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Members, students, alumni, staff and community members raised their voices today against plans to consolidate California, Clarion and Edinboro universities in the west and Bloomsburg, Lock Haven and Mansfield universities in the northeast. Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education’s third and four public-comment hearings yielded dozens more statements from stakeholders from across the 14 universities — none of them in favor of the plans proposed in late April. Most called for increased funding for public higher education in Pennsylvania, which ranks at or near the bottom in the country in measures of public higher-education investment.

For those unable to comment today or who have more to share, APSCUF plans additional comment-recording sessions next week. June 14 is open to all who register; June 15 is exclusively for students in the Zoom meeting, but we will livestream on Facebook for anyone to watch. Click here to register for next week’s events.

Watch the morning hearing below:

Watch the afternoon hearing, which lasted nearly three hours, below:

Read APSCUF’s collated tweets from both hearings:

Thank you to members, students, alumni and all others who spoke at today’s two State System hearing about plans to consolidate California, Clarion and Edinboro universities in the west and Bloomsburg, Lock Haven and Mansfield universities in the northeast. Two additional hearings are slated for 8 a.m. and 4:30 p.m. tomorrow, June 10.

By APSCUF’s count, 21 of the 23 morning speakers asked the Board of Governors to either vote no or to delay the plans. One speaker did not deliver remarks (She had intentions of speaking at a later session.) but asked where the board members were (They were not visible on the video.) and how they could be held accountable to hear public comments. (After a few seconds of silence, the answer was that BOG members had joined via Zoom or were watching on YouTube — but they were not onscreen panelists because they were not speaking.) Only one person — the remaining speaker — called the plans the “best option.” No afternoon speakers voiced support of the plans.

Watch the morning hearing, held in a webinar/panel style, below:

Watch the afternoon hearing below:

Read APSCUF’s collated tweets from both hearings:

This post has been updated to add information about the second hearing.

Wednesday kicks off the State System’s public-comment hearings about plans to consolidate California, Clarion and Edinboro universities in the west and Bloomsburg, Lock Haven and Mansfield universities in the northeast. Your feedback is valuable, and our solidarity is imperative. No matter what your university, you can make a difference by participating in one of the four hearings this week:

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 9:
STATE SYSTEM PUBLIC-COMMENT HEARINGS
8–9:30 a.m. and 4:30–6 p.m.
Click here to access the Zoom and YouTube links. We recommend joining the State System hearings through Zoom. Even if you don’t speak, consider joining via Zoom as a show of solidarity.

THURSDAY, JUNE 10:
STATE SYSTEM PUBLIC-COMMENT HEARINGS
8–9:30 a.m. and 4:30–6 p.m.
Click here to access the Zoom and YouTube links. We recommend joining the State System hearings through Zoom. Even if you don’t speak, consider joining via Zoom as a show of solidarity.

We’ve assembled some tips for you to consider, as you prepare to share your comments:

If you’re unable to attend one of the State System’s four sessions, APSCUF has two additional opportunities to document your comments on video. Click here to register for one of next week’s sessions and to watch previous recordings.

No matter what, we encourage you to submit written comments via the State System’s online portal.

Click here to learn more about consolidations and other ways you can take action.

Kutztown University student Melissa Stough will intern remotely with APSCUF’s government-and-communications department through August. Click here to learn more about future APSCUF internships.

My name is Melissa Stough, and I am a senior at Kutztown University of Pennsylvania. I am studying English with accompanying minors in sociology and women’s, gender and sexuality studies.

The opportunity to work as APSCUF’s communications and government-relations summer intern is incredibly important to me as a transfer student from private higher education to public education. APSCUF embodies what I believe higher education should be, which is student-focused and filled with accessible resources. My experiences led me to state institutions, and I could not be happier with my involvement at Kutztown University.

My passion for students lies in my focus on students’ rights and an affordable, equitable approach to education. I am incredibly drawn toward human rights in education, such as LGBTQ+ protections, racial justice and disability rights. I will be pursuing a master’s in a field that will allow me to further connect with students and educators via the local, state and federal levels.

I hope to learn more about higher education and government relations to channel my passions into change, wherever the future takes me.

—Melissa Stough,
APSCUF intern

APSCUF is collecting stories from retrenched faculty members to spread awareness about the effect of such cuts and to put human faces on the numbers. Thank you to those members who have shared their experiences. (Click here to read previous testimonies.) Members: To participate in this project, email Kathryn Morton, APSCUF communications director, at .

To learn more about retrenchment, click here.

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Retrenchment. What does it mean to a university or the impacted individuals? At my university, there are some in the management area who seem to think it has limited to no impact on individuals. In reality, it can affect not only income and healthcare, force retirement decisions and lead to loss of aspects of one’s identity. It is the change from working person to nonworking or work-seeking individual or transitioning to retirement.

For my university, it means so much more. Cheyney already has by far the smallest faculty among the 14 State System universities, and, with the retrenchment of the last two library faculty members, no future student will have on-campus, physical assistance with information-seeking and research needs. The door of the Leslie Pinckney Hill Library building has been locked since Jan 25, 2020, and now there are no library faculty members to reply to any requests from students, faculty or staff.

Since 1853, the former Institute for Colored Youth had either a reading room or library. The Quaker Board and the early leaders of the educational institution understood the value of a library. Libraries open the doors to new ideas, new thoughts, new information needs as well as to learning how any given discipline grows and evolves its theories and guiding principles. Change is ever present and constant in all aspects of human endeavor; the library provides a means to locate vetted information and to fact check what is reported by various outlets.

For myself, it is sad to observe that the university I joined 23.5 years ago seems worse off than it did when I arrived: fewer faculty, fewer majors, fewer students and no sports or student newspaper or broadcast station.

Throughout the state, there may be those who believe it is good to have fewer faculty, that working-class students, marginalized students or all of the students who choose System universities do not need the full resources of a library or the full extracurricular programs that add to the college experience.

For me, as I have told others, retrenchment is an indication of managers not being able to manage well, to plan well, to live up to the college experience purported to be present at an educational institution or to recruit with integrity. So I hope that all of us who are being retrenched and have been retrenched will understand any ensuing damage comes from managerial decisions. This and any retrenchment is more a result of lack of interest in and poor stewardship by those selected to manage the universities of Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education.

—Dr. B.J. Mullaney,
Cheyney University APSCUF chapter president

APSCUF file photo