To the Editor:
I am a 30-year faculty member at Bloomsburg University, supposedly “saved” by Daniel Greenstein when he combined Bloomsburg, Lock Haven, and Mansfield Universities into Commonwealth University (“He Transformed a Sinking Public-College System. Here’s What He Learned,” The Chronicle, August 28). Your interview with Dr. Greenstein implies that we were all insolvent and he rode to our rescue by yoking us together. This is untrue. Bloomsburg was struggling due to years of chronic underfunding by the state of Pennsylvania (we are 47th in the nation for funding of public higher education), but our head was above water. We were the largest, strongest, and most stable of the three. The only dowry Mansfield brought to this shotgun wedding was $100 million in debt and cratering enrollments, and Lock Haven didn’t bring much more.
Surely there was at least due diligence, right? Some kind of third-party study, an estimation of the costs of integration and how long it would be to see a return on this investment? No, of course not. Simply a hasty order from above and fingers crossed. Back in horse-and-buggy days, when the universities that compose the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education were founded, it made perfect sense to have many small rural colleges. Times have changed. Why are we still shoveling money at failing universities in the middle of nowhere that will never be successful? Political reasons, obviously. No legislator wants to permit closing the biggest employer of their wide spot in the road, no matter how much of a zombie it is.
What this merger has meant on the ground is that majors have been cut, faculty lines slashed, departments eliminated or combined, and our tiny pond of research money has dried up. We are providing fewer opportunities for students, not more. Our obvious pivot to certifications, credentialing, and workforce development instead of true comprehensive education is the next-to-last move of desperation. The last move is going online. Dr. Greenstein is the product of elite education — the University of Pennsylvania and Oxford. Apparently the peasant children of Pennsylvania deserve only job training from Frankenstein universities.
Steven D. Hales
Professor of Philosophy
Commonwealth University Bloomsburg
Bloomsburg, Pa.
