in the university’s Voluntary Separation Incentive Program , in which eligible employees could volunteer to leave the university with pay and benefits.

Across all commonwealth campuses, about 21% of those eligible for the program signed up for the buyouts, Penn State said in a release in June. The majority of the employees, 77%, were staff.

On Tuesday, Langkilde provided data on participation at each campus, as well as a breakdown of gender and race/ethnicity across the campuses.

Campuses including Brandywine, Great Valley, New Kensington, Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and York saw more than 20% of total staff participate in the VSIP. About half of the campuses had 5% or more of total academic positions — faculty and administrative roles — participate.

“The structure is changing and so the impacts that are reflected in this table don’t necessarily reflect the impacts that will be felt at those campuses. We are rethinking some of the structure to be able to best support our students’ needs,” Langkilde said.

Langkilde said 70% of VSIP eligible staff and 40% of VSIP eligible academic positions were female; of those who took the buyouts, 76% of staff and 41% of academic positions were female.

DelliCarpini said they’ve been working on developing a new business model for the administrative units and they’re looking at regional approaches that can be taken.

“At the start of the fall semester, we’ll be enlisting staff and faculty champions to address the administrative business units in instructional design and in advising, respecting the importance of faculty participation in these areas as they are closely aligned to the academic mission. I’ll also work with local senates to create an additional team of faculty. We’ll specifically look at Academic Affairs across our locations,” DelliCarpini said.

Positions that need to be backfilled are being reviewed and posted, DelliCarpini said, and they’re prioritizing certain positions, including ones that are related to direct instructional needs, safety, compliance and to accreditation, or that are critical student-facing roles.

“We are well positioned to support all of our students as they’re entering our campuses to be successful at Penn State and beyond. We have strategically extended some contracts as needed, positions that need to be refilled are being reviewed and posted. This is a priority. We’re moving really fast with those and so while it’s going to look different, we’re committed to our students’ success and continue to be prepared to help our students thrive,” Langkilde said.

‘Complete chaos’

During previous faculty senate meetings, senators have said they felt left in the dark throughout the VSIP process. Questions and confusion still lingered on Tuesday.

Paul Frisch, an assistant teaching professor of history at Scranton, said he’s worried about the structure on campuses after seeing employees depart, leaving questions about the reporting system and who is in charge of certain things now.

“Our director of business services is gone, so who do we go to when we have questions for that? We don’t know. … Our IT director is gone, and then people are going to our IT assistant and (saying), ‘You need to sign off on these bills and things,’ he’s going, ‘I don’t know if I have the authority for this.’ So is the university working on (a) structured outline of, if these people aren’t here, and if we’re not going to rehire them, who do you go to? Because there is a lot of confusion about this,” he said.

Sara Thorndike, senior vice president for finance and business, said all of the “optimized service teams” fall within finance and business, and they’ve been working closely with the chancellors and DelliCarpini on reporting structures, and they’ve had several meetings. Reporting structures have been put into place, she said, and they’ve been “working well for the last nine days.” She shared a general contact for senators to reach out to if they have questions about a reporting structure.

As part of the VSIP rollout, the university announced last month that they’d also implement a new shared regional administrative model for its commonwealth campuses this summer. Several chancellors are retiring, leaving the university for other jobs or signed up for the VSIP, Penn State previously said, leaving space for the new admin model. As of July 1, many commonwealth campuses became part of the regional leadership model, which is led by one administrator.

Agnès Kim, associate professor of physics, also at Scranton, echoed Frisch’s concerns. She said although it’s nice to hear that there’s planning happening and that the administration says things are falling into place, but she doesn’t share that feeling.

“At least on my campus, we have no notion of how things are going to work. In a little over a month, we’re coming back, we’ll have students. We are preparing our syllabi, we’re setting up our courses, and we just have no idea of how all of this is going to work. … For us, it’s complete chaos, unknown, high anxiety, especially for people who like to plan ahead,” Kim said.

The next scheduled faculty senate meeting is planned for 1:30 p.m. Sept. 10 at 112 Kern and via Zoom.