Chancellor Daniel Greenstein faced tough questions and criticisms surrounding the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) System Redesign from faculty members of Shippensburg University as he ended his 14-stop fall campus tour at SU on Wednesday.

Members of the SU and Shippensburg communities were invited to the Open Forum held by Chancellor Dan in a standing-room-only Ceddia Union Building Multipurpose Room.

“I believe profoundly in the power of public higher education,” Greenstein said. “University is increasingly one of the few places where people can go and engage with people who are unlike themselves and by doing that learn tolerance.”

During the forum, “Chancellor Dan” briefly updated the crowd on the System Redesign before opening up the floor for questions.

Faculty shared questions and concerns surrounding using shared programming by partnering with universities across the system. The chancellor responded, “We need to empower them to do, not just to think, but to do. A lot of the work that’s happening right now is putting in place that infrastructure.” 

Jordan Windholz, an SU English professor, told the chancellor that he has been keeping up with the information distributed about the System Redesign, but still does not fully understand what is going on.

“What are you talking about? I have no idea what is happening and I have been patiently following all the information,” Windholz said. “We’re two months away from Phase Three, I have no idea what’s going on and I read things closely and can follow arguments pretty well.”

Windholz told the chancellor that he was using “metaphors that aren’t attached to anything” in his explanations to the crowd.

The chancellor opened up the floor to “crowd-source” an answer for Windholz before answering it himself.

Greenstein described the “terminal financial decline” that the system is potentially facing, before turning to the students in attendance.“Students in the room, should we charge you 10-12% more or should we take those costs off the table,” Greenstein asked. 

“Costs off the table,” the students in the room responded.

Greenstein referred to PASSHE’s decision to freeze tuition over the summer, the second time in 36 years where tuition was not raised. 

Jose Ricardo-Osorio, professor and chair of global languages and cultures department, asked if there would be job loss with the “cost-effective” potential changes to the system.

Greenstein said the system is built to serve 120,000 and it currently serves only 96,000, a 20% reduction. The chancellor could not answer whether or not employees could lose their jobs. 

He said PASSHE has asked for a 2% annual operating budget increase and $100 million over five years to “refresh the infrastructure we need to take costs off the table and legislative changes that allow us to escape the regulatory constraint.”

Greenstein said the problems which PASSHE faces today are a result of a metaphorical “can being kicked down the road for 35 years.”

“There’s a real interest in a public education system, but they’ve lost trust in us,” Greenstein said.

“We are at a major pivot point in higher education.”, he said.

The chancellor said he wants to find workable solutions to fix the problems the system faces. 

Greenstein said something needs to be done, otherwise the outcome will be terminal financial decline of at least seven or eight of PASSHE’s 14 universities.

“It [terminal financial decline] means denial of access to mobility for whole sections of this state,” Greenstein said.

“It is not acceptable to me that students don’t have access to the soft-skills career advising that they feel they need,” he said.

“It is not acceptable to me that the state of Pennsylvania is 48th in the nation in terms of its investment in public education,” Greenstein said.

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