Chancellor addresses issues directly with faculty

 This past Friday, the Chancellor of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) visited the Bloomsburg University campus. After meeting with a large number of staff members, as well as attending the open forum held for the students, two members of the faculty were able to meet with Chancellor Cavannaugh. Kurt Smith and Wendy Lee, both professors of philosophy at BU, met with the Chancellor to discuss several issues they had concerns about.

            "It went unexpectedly well," said Lee. She described him as down to earth and friendly, and he listened intently to their issues. "He eat, sleeps and lives education."

            The concerns they had stemmed from the welcome letter sent to students from the Chancellor at the beginning of September. In it, the Chancellor promised change, stating that "some low-enrolled programs and courses likely will be eliminated and new programs and courses that address today's challenges will be introduced." Lee and Smith, along with students and other teachers in the PASSHE system,­­­ were interested in what this meant. Many speculated that low enrolled degree programs, such as Languages and Philosophy, would be cut or drastically reduced.

            "This may have been greatly exaggerated," said Smith. There are several programs that offer different types of degrees in their field. For example, there could be a B.A. in Biology (a Bachelor of Arts degree) or a B.S. in Biology (a Bachelor of Science degree). As many people would have never heard of, or attempt to get, the B.A. in Biology, this program track would be eliminated, and the B.S. in Biology would be strengthened. According to Smith, the only difference between the B.A. and the B.S. in the subject would be that the B.A. would have more required humanities than the B.S. would. So, the Chancellor removes these "lame duck" program tracks and no essential degrees or programs are cut.

            "He seemed pretty adamant about keeping the language programs," said Smith. Chancellor Cavanaugh is looking towards globalization for PASSHE, increasing the cooperation with foreign schools and the study abroad options for students.

            "I'm cautiously optimistic," said Lee. She stated that there are still some concerns that some decent programs will be piled in with the "lame duck" programs, and get eliminated as part of a large group.

            Both Smith and Lee are also concerned about the possible investing of private corporations into research at the university. A company could fund a laboratory and supply all the equipment and pay for graduate students doing research. However, with these investments, the company owns the rights for releasing the results. In some cases, a company might not like the results and refuse to release these for public knowledge and discussion.

            "If a grad student wrote his dissertation on the subject, and company decides not to release the information, poof!" said Smith. "There goes four years of work and money." There are certain rules that would need to be in place to avoid these problems, and both of the professors feel the Chancellor is well informed and concerned about these issues. "We're both against knowledge as a commodity," said Lee, of Smith and herself. "Knowledge, vital information for the public good, should be shared with everyone."

            A positive idea came with the suggestion of a philosophical center, dedicated to the discussion of philosophical issues. Hospitals, businesses and the PASSHE schools could ask questions of this center and get the pros and cons of almost any topic they could think of.

            "A lot of it would most likely be ethics," said Smith. "Though we could really give answers to anything." The center would be important to keep the Liberal Arts (such as Political Science, Philosophy and History) from just becoming general education classes, which may eventually happen, though the future is still up in the air.

            Smith was optimistic for the future. "I like Cavanaugh and [Bloomsburg President] Soltz. With both of them working hand in hand, a lot could be accomplished." Lee remained cautiously optimistic. "So far, so good.