PASSHE Institutions Merging

[complaint_hopeful]

All true, the other thing they are not accounting for are the students that change majors half way through a program. There are alot of potential PAs that decide business is better for them, or business majors that would rather do something in the health sciences. Alot of students really don't know for sure what they want to pursue the first couple years. How will they be able to explore this at the specialized campuses ? Then there is the chance that a weaker school essentially becomes a community college, with all but a few specialized students doing only 2 years there.

As far as the NCAA decision, do you think the Chancellor really cares what the NCAA will say? If the decision comes back against sports at all schools, I expect him to throw up his hands, blame the NCAA for giving him the wrong impression, or being unfair somehow, but there will be nothing he can do about it anymore, and the Triad will have just one sports program, maybe some sports located at different campuses.

As I understand it, there are hub campuses for a program like business...meaning that it originates from there. But, that doesn't mean that the other 2 campuses won't have in person business classes. I think it's on a case by case basis.

As far as the NCAA ruling...like I've said before...it's important to us on this board, but I think Academics and cost reductions are the main concerns in the Integration.

So yeah...if the NCAA has an unfavorable ruling against sports...they may need to adjust the org structures to get a favorable one. Like maybe you have to keep financial aid depts separate. <-- That's just a guess. But, it seems like their plan is for this to be live Aug 2022 and aren't letting anything stop them.

The fact that 90% of the public comments were labelled as unactionable is pretty telling.

[ironmaniup]

Actually, if you look closely, there are outcomes for which you can make projections. It just a plan, but you can look at some details and figure out the outcome.

I looked at the academic program array for the NE triad. What it has is certain programs that will be the home base for that major at a certain school, programs that would be online only, and programs that would be offered at all 3 schools.

It all results in more specialization, which is an idea that has been bandied about for a long time. But what will it do to the school, its makeup, its character?

For example, in the NE, Bloom becomes the Business school. There's a big emphasis on that. Business is a popular major at LH so that will hurt LH. No question. I sense there is politics involved in some of this. At the same time, LH becomes the HQ for the sports-related, athletics training, health-related, of course, the PA program, and Sports Administration. That goes a long way to making LH mainly a jock school, which is a rep it has had in the past. It regresses as an institution, IMO. What does that do to the image of the school, overall. Will students want to attend a more specialized version of the school? Mansfield essentially becomes the Music school. Sure, there are other majors. But they are more limited. I think that is going to reduce demand, overall. You can make a fairly reliable estimate of how many students LH loses without a campus-based Business program.

And if LH and Mansfield are more specialized it puts them into competition with a different competitive set. Current students will be able to complete their programs where they started them but future students are going to be jostled between the 3 schools and I don't think you can assume that they will choose the triad over other schools with those conditions.

All true, the other thing they are not accounting for are the students that change majors half way through a program. There are alot of potential PAs that decide business is better for them, or business majors that would rather do something in the health sciences. Alot of students really don't know for sure what they want to pursue the first couple years. How will they be able to explore this at the specialized campuses ? Then there is the chance that a weaker school essentially becomes a community college, with all but a few specialized students doing only 2 years there.

As far as the NCAA decision, do you think the Chancellor really cares what the NCAA will say? If the decision comes back against sports at all schools, I expect him to throw up his hands, blame the NCAA for giving him the wrong impression, or being unfair somehow, but there will be nothing he can do about it anymore, and the Triad will have just one sports program, maybe some sports located at different campuses.

[iupgroundhog]

Actually, if you look closely, there are outcomes for which you can make projections. It just a plan, but you can look at some details and figure out the outcome.

I looked at the academic program array for the NE triad. What it has is certain programs that will be the home base for that major at a certain school, programs that would be online only, and programs that would be offered at all 3 schools.

It all results in more specialization, which is an idea that has been bandied about for a long time. But what will it do to the school, its makeup, its character?

For example, in the NE, Bloom becomes the Business school. There's a big emphasis on that. Business is a popular major at LH so that will hurt LH. No question. I sense there is politics involved in some of this. At the same time, LH becomes the HQ for the sports-related, athletics training, health-related, of course, the PA program, and Sports Administration. That goes a long way to making LH mainly a jock school, which is a rep it has had in the past. It regresses as an institution, IMO. What does that do to the image of the school, overall. Will students want to attend a more specialized version of the school? Mansfield essentially becomes the Music school. Sure, there are other majors. But they are more limited. I think that is going to reduce demand, overall. You can make a fairly reliable estimate of how many students LH loses without a campus-based Business program.

And if LH and Mansfield are more specialized it puts them into competition with a different competitive set. Current students will be able to complete their programs where they started them but future students are going to be jostled between the 3 schools and I don't think you can assume that they will choose the triad over other schools with those conditions.

[complaint_hopeful]

Exactly. Unfortunately the legislature is the last line of defense and they're controlled by the party who is already spinning this as holding education accountable (read: fighting back on liberals wantonly spending our money). The big media is just parroting the talking points especially 25% savings to students (the biggest falsehood of the plan).

Yeah - On the 25% savings, the schools are saying that they're going to save THEMSELVES 25% on the cost of delivering education. Not save the students 25%.

[complaint_hopeful]

That he said that is pretty shocking. It's disrespectful. It's dismissive of the views of the general public. Don't be manipulated by this guy.

The purpose of a comment period is to get feedback from the public, AKA "opinions." The purpose of that 60 day comment period is NOT to obtain actionable policy ideas from the public. that's the job of the policymakers. Hello?

What he's doing now is distraction. What is germane about the comments is how many support the plan and how many oppose it, or question it. He doesn't want to address that. He's not going to confront the idea that it's unpopular. That would mean his defeat and put a crimp in his career objectives.

It's apparent that this guy is going to try to jam this down the throats of Pennsylvanians, regardless of anything anybody else says.

For beginners, the whole thing is no good without a decision from the NCAA and I don't think that is forthcoming. I really do think it is going to be a disaster. With the money and energy already spent on it, it already is a disaster. Especially for the schools in the West.

I 100% agree with you. So the comments, I have to assume were largely negative. So instead of reading them, they eliminated like 90% as non-actionable, then grouped the 10% and talked about how they were addressing them.

The board is likely not going to vote this down. They seem to thing the Chancellor and this plan are innovative and historic. (Someone actually used the word 'historic' to describe it).

[Fightingscot82]

That he said that is pretty shocking. It's disrespectful. It's dismissive of the views of the general public. Don't be manipulated by this guy.

The purpose of a comment period is to get feedback from the public, AKA "opinions." The purpose of that 60 day comment period is NOT to obtain actionable policy ideas from the public. that's the job of the policymakers. Hello?

What he's doing now is distraction. What is germane about the comments is how many support the plan and how many oppose it, or question it. He doesn't want to address that. He's not going to confront the idea that it's unpopular. That would mean his defeat and put a crimp in his career objectives.

It's apparent that this guy is going to try to jam this down the throats of Pennsylvanians, regardless of anything anybody else says.

For beginners, the whole thing is no good without a decision fro the NCAA and I don't think that is forthcoming. I really do think it is going to be a disaster. With the money and energy already spent on it, it already is a disaster. Especially for the schools in the West.

Exactly. Unfortunately the legislature is the last line of defense and they're controlled by the party who is already spinning this as holding education accountable (read: fighting back on liberals wantonly spending our money). The big media is just parroting the talking points especially 25% savings to students (the biggest falsehood of the plan).

[iupgroundhog]

He said of the 299 comments, 90% or so are opinions. About 10% (of overall) are actionable.

That he said that is pretty shocking. It's disrespectful. It's dismissive of the views of the general public. Don't be manipulated by this guy.

The purpose of a comment period is to get feedback from the public, AKA "opinions." The purpose of that 60 day comment period is NOT to obtain actionable policy ideas from the public. that's the job of the policymakers. Hello?

What he's doing now is distraction. What is germane about the comments is how many support the plan and how many oppose it, or question it. He doesn't want to address that. He's not going to confront the idea that it's unpopular. That would mean his defeat and put a crimp in his career objectives.

It's apparent that this guy is going to try to jam this down the throats of Pennsylvanians, regardless of anything anybody else says.

For beginners, the whole thing is no good without a decision fro the NCAA and I don't think that is forthcoming. I really do think it is going to be a disaster. With the money and energy already spent on it, it already is a disaster. Especially for the schools in the West.

[Fightingscot82]

Yep. This turned into a big PR thing for the Integration. Some of the BOG members are speaking and it sounds like they feel this is 'historic' and a good thing in general.

So to summarize, they took 299 probably highly negative comments. Dismissed a bunch. Cherry picked some and summarized how they were dealing witht he concern.

As for the negative comments - I put some in about how the timeframe is unrealistic to implement this and some other feedback. I guess those were in the pile that were dismissed.

ie...I'd say this is a done deal that the BOG approves this. They seemed to speak glowingly about the process.

Was there anything on the NCAA? I didn't catch it, but I had a call for a few minutes.

A lot of costs in higher ed are based on scale. The bigger the size the more something costs. For managers, they're now jockeying to be the one final *insert title* at the new university that is 2.5 times the size of their current school. The interim president already got a $75k raise for covering Edinboro - I imagine she'll get Driscoll money when its all said and done. I didn't catch anything on the NCAA and to be honest, this decision is probably not even a blip on the radar of anyone at the NCAA. It should - a wave of consolidations are coming.

For those who live in the area - how has athletics gone with the Thomas Jefferson/Philadelphia University merger? With Georgia Souther/Armstrong State they just cut all sports from Armstrong.

[complaint_hopeful]

Watching this BOG meeting, the chancellor presented that to date 299 comments have been left on the PASSHE Public Comment page. Of the 299, 229 were dismissed as "viewpoint comments about the plan, approach, etc." This means no matter how unpopular the public groundswell is, only the legislature can stop it now.

Yep. This turned into a big PR thing for the Integration. Some of the BOG members are speaking and it sounds like they feel this is 'historic' and a good thing in general.

So to summarize, they took 299 probably highly negative comments. Dismissed a bunch. Cherry picked some and summarized how they were dealing witht he concern.

As for the negative comments - I put some in about how the timeframe is unrealistic to implement this and some other feedback. I guess those were in the pile that were dismissed.

ie...I'd say this is a done deal that the BOG approves this. They seemed to speak glowingly about the process.

Was there anything on the NCAA? I didn't catch it, but I had a call for a few minutes.

[Fightingscot82]

Watching this BOG meeting, the chancellor presented that to date 299 comments have been left on the PASSHE Public Comment page. Of the 299, 229 were dismissed as "viewpoint comments about the plan, approach, etc." This means no matter how unpopular the public groundswell is, only the legislature can stop it now.

[Fightingscot82]

Yeah so if they rotate...your class would be at each school what once ever 3 years or 1.5 years? And these colleges aren't that close. Like doctors offices are generally within an hour or so of each other. Like do you expect the same prof to drive to Clarion to teach a class 1 semester? Then Edinboro the next? And Cal U the next?

I think in theory this all sounds great. But when you think of the use cases, it breaks down.

Like I've heard they're looking at linking classrooms on campuses with video. (Which has been done in the state system to some extent for over a decade.) So you'd have a professor in 1 room on a campus and link that room to students at another campus and they'd watch the class on TV.

I think there could be some market for these use cases. But, I don't think any of this is going to make these schools grow unless they reduce costs. I don't see students paying full price for this.

When my parents attended Edinboro in the early 1970s adjunct faculty weren't a thing, so they had classes live broadcast on CCTV. Not ideal but also previously done. The same for using the "teledoc" model for student services like billing, financial aid, advising, etc. But those little micro negative experiences add up over time, especially when students know students are having a "normal" experience at Slippery Rock or IUP for the same price.

[complaint_hopeful]

He said of the 299 comments, 90% or so are opinions. About 10% (of overall) are actionable.

[complaint_hopeful]

The Board of Governors will webcast its integrations update workshop tomorrow, May 26, during which we will provide a briefing on our efforts to receive, review, and utilize the feedback received since the 60-day public comment period began April 28. (Because this is a workshop rather than an official meeting, no board actions will be taken.)

We have been collecting public comments through email, the website, and by other means and actively identifying those actionable items that can help improve the integrations plans. We will share an update regarding those efforts and provide some more details about the upcoming public hearings that are slated for next month.

Pennsylvania's State System of Higher Education - YouTube

And of course the meeting starts off with the Chancellor running through his slide deck of why we are Integrating and why we need to. And how innovative this is.

He seems quite subdued.

[complaint_hopeful]

In principle, advanced courses that would have 5-10 students could be taught as one class with 15-30 students, So any program that has only a few majors - for example physics or audiology, could offer the intro courses at all three schools, and provide the advanced classes in hybrid mode in one section, parsing out the advanced courses to the school with the faculty with the appropriate expertise, and wherever there happens to be an available faculty to teach the course. I can see the courses rotating around the schools rather than being located at just one. I think they get the idea from how Doctors work these days, rotating from office to office to increase access. There will be the same issues as well.

Yeah so if they rotate...your class would be at each school what once ever 3 years or 1.5 years? And these colleges aren't that close. Like doctors offices are generally within an hour or so of each other. Like do you expect the same prof to drive to Clarion to teach a class 1 semester? Then Edinboro the next? And Cal U the next?

I did hear they were kicking around the idea of a student being on Campus 1 for Year 1, Campus 2 for Year 2, and Campus 3 for Year 3.

I think in theory this all sounds great. But when you think of the use cases, it breaks down.

Like I've heard they're looking at linking classrooms on campuses with video. (Which has been done in the state system to some extent for over a decade.) So you'd have a professor in 1 room on a campus and link that room to students at another campus and they'd watch the class on TV.

I think there could be some market for these use cases. But, I don't think any of this is going to make these schools grow unless they reduce costs. I don't see students paying full price for this.

[complaint_hopeful]

The Board of Governors will webcast its integrations update workshop tomorrow, May 26, during which we will provide a briefing on our efforts to receive, review, and utilize the feedback received since the 60-day public comment period began April 28. (Because this is a workshop rather than an official meeting, no board actions will be taken.)

We have been collecting public comments through email, the website, and by other means and actively identifying those actionable items that can help improve the integrations plans. We will share an update regarding those efforts and provide some more details about the upcoming public hearings that are slated for next month.

Pennsylvania's State System of Higher Education - YouTube