Welcome to Busted Pencil's home room. It's educated educators talking education. Dr. Tim
Slecker here. Going, you know, with my colleague and friend, Jacob Chairman of the
board's Dr. Johnny Lupinacci, you know, not that he's missing home room, but he
has a legitimate excuse. It was submitted and signed by his, you know, rightful
guardian, Jacob that gave him the ability to, you know, not be in attendance
today. So we have to, you know, whenever a parent or guardian puts forth the fact that,
you know, the person that they're responsible for can't make it for the day, what we do
here at Busted Pencil's is we honor it, you know, I respect the name. Yeah, you know,
because sometimes, you know, things like that happen. Now, what I hope I don't do is
like later in the day when I'm watching, you know, baseball, I don't see like the camera
cut and see Dr. Johnny Lupinacci in the stands, you know, cheering on. Yeah, well, next
to the Pope and, you know, kind of reminding me of that Ferris Bueller's day off scene there
when Ferris got caught at the Chicago Cubs game. I think those Cubs, maybe his white socks,
you know, his, his principle, though, happened to look away from the camera at the right time.
So anyway, Dr. Johnny Lupinacci, we will miss you, but we've got this Jacob, it's a home
room and typically we like to come into a home room and, you know, like what's going
on, what's happening in the world. And I know you had, let me know that there's a little
question or something that's concerned. You think, you know, hit, hit me, man, hit me,
where it, where it matters. Yeah, Tim, I found this interesting article on higher ed dive
and I couldn't help but think about you because you told me that you used to work for Penn
State, didn't you? Yeah, I actually, I was 10 years as, you know, a faculty member and
also a division head leader. I was at the Penn State Altoona campus. What, so what's
happening at my old, you know, big Penn State? I mean, massive, incredibly popular land
grand institution. I know when I was applying to go to colleges back in the 80s, you know,
everybody was looking to get into Penn State. So this has got to be exciting news. It
is not exciting news. It's a little bit more negative news, I would say. And I'm hoping
to get your opinion on this and see what you know about it because I went to a state satellite
school. I went to one of the university Wisconsin schools outside of Madison. This pertains
that those sort of schools in Penn State, I don't know how that works there. So you're
going to have to fill me in. But it says that they have proposed closing seven commonwealth
campuses. Now, can you explain to me what a commonwealth campus is for the Penn State system?
Yeah, actually, that's, boy, when you get into the Penn State system, you find out that there's
a lot of like, wait a minute, explain that to me because that's not the reality that I know.
And in fact, Jacob, what you point out to it, it is different than the University of Wisconsin
system because those schools that, you know, whether it's white water, lacrosse, and institutions
like that, they actually are independent of the University of Wisconsin, the kind of what we
call the mother ship, which would be UW Madison. There's much more independence where at the Penn
State, the commonwealth campuses actually are an extension of the main campus of Penn State.
So it's all wrapped up together like that. And in fact, when I was at Penn State,
Altoona, and at that time, you know, one of the things that they reminded us constantly was
is that we might be at the Penn State, Altoona campus, but we are Penn State.
Okay. You know, so we are Penn State. And a lot of that was to kind of say, it's like, oh,
you went, you know, the branch campus stigma was a little bit there. And Penn State was trying
to say, look, there's no stigma. If you're at Penn State, Altoona, if you're at Penn State,
Berks, if you're at Penn State University Park main campus, you are at Penn State. And so it's
a Penn State campus. What this did was, you know, allow for those smaller communities and for students
in those areas to actually access a high quality Penn State education without having to go to
the main campus in University Park, Pennsylvania. So, you know, a nice option for people that really
wanted to get the, you know, the Penn State education credentials, but maybe not have the ability
or desire to want to, you know, pick up and move across the state of Pennsylvania or wherever you're at.
So this, this was a real nice option to get a Penn State degree. And as we always, you know,
when you look at the degree, when you graduate from any of these campuses, all it says is Penn State.
Yeah. That's pretty cool. I like that. Does that meant, so did you get the difference there?
Yes, I do see the difference there. It kind of reminds me of, I did some volunteering for veterans
and they were talking to these guys and they're like, hey, whether you're a combat veteran or not,
you're still a veteran and we want to respect you. And it's like, hey, listen, you're,
whether you're at the main campus or you went to the satellite campus, degree says Penn State.
So you guys are Penn State. That's it. That's it. So now, wait, you, the headline I was saying,
they're going to potentially close. Yes. Yeah. Give me more, give me more, man.
So let me dive into the article a bit with you. It says Pennsylvania State University officials
are seeking to close seven of the institutions Commonwealth campuses at the end of the 2026-27
academic year campuses in Dubois. By the way, no idea if I'm going to say these right. I'm not from
Pennsylvania too. So let me know. Dubois, Iat, Montalto, New Kensington, Shenango, Wilkes Bear,
and York. Was I close on any of that? Wow. Yeah. Well, I mean, not too bad.
Most people would say Dubois, but, you know, being from Pennsylvania, it's Dubois. Dubois.
Okay. Not not to be confused with Dubois. And, you know, Shenango, but you're pretty close on
the rest right on the bat. So there's a proposal that those campuses be closed. I didn't hear Penn
State Altoona, which is where I spent my 10 years. Well, because you have that place in a great
condition. There's no need. I guess, yeah, my contributions there 15 years ago has really just
held up. Well, interesting. Okay. Let's look at this and say, you know what Jacob, I'm not surprised.
And I'm going to say that from the standpoint of saying not because I don't think Penn State is
quality, I mean, Penn State is an incredible institution. What's happening at Penn State is
what's happening all over the country. Yeah. The number of students that are applying for entry
has declined drastically. Higher education is facing, you know, stiff competition just from a sheer
numbers point of view. And Pennsylvania, my old home state of where
one of these states where, you know, there seems to be whether it's a Penn State, whether it's a
pit, whether it's one of the Pennsylvania system schools, whether it's a community college, whether
it's a private college, there is no shortage of an ability to find a higher ed institution.
And back in the day, I think that worked out really well right now, though, with with the
population, the population demographic, particularly of college age students in the decline,
the negative connotations or feelings that the public has towards higher education in general.
And the kind of rethinking that a lot of parents and their students and even adults who are
returning to education, looking at and saying, you know, is it worth the cost and kind of pulling
out and then realizing that, you know, for the most part, there's been a pretty strong economy
that is allowing people to make a decent wage without a college degree. Putting all that together,
guess what that means, enrollment decline. Yeah.
Now, I'm going to point this though, a little kind of twist in this story. So there's no proposal
to reduce or shrink or close down the Penn State main campus. Not at all, not from what I'm seeing.
What I'm seeing is exactly like you said, and it's about the money that it says right here,
to continue operating these campuses, they'd require $40 million every year in financial support,
and an additional $200 million investment in the facilities spread out across the state for
these seven campuses. Yeah. That's where their focus is trying to cut there instead of
in Happy Valley. Well, the and the cut there is actually in this is what happens. In fact,
I, you know, I saw this start to happen in two, you know, between I got there in 2003 and was
there until 2013 towards the end of 2013, we noticed the phenomena that a lot of our applicants,
when a student applies to Penn State, they rank order the campuses that they prefer.
And there was a little bit of a sense of saying, wait a minute, some of these students that
should have been coming to Altoona are now getting full acceptance letters from the main campus.
And so what it felt like was saying, wait a minute, so it must be that the application numbers and
enrollment numbers in Happy Valley are a little bit shabby. Hey, but no need to worry.
We've got lots of applicants at the campus. Let's bring them to Happy Valley.
You know, that's unfortunate, Tim, because I was feeling pretty good earlier when you're like,
hey, we're all Penn State, doesn't matter what you're at, but it seems like the administrators
feel a little bit differently. We're all Penn State, except when, well, you know, and in fact,
let's bring everybody to the main campus because, you know, I don't know. You know what,
I don't look at this as any fall of Penn State or anything. This truly is, this is a financial
situation that it says that higher education and these number of institutions, and let's not
just talk about Penn State, the Pennsylvania State higher education, public higher education system,
has in the past eight years taken six campuses and reduced those into two campuses from the
standpoint of enrollment. There have been multiple private institutions that are on the verge of
closing. So what's happening here has nothing to do with really the quality. It just has the fact
that we've got a demographic population that is, and we've got a demographic population,
and we've got a, you know, this is a supply and demand issue. Jacob, you remember economics.
I do. You know, there are too many institutions of higher education right now to support the
population and the number of students that need and or want a degree. And, you know, so this is
what this is what's happening. I got to tell you though, that sounds maybe insensitive or kind
of like Tim, that's awfully factual without any emotions. No, I understand this
in a way that really I get it and I'll make a transition to the Pennsylvania State higher education
system. My alma mater Edinburgh University is one of those institutions that is now the combination
of what was Edinburgh University, California State, California University of Pennsylvania,
a clearing university of Pennsylvania. They're now all called Penn West. In fact, my linked in didn't
even ask me if I wanted to change my affiliation. It automatically told me that I'm a graduate of
Penn West. Wow. Okay. Yeah. And but what happens in that reality, so like Edinburgh, Pennsylvania,
which is the home of Edinburgh University of Pennsylvania, that institution is a bedrock institution
of that community. The same goes for California. And the, you know, the potential that it was going
to be closed really hurts those local communities. So back to Penn State, those campuses,
they have long histories in those communities of being, you know, an institution that has really
served the needs of the community. This is going to be a hard hit to the local communities and the
local economy because you're talking about, you know, faculty who are not going to have to be,
you know, either laid off or moved out, all of the services that go into supporting those campuses,
you know, that's all going to dry up. This is, you know, this is painful in, you know, Jacob, I think
you know this, but, you know, I've actually lived this experience of wondering, what am I going to do
now that an institution has reduced its workforce? And in fact, at my institution when I was in
Wisconsin, one of my responsibilities as Dean was to take that bad news to a lot of faculty
and staff and let them know that, you know, at the end of the semester or at the end of the year,
or if you would like to take up a buyout that the institution's offering, you should because
that's it, you know, we can't support this. So I, you know, I look at this and I worry about higher education,
but I also kind of get the demographic reality. I don't know, I've rambled Jacob. What do you think now,
yeah, I know it's a difficult demographic reality right now for getting enrollment at these
universities, even my college that I graduated from just last year, the last year or two at that
university, I saw drop off and in new coming students, there's emails all the time coming from
the Dean saying, hey, we're not closing just yet. Don't worry, you know, they're, you know, we're
reducing the staff numbers, but don't worry, we're going to stay open tough times. I know that for
me, you know, growing up as, I guess a child of the recession, you could say, in that time, you
saw, you know, hey, I've got a doctorate in metaphysics. Yeah, buddy, but get me my coffee hurry up,
you know, the erosion of the value or the feeling that there's that direct pipeline from, oh, I went
to college, I got my degree, I'm going to get a good job because of it. I think people my age and
younger are a little bit more dubious about that. So college becomes a very expensive and risky
proposition for people my age, thinking about getting into higher education. The pandemic only made
that worse, you know, it changed things up. Now, there's opportunities coming like AI to change
the system. I think the pandemic showing us, hey, a lot of this can be done remotely. We can change
some of the old institutions of learning, but it takes time. I can see it's a huge challenge for
people in education. Yeah, and this is where I don't know the particulars of the Penn State
campuses and what they have or haven't been doing to try to adapt to the new reality. You know,
whether it's offering blended hybrid education, more career focused. And I will say that I do think
that higher education needs to really, really rethink how it offers education through the
modalities. And the whole idea of a degree program and the prominence of degree programs
and being more realistic that, you know, maybe weekend credentials, certificate programs in ways
that actually serve students, like you said, skeptical students that say, you know, what I,
a four year degree, I can't do it right now, but you're saying there's, you know, like a
credentialing program that could allow me to move up in the company I'm currently at.
Well, then yeah, I'll give that a try, right? And then so that could really start to establish
some more trust. And I do see institutions doing that more and more often. And those that do
are going to be the ones that continue to thrive. And those that are going to be late and in fact,
continue to insist on saying that, you know, but what we do is quality and how we do it is quality
and it stood the test for the last hundred years. You know, hey, it'll be a nice memorial.
You can hang your hat on the fact that you didn't give up your principles. But I, you know,
I really do see this, though, I mean, this Penn State reality. Again, it's not shocking. I
hate that it's not shocking. But, you know, it's, it's where we are. And I think that if I'm an
institution of higher education, if I'm a provost, a president or a dean, and I'm seeing this,
and I'm sure they are, you know, what is it that your institution under your leadership is, you know,
willing to do to kind of look for those new students to make those new connections with the
communities that you're already involved in, reestablish connections, build new partnerships with
industry. And, you know, really kind of make a new, a new day for higher education. I think that
while the news is sad and for a little bit stifling, or maybe I also take this moment as being,
you know, really exciting for innovative institutions to really step out and, you know, really put
forth this, this, this opportunity for access to so many more students who never imagined that
they were ever going to go to college to begin with, what a great way now for an institution of
higher education to say, no, no, no, no, we want you. In fact, we know we have something that can
support you. Instead of the old, well, what's your SAT scores? What's your ACT scores? You know,
can you do this? Hey, you took that degree, you know, 12 years ago. Sorry, you're going to have to
repeat 60 plus credits. No, no, no, no. We are now in partnership with the community. We're
creating access. We're creating bonds. And I think that's something to be excited about. No,
Tim didn't just say it's exciting that Penn State is proposing closing campuses. I'm saying
there's an excitement of the possibility of moving higher education into a place that could
really go a long way in creating a positive cultural sense of the institution and really serving
the needs of the students and the community members who could see these institutions as anchors,
as bed rocks, as those places where, hey, if we need something, we know our institution of higher
education is working with us. So, Jacob, that's what I got, man. You know what that means?
Now it's time for your moment of Zen.
If you permit unprincipled and ambitious men to monopolize the soil, they will become masters
of the country in a certain order of cause and effect.
Hey, thanks for listening to Busted Pencil's home room. Really appreciate it. You're spending
time with Jacob and me, Tim. Looking forward, Johnny, we'll be back. Make sure you're Wednesday,
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