Good morning.
It’s wonderful to be back together as we launch a new academic year. This is a time for optimism and enthusiasm.
Last August, when we gathered here, I talked about laying a foundation. I said that the hard, unglamorous, necessary work of stabilizing our finances, restructuring academic programs, and strengthening our campus culture to better serve our better was essential to our survival. It was about ensuring our long-term viability.
As I begin, I want to state this clearly: because of your discipline, resilience, and focus on our core mission, our foundation is much stronger than it was just a couple of years ago, and that’s worth celebrating.
- We have balanced our budget.
- We have maintained and are working to increase our financial reserves.
- We went public with the Impact 150 comprehensive campaign in August, with $81 million of $150 million raised, and by May had $114 million – ahead of schedule.
- We continued to focus on student success and retention, and our overall enrollment reflects that work.
- We started streamlining our processes to free up time and energy to focus on our most important priorities.
- And we kept our focus on the horizon, working together to ensure IUP has a bright future.
Doing these things has brought us a measure of stability.
But stability was never the final destination. Standing still might be comfortable. Yet in today’s higher education landscape, it would be a slow surrender to the forces that want to see us crumble.
A foundation is the platform upon which you build. Over the past year, we didn’t just pour concrete — we began erecting new structures and building the framework for the IUP of the future.
We made all that happen, and by “we,” I don’t mean me and my cabinet. I mean “we” as in the entire university – all of you – guided by our strategic priorities.
Among other great work, we reached across divisional and departmental silos to advance our goals. The faculty partnered with academic administrators to review and redesign our array of academic programs. We stood up the new college of osteopathic medicine and will see our first class of medical students start next fall. We led the State System in sharing courses with sister universities. We awarded more non-credit credentials, such as badges and micro-credentials, than ever before. And we outlined the frame for providing more and better experiential learning experiences for our students.
So now that our foundation is secure, we will continue building, accelerating our forward motion. We’ll finish up the work started last year and push into strategic priorities for the coming academic year – you just heard about them.
More of you will be called on to engage. Shared governance is about coming together to make the best decisions possible in the time available and then implementing them. IUP needs you.
To ensure everyone has a direct voice in advancing our strategic priorities, we are hosting two university-wide sessions this fall:
First, on Monday, September 14, we will hold an open forum to discuss our strategic direction, dive into details, ask candid questions, and share feedback.
And on Friday, October 16, there will be an all-hands campus workshop where we will roll up our sleeves across departments and disciplines to focus on practical implementation.
The priority leads you just heard from will be happy to have you contact them to help shape the initiatives and move them ahead. You don’t have to wait until September 14 to find ways to use your skills and knowledge to push things along.
Now, some might look at our recent progress and assume, because of it, that 13,000 students are about to walk into the Oak Grove; and that we can return to our spending ways of 20 years ago; and that IUP will go back to being the “Flagship” of the state system’s fleet.
It would be natural to assume those things. But we cannot do that.
Recruiting students continues to be a challenge.
Never before have high school students had so many choices in addition to college. And never before have we faced so much competition. Compound those things with there being fewer and fewer students to recruit, and the challenge is obvious. But if we maintain the momentum, we can sustain our current enrollment of around 9,000 students, while many of our competitors continue to lose students.
We will be smaller than we were ten years ago, but that’s OK. Measuring our success solely by comparing headcounts misses the point entirely. Our goal — and this is unequivocal — is to deliver an exceptional, high-impact education to every single student who comes to IUP – today and tomorrow. We must treat them with respect, support them when they need it, and celebrate them when they achieve.
And as far as the budget goes, the unpredictable nature of state and federal funding makes it irresponsible to spend as if we had an unlimited credit line. We don’t have that, nor have we ever, nor will we ever.
It used to be that roughly two-thirds of our financial support came from the state budget, while one-third came from tuition. That ratio has flipped. We have worked hard and made tough decisions to balance our budget, and we must maintain fiscal discipline to ensure IUP remains strong for the future.
As many of you know, one of my pastimes is studying nautical history. I can tell you that being the metaphorical flagship should not be our goal.
Flagships are large and clumsy. They are neither easily maneuverable nor versatile. Flagships are easy targets. They are where the naval elite sit on the deck and sip champagne and smoke cigars, while the rest of the fleet does the work.
If someone were to say that IUP is no longer the flagship of the state system, I see that as a good thing. I don’t mean it in the sense that IUP is no longer the best university in the state system, because it still is. But being a flagship puts us at risk of complacency, and that’s what is dragging down other flagships across the country.
Today, flagship university systems such as Penn State, Nebraska, West Virginia, and Maryland are shutting down branch campuses, slashing academic programs, and eliminating hundreds of faculty and staff positions. These flagships waited too long to acknowledge reality, and now they are taking on water and struggling to stay afloat.
Those universities are weighed down by their size, complex bureaucracies, and reliance on antiquated traditions.
Because we made hard decisions early at IUP, we aren’t reacting to a crisis like some others are. We are controlling our own destiny.
When I think about the role IUP should play in Pennsylvania and in higher education, I picture us as a frigate.
In naval forces, a frigate was a quicker, smaller, more nimble ship. They were fast, durable, and remarkably maneuverable. They did not sit in the middle of the fleet waiting for orders.
They were sent out, charting unknown waters, scouting new territories, adapting to changing weather, and setting the pace for everyone else.
To maintain the momentum we have built, IUP must maneuver like a frigate, and we have work to do. We are fast enough to adapt, durable enough to weather storms, and bold enough to pioneer new paths.
Size alone does not guarantee relevance, excellence, or longevity.
Agility does. Quality does.
About 250 years ago, a young United States built and commissioned six lead ships to start its navy. They were frigates of novel American design and built to the highest standards of quality. One of them, the USS Constitution, or “Old Ironsides,” was launched in 1797 and is still on active duty – the world’s oldest commissioned warship still afloat. She’s still here. The flagships are long gone.
Our job is to be out in front, testing ideas, responding directly to the needs of our region and our nation, and setting a standard that others will try to follow.
Navigating new waters takes courage, grit, and teamwork.
John Shedd famously wrote that “a ship in harbor is safe, but that is not what ships are built for.”
We did not stabilize this university so we could sit safely, anchored to the bottom, waiting for what’s next. We stabilized it so we could sail into open water with confidence, leading the way for our students — and for all those other universities that will someday follow in our wake.
Now, executing a strategy like this requires the right mindset across the entire organization, including the administration.
So, a professor, a navigator, and a university president were enjoying themselves in the admiral’s cabin of their flagship. But the flagship sailed into shoal waters, foundered, and the three washed ashore on a deserted island.
In the sand, they find an old glass bottle. The president grabs it, pulls the cork, and — poof! — a genie comes out.
The genie says, “For letting me out, I will grant you each one wish.”
The professor says, “I wish I were back in the classroom with my students, helping them learn and grow into proud graduates.”
Poof! The professor is gone.
The navigator says, “I wish I were back in the library working with students who need me, helping them stay on track.”
Poof! The navigator is gone.
The president thinks about it for a second and says, “I wish the professor and the navigator were back here with me so we could form a committee to find a way off this island.”
Now, why tell that joke? Well, a ship is only as good as the crew that sails it, and we have an extraordinary crew here at IUP. But we need to be mindful of the work we do and how it impacts the university, and each other.
From our grounds, facilities, and custodial crews who keep our campus clean and safe, to the staff who guide students through financial aid, serve them lunch, or care for them when they’re sick, to the faculty who mentor, teach, and conduct groundbreaking research — our strength lies in our people. The last thing we need to do is put processes in place that reduce our impact.
I know — It’s often said that the only thing we can do with less is less. But at IUP, we’ve changed the way we work so that we can focus on our students and their success, not on the minutiae of the daily grind.
I’ve said it before: we need to stop doing the stuff that slows us down. We must be free of the cumbersome processes that weigh down a flagship. We don’t need a committee to explore forming a commission to write a white paper on tactics for getting off the island.
We need clear alignment, the right people in the right places, and the freedom to execute.
Last year, I spoke about the concept of Auftragstaktik — the principle of empowering decision-making at every level rather than waiting for centralized directives. That principle remains vital as we sail on.
Progress does not happen because an order is issued from the president’s office. It happens when one of us sees a problem and solves it. No longer do we wave our hands at something and say, “Not my problem.” If it relates to our students, their success, their safety, and their future, it is our problem, and we must not hesitate to pitch in.
I hope you will join us in the sessions on September 14 and October 16. These sessions are not committees being formed to write reports that sit on a shelf. They are active working opportunities to harness our collective intellect, share expertise, and create a healthy future — one where I don’t have to tell jokes about shipwrecks.
We should not limit our ambitions to local comparisons or regional benchmarks. Let’s not set the bar that low.
Our goal is to make IUP the place other universities look to when they want to know how to adapt, innovate, and serve students effectively in the modern era. In short, we want to show them how to operate like a frigate.
We have proven that we can stabilize our foundation.
We have proven that we can tackle massive, complex projects.
Now, we must sustain that momentum.
Student success remains our north star. Every budget decision, every curriculum update, and every operational change must answer a simple question: Will this benefit our students?
Our ship is sound. Our crew is exceptionally capable. Our course is set.
Let us move together with confidence and purpose.
As we close out our 150th anniversary celebration, we’ve spent a lot of time reflecting on the history, tradition, and people who built IUP. We’ve celebrated where we’ve been and what we’ve accomplished.
But the next chapter of IUP won’t be written by executive directives or nostalgia. It will be written by the people who work here every day – by us – through the choices we make and the support we offer our students.
When you arrived this morning, you should have received a time capsule card. It lists one simple question: What will you contribute to IUP this year?
We’re asking you to write down one word — just one word that captures your focus, your intention, or your promise for this academic year.
My word this year is engagement.
As you leave, please drop your card into the collection box in the lobby. Years from now, when those cards are opened, people will see not just what we hoped for, but what we actually built together, and how we did it.
Thank you for everything you do for our students and for IUP. Let’s have a fantastic year.
And now, to launch this new academic year the right way, please welcome — under the direction of Dr. Will Sugg — The Legend, the Beast of the East, the IUP Marching Band!