Penn State will continue supporting faculty and students in Northeast Pennsylvania, Regional Chancellor Elizabeth Wright said, even as the university’s trustees decide whether to close one of three campuses that she oversees.
Wright said information released this week has been very hard on communities, particularly Wilkes-Barre, one of seven campuses that a working group she was part of recommended closing.
As Wright spoke on Thursday morning, the university’s trustees were conferring privately. Later, they scheduled a public meeting for May 22 at 5 p.m. when they could vote about the fate of campuses, although no agenda has been posted.
While recommending that Wilkes-Barre close, the group favored keeping open campuses at Hazleton and Scranton, which Wright also directs.
Penn State released the group’s report on Tuesday, a day after the Philadelphia Inquirer published an article about the recommendations.
This created a difficult moment, particularly for Wilkes-Barre, and for Wright, who said her job is to “understand the needs of any campus at a given moment.”
If the board does vote to close Wilkes-Barre, the campus still would stay open for two years.
“I think we’re just continuing to do what we do every day to support students as they reach their goals,” Wright said. “Penn State is committed to doing the … high quality education we offer Northeast Pennsylvania.”
With enrollment falling, some campuses losing money and costs rising while state funding stays flat, the university prepared for a future in which lower birth rates shrink the pool of college-bound students and rural areas that many campuses serve lose people.
Continuing to keep 19 undergraduate campuses outside of the University Park campus imperiled the system, the report said.
After the university’s president decided to retain the seven largest campuses, which collectively earned $38 million, and a campus for graduate students, the group began reviewing 12 other campuses that together lost $29 million.
The report looked at enrollment and demographic trends compared with campus locations, vitality of academic programs and graduation rates, housing and finances, including upcoming costs for maintenance and improvement.
But the group also listened to stories shared by alumni, students and faculty from campuses that have all played important roles in their community.
“This process was not just technical; it was personal,” the report said.
Penn State Scranton had an annual gain of $209,000 and 827 students, but the working group also believed it has the potential to grow with the surrounding economy and recommends the campus will be the anchor for Northeast Pennsylvania.
“The programs in bachelor’s in nursing and mechanical engineering degrees — those met some of the most important needs in the region,” Wright said.
Hazleton’s campus, which has 515 students and lost $2.7 million, drew high marks for educating the highest percentage of students from underrepresented minorities of any campus.
“This campus has taken a proactive approach in how it works with all its students to clear pathways to educational goals,” said Wright, mentioning investments in advising, opportunities for students to engage in and out the classroom and the outreach to parents at the campus where the graduate rate was 41.2% after four years and 58% after six years..
Penn State Hazleton also builds on its association with Hazleton Area School District, which is already the ninth largest in the state and has grown 8% each of the last eight years, Superintendent Brian Uplinger said April 10 when speaking at a session that local lawmakers held about Penn State Hazleton.
“Hazleton Area has become an absolutely outstanding partner with the Hazleton campus. We’re so grateful for the superintendent and his team for their willingness to work with us on how to build pipelines to colleges,” Wright said. Penn State and Hazleton Area hold financial aid nights and advising sessions for prospective students and offer dual enrollment courses through which students “understand what it means to do college-level work” while still in high school, she said.
More broadly, community support such as the Pasco L. Schiavo Scholars Program, Lofstrom Scholarship in Business and other grants have improved the campus and helped students afford to attend Hazleton,
The Wilkes-Barre campus, which lost $2.1 million, has 329 students and its small campus without housing in Lehman Twp. “makes it difficult to maintain a comprehensive student experience,” the report says. Its programs, even a bachelor’s degree in surveying offered nowhere else in the state, can be replicated or consolidated at other campuses, according to the report.
At the Schuylkill Campus, which the report says to keep open, enrollment increased in each of the past three years to 698 students. But the population of Schuylkill County is dropping and expected to continue declining for decades.
“It’s future will rely on deep partnerships with local leaders and institutions to restore vitality and relevance in new ways,” the report said of the campus, which lost $1.2 million.
Asked what communities can do to strengthen local campuses, Wright said during the review process she relied on communities to think on their own about what they say and what they believe the campuses contribute.
“The outpouring of support has been extraordinary, and I will forever value it,” Wright said. “I think it is absolutely extraordinary to see them work together to share what they think of them.”