Your insights, your voice

Fourteen universities in 16 days, and I come away as optimistic as ever about our future.

Some summary observations here and in the next several blog posts, but before diving into them, I have to tell you how much I appreciate and am inspired by your willingness to speak openly to me on any topic, however challenging or difficult. It is so important for me to hear from you.

Your insights, your voice – they ground me in the work, and shape my thinking and leadership. It is an honor to be trusted with them, whether you tell me in person, at chancellor@passhe.edu, or, increasingly I hope, as part of a more public and inclusive ongoing conversation.

So thank you
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1. We are fully committed to our students and constantly asking whether we are doing enough for them.

At every university, I met with faculty and staff in groups ranging in size from 10 to more than 30 people. And at every one of those meetings, our students were front and center in our conversation.

Students today are so different from students even five years ago. Their needs are different: the pressures they face, the anxieties they feel, the way they engage with us, the way they engage with one another, the way they learn and engage with information. Our passion for our students and their success, our concern that we do right by them, our drive do our best and help them navigate their challenges, build on their strengths, and prepare for a rapidly changing world is a primary motivation under everything we do.

It is also at the heart of a second theme I encountered everywhere…

2. We are wide open to change.

I was inspired at every university in virtually every discussion by our willingness to explore new ways of doing things in every aspect of our work: from the way we look after our facilities to how we engage with students and support them in residence halls, on sports fields, in dining centers, and, of course, in their teaching and learning.

This openness to change showed up in the results of a survey I conducted at every university – a survey intended to get at our readiness, willingness, and ability to change.

Our openness to change emerged so frequently in conversation that I started asking you to explain why. Responses touched on several things: the severity of our various challenges, intellectual curiosity, but above all, concern for our students.

And these weren’t general conversations about change. They were specific and focused on areas where we need to improve our practice and where we are already applying ourselves. This is one thing I value most about our culture… we never spend too long “admiring the problem”, preferring instead to jump right to “solutioning.” Hallelujah!

Hot topics?  They won’t surprise you. Counselling, academic and career advising, financial aid packaging, supplemental instruction, the use of high-impact instructional practices, our students’ first year experience, credit transfer, online instruction.

Here’s good news -- as we discussed these topics, we recognized together that they are not only hot across our system but across all of US higher education. We pointed in each of these areas to emerging, evidence-based industry good practices and to examples of them at universities across the country and inside this system.

The question is no longer what to do to improve our students’ success, but how to do it here.

3. We are resilient.

I encountered anxieties about the future, about the challenges our university and system face, and about the impacts those challenges could have on us personally. These anxieties are real and we need to acknowledge and be willing to speak openly about them.

I am honored so many of you were willing to share your concerns with me. Those were courageous moments for which I want to say, “Thank you.”

A few observations follow:

Our challenges are significant. But I am confident we will address them, not all at once, not always easily, but address them we will by working together in the months and years ahead. Our universities have evolved several times in their proud and long histories. They will continue to evolve.

The second has to do with our culture. Our universities are like families -- their members share a common identity and culture. That culture is a huge asset but only if we nurture it.

At every stop on my tour, conversation veered into how, operating under financial constraint, people sometimes act outside their values: husbanding scarce resources, hoarding information, and focusing on advancing their unit or their university over others. These threaten collaborative approaches that contribute so much to our students’ experience and our universities’ collective success.

I was grateful for the opportunity to discuss these issues with you. I was inspired by your commitment, despite uncertainty, to act inside our values and with integrity, and to hold ourselves and one another accountable for showing respect to one another, assuming that each one of us is acting with the best of intent, offering trust to one another, working together in the interest of our students and our collective success.

We will get through these challenging times. And I will be transparent, open and honest with you now and forever about where we are and where we are headed – at every step along the way.

4. We want transformation now.

This theme was pervasive. You asked, in effect, what can we do now? And you supplied the answer, reflecting on initiatives already underway. I recorded these as best I could and organized them into a taxonomy of practical actions that can be taken at the individual level (by each and every one of us), at the unit or department level, at the cross-department level within your university, and at the system level (across universities).

Illustrative examples are drawn from material that you supplied in discussion –initiative that you reported to me.

At the individual level:

• Engage a student who is struggling. We know who they are. We can identify them. So many of us do. It means so much, as demonstrated in powerful stories you told me – stories from faculty and professional staff, and also from colleagues in facilities, registrar’s offices, administrative and security roles. Student retention is key to our success. All of us have a role to play in improving it – after all we are family.

• Holding ourselves and also others accountable for acting inside our values. Hard to do because it requires us to engage courageous conversations with civility. It also requires us to give feedback to others (with compassion) and to seek and accept it from others (with humility). And here, we are so active. I collected so many examples of people going out of their way to nurture our culture, strengthen our family, in countless almost unnoticeable but profoundly important acts of kindness and care.

At the unit level:

• Discussing, agreeing, and working on specific behaviors that a unit wants to strengthen with a view to improving its culture. A unit manager working on being an effective unit manager, for example by giving feedback – give feedback with empathy, receive it with humility – or by supporting on colleagues’ professional development.

• Working within a department to improve performance with respect of student success. I recall a department chair creating a platform for colleagues to learn from one another about high impact teaching practices that improve success of students that they teach.

• Introducing an even higher standard of professional practice aimed at improving quality or efficiency (a procurement professional reporting a higher level of diligence in vendor review).

At the cross unit level:

• Addressing specific, well-known challenges. Lots of activity here, sometimes formally organized by the university, but as often organically grown. From my list: improving the first year experience, “writing across the curriculum,” identifying strategies for helping our veterans navigate their unique challenges, taking a whole-student, cross-silo approach to student advising, working campus wide and with alumni to align messaging in ways intended to counter negative narratives about the value of higher education and/or the future of the university.

At cross university level:

• Again organized formally (librarians, career services, leaders of online initiatives) and informally (criminal justice faculty looking at shared programming opportunities) to share information, build professional practice and learn from one another, drive shared services, purchasing, and program.

Finally, as you know, I am convinced the most significant task ahead of us involves us strengthening our culture. Why? Because unless we learn how to work together with joy and compassion and integrity and respect, we will not have the positive impact we want for the students and the communities we serve. As I said in my open forum remarks: “Organizations aren’t great places to work because they are high performing. They are high performing because they are great places work”.

On countless occasions you asked about the work that guides my thinking in this area. Here is a selected sample of some of my faves. If you need a starting point – go directly to Brown’s Dare to Lead and Grant’s Power Moves.

Brené Brown
• Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts
• Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead

Daniel Coyle
• The Culture Code: The Secret of Highly Successful Groups

Jeanie Daniel Duck
• The Change Monster: The Human Factors That Fuel or Foil Corporate Transformation and Change

Adam Grant
• Originals: How Non-Conformists Move the World
• Power Moves: Lessons from Davos

Dan and Chip Heath
• Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard

Bryce G Hoffman
• American Icon: Allan Mulally and the Fight to Save Ford Motor Company

Kim Scott
• Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity

A bright future we can all support

The pomp and circumstance. The students. The stories. The celebration.

Saturday, I stood on stage watching hundreds of students—of all ages and backgrounds—process to their seats, united in the fact that they all achieved something special, something most people in the world have not—a college degree.

The payoff of a State System degree can’t be denied. It provides so many students, more than 700,000 since 1983, with the opportunity to have a high-demand career in their own community or anywhere around the world. Not only can our graduates earn significantly more money throughout their lifetime than those with only high school education, a degree puts them on a path to upward economic mobility. As someone who has spent his career working to educate leaders across the country on initiatives designed to raise educational-attainment levels and to promote economic mobility, especially among low-income and minority students, I’m thrilled to be able to part of these life-changing moments. It’s the icing on the cake for me as chancellor.

Over the next week, we’ll continue to celebrate the achievements of thousands of students who are graduating from our 14 universities. These students are prepared for success by the outstanding faculty and staff who set the bar high and guided them throughout their journey.

As our students succeed, so will our state. Eighty-eight percent of our students come from Pennsylvania, and most will stay here after graduation to join half a million other alumni. Our students are Pennsylvania’s future and we are helping write that future today. Our System Redesign addresses the need to expand the breadth and quality of the educational opportunities we offer students to respond to workforce demands in our state. We will continue to provide all Pennsylvanians with affordable, career-relevant educational pathways into sustaining careers.

Here are just a few examples of our outstanding spring graduates:

• Social work major overcomes adversity thanks to supportive campus community
• Non-traditional student overcomes obstacles to earn degree
• Triplets Graduate Together
• A Family’s Educational Journey
• Student to be first Tesla video production intern
• Nursing Outcomes
• This 60-year-old Philly grandmother lived in the dorms. Now she’s the Class of 2019 valedictorian.

And to our graduates, we say congratulations on a success well earned. You deserve it. Go make your impact and make us all proud. I’ve no doubt that you will. To those returning next semester or this summer to continue your journey, we’ll see you back on campus refreshed and ready to learn.

Campus visits…part deux

At the risk of over-sharing… I’m a huge fan of sequels. All genres – from Shakespeare (the Henry IVs) to JK Rowling; all media – from film (The Avengers) to bike frames (I’m fascinated but probably past being able to ride a frame out of Parlee’s Z series).

So, as I approach the end of my freshman year as chancellor, I can’t think of a better way to wrap it all up than with a sequel of my own—another round of visits to our campuses. My objective is the same—to listen. I want to listen to you and to everyone who cares about our universities. Last fall I listened so I could learn from you about your hopes and dreams, about our opportunities and challenges, and about your thinking about what we should become as a system of 14 incredible universities.

In January, I integrated what I learned during my fall visits into a vision for a sharing system – a framework for our System Redesign. I wrote about that vision in my last blog describing a system that will:

• allow our students easier access to programs across the System
• double-down on retaining and graduating students
• expand educational programs that meet workforce demand and provide pathways for adult and returning students
• preserve our distinction as the high-quality, affordable higher education option for every Pennsylvanian.

During this spring’s campus visits, I want to explore that vision with you, understand more deeply how—by greater collaboration among our 14 universities—we can prepare our students for their best possible future, address our many challenges, and position our universities not only to survive but to thrive in the 21st century. What opportunities should be expanded? How do we improve the student experience? How can we keep the cost of attending a State System school affordable? How do we effectively tap the talent and creativity of our faculty and staff to support our nearly 100,000 students—students who chose to come to our universities because of the life-changing opportunities we have to offer? Those are just some of the important questions I will want to tackle head-on, while also having an opportunity take your questions and address your issues.

In this next round of campus visits, I’ll also want to dive deeper into our culture and seek to better understand how we can strengthen it. Why am I so fascinated by our culture? Because the research demonstrates what we all know: organizations aren’t great places to work with strong organizational cultures because they are high performing – they are high performing because they are great places to work with strong cultures.

As last time (as ever), I hope for and expect open, honest, and courageous conversations that will propel our System Redesign forward and build on our historic mission of providing all students—from every walk of life—access to high-quality, affordable educational experiences that open pathways to successful lives and careers.

With your help, this sequel will be a blockbuster.

Sharing today to thrive tomorrow

In 2016, in response to a variety of mounting challenges that threatened the continuing ability of the State System to provide all Pennsylvanians with affordable, career-relevant educational pathways into sustaining careers, the Board of Governors initiated a top-to bottom review of everything we do. We learned a lot from the review and the Board immediately reacted to it by focusing the System’s priorities on student success, leveraging our collective strengths, and initiating an ongoing and fundamental restructuring of the Chancellor’s Office.

The Board also launched an extensively consultative process that produced a new vision for our future – one in which we won’t simply survive but thrive as we continue our historic mission by becoming a “sharing system.” 

In my inauguration address, I spoke of a sharing system—one where our 14 universities work closely together to expand the breadth and quality of the educational opportunities they offer our students, improve our students’ experiences, respond to changing employer needs, and, crucially, maintain student affordability.

In a sharing system we work closely together to:

• allow our students easier access to programs across the System.
• double-down on retaining and graduating students.
• expand educational programs that meet workforce demand and provide pathways for adult and returning students.
• remain as the high-quality, affordable higher education option for every Pennsylvanian.

The Board has endorsed this vision of a sharing system as a means of achieving the System’s three priorities, and instructed me to engage a fully consultative process to develop a detailed implementation plan. Kicked off by unprecedented levels of collaboration among university leaders, the planning process that is now unfolding will focus attention in in six areas.

1. Modernizing our academic and operational infrastructures so they leverage our combined operating scale and enable agile and cost-effective expansion in the quality and breadth of affordable, career-relevant educational opportunities and student supports.
2. Retooling budgeting, investment, and performance management practices so we allocate resources strategically, transparently, and accountably in pursuit of well-defined university and system goals.
3. Supporting continuous improvement by investing in our employees’ success and strengthening our organizational cultures.
4. Strengthening our governance, ensuring it is inclusive, responsible, transparent, and accountable, while at the same time enhancing communications and advocacy efforts. These efforts not only are essential in stimulating investment in the system and its universities, but also in strengthening the public’s trust in and understanding of the role our universities play in improving the economic, social, and cultural well-being and health of the people of this Commonwealth.
5. Working creatively in partnership with the state and the business and education communities to address critical structural, financial, and public policy issues and to improve pathways that enable life-long learning and connect people to and support them in building sustaining careers.
6. Restructuring the Chancellor’s Office so that it effectively supports the transformative efforts envisaged above.

In the near term, expect us to:

• convene expert task groups that are charged to recommend how to redesign key areas of our work – educationally, operationally, and with respect of the supports we offer our students;
• form a steering committee providing guidance to and integrating the work of task groups and advising myself and the Board on the direction, priorities, and policy and funding actions required to drive the System Redesign; and
• strengthen channels for communicating about the progress of our System Redesign and to gather input. 

This is an exciting time to be a part of the State System, and I look forward to working with everyone as we seek to learn from our great past and present so that we may build an even greater future.

Going the distance

You may know I’m an avid cyclist. In warmer weather, I may even be maniacal about it.

Few things are quite as invigorating, liberating, even therapeutic as a 50- or 60-mile bike ride along the winding country roads of Central PA. While it can be exhausting, I always feel a sense of accomplishment when I return home.

Five months—and many bike rides—into my job as chancellor, I am more passionate than ever about being here and about the future of public higher education in Pennsylvania. As you may know, System Redesign Phase 2 is well underway as we transform the State System to serve our students and the Commonwealth far into the future. In support of that effort, Gov. Wolf reaffirmed his commitment to our universities during his recent budget address—proposing a $7 million increase for the State System. Given the economic challenges Pennsylvania continues to face, we are grateful that the Governor continues to see our state-owned universities as one of his priorities.

This time of year, the State System is required to provide to the General Assembly our own appropriations request. This process affords an opportunity to take a critical look at ourselves, to think together with legislators about our future, and to analytically make the case for public investment in higher education. I have embraced that opportunity, much as I embraced the opportunity to visit our universities last fall. I am meeting with legislators, individually, in small groups, and—of course—with the House and Senate appropriations committees to lay out where we are and where we are going, all while listening to their concerns and their questions.

Here’s a thumbnail sketch of what I am learning.

I sense among our legislators a real and genuine commitment to public higher education and to the State System. Everyone I have spoken to wants to see us succeed. Everyone I have spoken to recognizes the unique role our 14 universities play in their communities and in providing affordable, high-quality, and career-relevant educational pathways. And—just as I experienced during my university visits—so many legislators I’ve met refer fondly to their own time at one of our universities or to the experiences of a parent, sibling, or child.

There is also real concern that the State System has spoken about—but has yet demonstrated progress on—four issues that are well known: 1) aligning our costs with our enrollments; 2) relieving the financial pressures on our students; 3) finding sustainable solutions to the financial and other challenges facing our low-enrolled universities; and 4) holding ourselves accountable—through our strategies, budgets, and performance—to measurable student success and university success goals.

Our work in service to the people of this Commonwealth is conducted in partnership with the state. To make real and lasting progress, we must work side-by-side. If done right, that will result in a stronger, more sustainable university system that can serve as a foundation of success for all Pennsylvanians. In doing so, we reaffirm our commitment to the Commonwealth—our commitment to providing students with access to high-value, in-demand programs that prepare them to meet Pennsylvania’s employment needs, as well as prepare them for successful lives as contributing, responsible citizens.

In that partnership, right now, the ball is in our court. And, with it, we must not only demonstrate that we understand the challenges we face, but that we are willing—together—to make the tough trade-off decisions necessary to address them.

At the recent House Appropriations Committee hearing, Chairman Saylor summarized this when he said:

We all have great pride in the schools that we go to…[but] until PASSHE restores its integrity with the general assembly, I think there’ll continue to be struggles. It’s not that we don’t love our schools that we came from…but it really comes down to accountability.

Okay. Game on. Saddle up. Let’s ride.

I face this task of transforming our system—restoring the public trust—with the same intensity, drive, and determination as a century (100-mile) bike ride. Yes, this is going to be a tough, sometimes grueling ride. But the payoff—measured in terms of the students and the communities that we serve—is the opportunity to not only survive but to thrive as the great public system of this Commonwealth. That is worth riding for, long and hard. I’m ready to go the distance.

Who’s with me?

A deep breath before a new beginning

The past four months have been a virtually non-stop whirlwind of activity. They’ve gone by so quickly; and—with them—my first semester as chancellor is over. I’ve already attended my first two commencements—at East Stroudsburg and Millersville—where I was honored to be given the opportunity to serve as keynote speaker. To all of the members of this fall’s graduating class—from all 14 universities—congratulations! (WATCH VIDEO)

I’ve learned so much since arriving on the job in September, and am more excited than ever about the challenges and opportunities facing us as we design for a stronger future for our universities and the entire State System. That’s important to our students and the people of Pennsylvania.

I admit it, I’m looking forward to a short break to relax with my family and to enjoy the rest of the holiday season. I hope all of you can do the same.

But, things will pick right back up in January. Prior to the quarterly Board of Governors meeting, I will be formally sworn-in as the System’s fifth chancellor—an honor for which I am extremely grateful. While an inauguration is a largely ceremonial event, it also will give me the opportunity to lay out a vision for our collective future in my first State of the System address.

That vision will be richly informed by the conversations I had during the 14 university tours I made this fall, by the hundreds of email responses to my earlier blogs, and by the dozens of meetings I’ve had with students, faculty, staff, university leaders, Board and council of trustee members, elected officials, community and business leaders, and yes—believe it or not—still others.

The vision also will be shaped by the excellent and creative work that has been conducted by three task groups whose members have been working assiduously to recommend to the Board answers to questions that we know we must answer in order to chart our future course.

One task group asked: Who are our students? What do we mean by their success? Another asked: What do we expect of our universities? What do we mean by their success? The third asked: What do we expect of our system? How should it perform in the interest of our students’ and our universities’ successes. (You can comment on the recommendations of these task groups when they are posted at the end of the month on the State System website at www.passhe.edu/SystemRedesign)

And of course (because you know by now I can’t help myself) the vision will be informed by my having plundered our rich and invaluable data stores, reviewed countless trend lines, generated spreadsheets, pressure tested fractions and probably driven our wonderful analytics team to distraction (thanks to the team for such patience and support. I appreciate each and every one of you— and you know who you are).

We’ve worked up narratives from the numbers and tested them on countless people, blending the quantitative with qualitative and experiential in order to gain a deeper understanding of our rich and wonderful history, our many accomplishments, and our ongoing challenges.

These several inputs have informed an emerging, powerful vision for and establishing the foundation on which, together, we will build our future. That vision will be the focus of my inaugural remarks in January. Consideration of concrete next steps in enacting it will occupy the attention of the Board. No doubt, this will be an important—dare I say, pivotal—meeting.

Finally, know that I have been overwhelmed by your gracious hospitality and your willingness to engage so openly with me. I am encouraged by the eagerness with which so many of you are ready to get down to the serious work of redesigning the State System in a way that will best serve students and the Commonwealth. I am impressed by how much you recognize both the sense of urgency and the magnitude of the task ahead of us.

But honestly, what inspires me most is not that we recognize the challenges that we face and are willing to talk openly about them… No, what inspires me most—what fuels my optimism—is our willingness, our passion to transform the System so we may expand opportunity. That is what makes me certain we will succeed.

No, it won’t be easy at any level. But we have the grit, the determination, the talent, and the courage we will need to think ambitiously, act boldly, execute faithfully, and win.

As I have at the conclusion of each of my previous blogs, I encourage you to continue to engage in this process. Specifically, I would ask you to share with me 1) one thing we as a System are doing now that you believe we should continue to do, and 2) one thing we should stop doing. Please share your thoughts by commenting on this blog or emailing me at chancellor@passhe.edu. (You can also follow me on Instagram and on Twitter.)

Of course, take a moment to enjoy the holidays, to rest, and to recharge before the new semester. And maybe have a cookie or two.

Changing together

Having completed my initial round of visits to each of our 14 university campuses last week, I’m excited and encouraged by the warm welcome I received as the “new guy” in town; by the passion our students, faculty, and staff so clearly have for their individual institutions; and—especially—by the response to my call for resetting our culture. It’s been an amazing experience, and I so appreciate your gracious hospitality and willingness to share so openly with me.

  
Those of you who have participated directly in the meetings or who have attended the open forums have embraced my plea for everyone to engage collegially in the courageous conversations we know we need to have so we can identify our goals, focus and chart our path forward to achieve them, and make trade-offs where we need to in the interest of our students and the communities we serve. At least that’s the feeling I’ve gotten from so many of you.

   
In the days and weeks ahead, I’ll blog about key observations from my university visits. One I already have to offer is our powerful desire to want to hope—to amplify our passion for our students, our universities, our work. So evident to me is a real willingness to suspend our disbelief and put a pause on any vestiges of distrust that have held us back for so long so that we can engage in open, inclusive, honest, and transparent conversations that will allow us to lock arms and move forward together. So evident to me is the yearning that we feel to change our culture; to climb out of trenches that have been dug among different constituent groups around issues both critical and trivial—between universities, between universities and the System office, between faculty and staff, management and unions, trustees, and Board members—so that we may work together in the common interest of our students.

   
I’m convinced we’re moving in the right direction. And I’m confident we can leverage the next phase of our System Redesign effort to enable and accelerate this culture change. Here’s why.

 

Our work began in 2016 with the Board’s top-to-bottom review of how and where we needed to change in order to meet the needs of our students and of Pennsylvania as the state’s only public higher education system. Through that effort, the Board identified three strategic priorities that would focus and define our future work:

•          Ensuring student success;
•          Leveraging university strengths; and
•      Transforming leadership and governance structures.

In 2017, the Board launched our System Redesign and deliberately used the first phase to chip away at aspects of culture that are standing in the path of our progress—in particular by focusing on being more transparent and less bureaucratic. Frankly, that work began with the search that resulted in my appointment as chancellor, when Board Chair Cindy Shapira invited a broad range of stakeholders—including students, faculty, and staff—to participate on the search committee.

  
In this second phase of System Redesign—a phase that runs through the end of 2019—we will move from the conceptual to the concrete in ways that will address issues that you have raised with me these past several weeks during university visits and in the countless, frankly very inspiring emails you have sent me. This second phase will include asking and answering essential questions that have not been resolved and that—through their irresolution—cause frustration and ambiguity about our future and an inability and unwillingness to make the choices necessary to drive toward it effectively. The questions you have raised and want to see answered are fundamental—existential even—and they have to do with:

Our students: Who are our students? Who ought they be? What can they reasonably afford with respect of their higher education? What do we mean by student success and what must we do to help our students succeed to that level?

Our universities: What do we mean by their success? What does that success look like? How will we know when it is achieved? 

Our system: What is the purpose of our System? Is it a regulatory body that ensures a high degree of homogeneity in practice and approach across its 14 universities—each of them expected to be financially self-sustaining—and that resolves conflicts among universities with respect of the academic programs they offer and/or the students they seek to enroll? Or is it something completely different; perhaps an entity that looks for creative ways to enable its 14 very powerful brands—each with the deepest roots in specific communities— to survive and thrive, meeting their communities’ distinctive needs by leveraging our distributed capabilities and expertise?

 

In this second phase of System Redesign, the answers to those questions will inform: 1) concrete numeric goals the Board will set for the System; 2) goal-aligned and outcomes-oriented strategies and budgets I’ll invite from our universities; and 3) the development of an accountability framework that will drive continuous improvement. Answers to these questions will shape the way the Board allocates public dollars and determines student tuition. They will be foundational—underpinning everything we do.

  

The work is consequential and, as such, it must be conducted inclusively, transparently, and openly. That will challenge us; it will challenge our culture. Together, we are so many creative, intelligent, and caring people. Together, we have so many passionately held—often competing—ideas about what our future should look like and how we should move toward it. These are enormous strengths. They are key to our future success.

  

And yet, we know that we cannot move forward in fundamental disagreement about who we are and what we must become. We must choose and we must determine—as a result of those choices—how we will work together. And we must align around those choices even where, individually, we may disagree with some of them. Only then will we be able to confront our many and very significant challenges, serve our students and our state, and ensure that we survive and thrive into the future.

 

For these reasons, the second phase of System Redesign is a perfect platform on which to transform our culture. Our success requires that we engage courageously in difficult conversations. That in those conversations, we show respect to one another; offer trust to one another; actively listen to one another so that we are able to hear and understand where each of us is coming from, even (perhaps especially) where we disagree; and use our words politely by engaging in constructive discourse.

  

I am confident we will succeed because after 2,400 miles and many long, productive, and inspiring days at our 14 universities, I know the stuff we’re made of, and I am enormously proud of us.

I am confident that by changing our culture through the ongoing System Redesign we will make this an even greater place to work; find effective ways to unleash the power and creativity of our faculty and staff, who—working together—will ultimately make a difference for our students; and position us to advocate on behalf of the System in a way that restores our proud place in the hearts and the minds of the people and the legislature of Pennsylvania.

   

I am confident that by working in a more collegial environment, we can better tackle our challenges. Honestly, I believe it’s happening already. For perhaps the first time ever, we invited a broad range of constitute groups to participate in the process of developing our annual appropriations request to the state. We have included students, faculty, and staff on task groups recently created to study and make recommendations on student success, university success, and “systemness.” We are opening up our data sources, reviewing them with multiple stakeholders to identify and iron out fundamental disagreements that exist about what we measure and how we report on our universities’ and our system’s progress and financial conditions. We are consulting with stakeholders regarding how best to make strategic investments in our universities using limited one-time funds we have that can help drive transformation.

  

And so you know, I expect as much from me and my team as I do from all of us. I’ve set clear expectations among my staff and the university presidents that a culture change is necessary; that we will use this System Redesign to accelerate it; and that I will do everything I can to model it and lead it.

  
As ever, I want to hear from you and invite you to share your thoughts on the above questions by commenting on this blog or emailing me at chancellor@passhe.edu.