State System of Higher Education recommends interim chancellor

The chair of the State System of Higher Education Board of Governors intends to recommend Christopher Fiorentino, retired president of West Chester University, as interim system chancellor while a search for Daniel Greenstein’s successor is conducted.

Cynthia Shapira notified students, faculty and staff at the 10 state-owned universities in a message sent Thursday morning. She noted Fiorentino’s 40-year-plus career at West Chester, initially as a faculty member, then dean and vice president before becoming president in 2017. He is 70 years old.

West Chester in suburban Philadelphia is the largest of the state-owned universities, with 17,100 students.

Fiorentino’s appointment is subject to a board vote in October. He retired from West Chester in June.

“He brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to the role, and I am so pleased he has agreed to serve in this capacity,” Shapira wrote. “Chris does not intend to apply for the permanent position. Chris and Dan have worked together for more than six years.”

Greenstein, 64, announced last month that he is leaving on Oct. 11 to take an as-yet unspecified national position involving higher education. His tenure saw record growth in state funding to the system, and six consecutive votes by the board to hold undergraduate tuition at 2018-19 levels, $7,716 a year for Pennsylvanians.

He also oversaw controversial university mergers that in July 2022 created Pennsylvania Western University (California, Clarion and Edinboro) and Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania (Bloomsburg, Lock Haven and Mansfield).

“We are launching a national search for our next system chancellor — a process that will take us well into the spring semester,” Shapira wrote. “Along the way, we will seek input from students, faculty, staff, alumni, and other friends to help guide our search.”

Shapira said a search committee has been formed “consisting of the Executive Committee of the Board plus a student, a faculty member, and a university president.

“That composition served us well in our last search in 2017 — providing a wide range of perspectives to guide this process — and will do so again this time around.”

Shapira’s message linked to a site established to provide updates on the search progress.

If approved by the board of governors at its October meeting, Fiorentino will likely lead the State System and its 83,000 students for the 2024-25 academic year.

Greenstein’s salary as chancellor is $485,030. What Fiorentino would earn as an interim is not yet known.

Fiorentino was raised in Langhorne and Levittown, Bucks County, with a father who was a World War II veteran and a mother who was a native of Barbados, according to a West Chester website pegged to his induction into that county’s hall of fame earlier this year. He came to Chester County in 1983 and, at age 29, took a one-year position teaching economics at West Chester University, which later became a tenured faculty position.

He has served as the dean of business and public affairs.

Greenstein will remain as chancellor through the October board meeting.

“During that meeting, he will present the system’s 2024-25 priorities, recommend an appropriations request for next year, and tee up a conversation about our role in the evolving higher education landscape in Pennsylvania,” Shapira wrote.

In addition to West Chester, PennWest and Commonwealth universities, the State System includes Cheyney, East Stroudsburg, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Kutztown, Millersville, Shippensburg and Slippery Rock universities.