On Thursday, the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education made a long-awaited announcement.
The three Western Pennsylvania schools being merged into one multi-campus university had the new name made official. In a triumph of the obvious, PASSHE selected Pennsylvania Western University — PennWest for short. The names of the original colleges will be tacked onto each campus, giving us PennWest Cal, PennWest Clarion and PennWest Edinboro.
Is this a criticism of the names selected? Not at all. What they lack in creativity, they make up for in a preservation of the character of the individual schools as they move ahead in a new format. At the same time, the new overarching name certainly nails the description. It’s a university and it’s in Pennsylvania and it’s on the western side. It also leaves the door open if they decide to fold other schools such as Indiana into the mix later.
Oddly, there was not a consensus when it came to the name of the other three-school consolidation happening in the northeast: Bloomsburg, Lock Haven and Mansfield. Come on, PASSHE, is figuring out a name for that new amalgamation really that hard? It’s a university, it’s in Pennsylvania, and it’s in the north. Or the east. Or the northeast. Apparently the additional compass points have brought the gears of progress grinding to a halt.
That is what makes this process ridiculous. The length of time and the “ta-da!” moments of the decisions first floated in July 2020 are overdone.
”This is a very exciting moment. We now start to see things happening,” said Cynthia Shapira, chair of the Board of Governors of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education.
Except it isn’t an exciting moment. It’s the equivalent of a new ad campaign. It’s trying to create excitement out of an arranged marriage meant to save schools that have been floundering with falling enrollments.
That isn’t to say that creating a merger of the three universities into one entity to reduce redundancies while still attempting to keep the important presences in their local communities is a bad idea. It’s smart decision making that should have happened years ago.
And that’s where the unveiling of an obvious name after more than a year is not exciting. It is an example of the worst part of state bureaucracy.
There is a tendency to make a drawn-out production of what should and could be accomplished quickly and easily while making snap judgments about what is hard and should be approached with more deliberation. It often seems like the amount of time a state agency spends making a decision is directly opposite to the amount of consideration that decision requires.
The new universities — both named and unnamed — will be welcoming their first classes of brand new students in Fall 2022. Almost a year gives PASSHE plenty of time for more crystal-clear announcements made after lots of meetings.
— The Tribune-Review/TNS
