PASSHE Officials versus PASSHE Students - Part 4

The Need for the Tools and Tactics of Deception

This heading was the final heading in last week’s blog post, and the final paragraphs under that heading briefly cited a major change in the PASSHE Board of Governors’ policy with regard to PASSHE FactBooks. 

As we saw last time, PASSHE’s website: 1) lists the titles of nine PASSHE FactBooks (for fiscal years 2002-2010); 2) states that the information is “for the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education leaders;” and 3) then denies access to the FactBooks when one clicks on the link to any one of the nine FactBooks.

 
As a PASSHE university president for twenty years (1992-2012), I saw and still possess a number of PASSHE FactBooks and can assert without fear of contradiction that annual PASSHE FactBooks typically number up to one-hundred or more pages of extremely detailed information about the System and the individual PASSHE universities, and all FactBooks are organized under the following ten alphabetical headings:

A.      Projected High School Graduates and Admissions

B.      System Enrollment Trends
C.      Financial Aid and Student Charges
D.      Student Advancement – Degrees Awarded, Retention and Graduation Rates
E.       Alumni
F.       Safety, Productivity, and Instructional Resources
G.     Budget and Finances
H.      Facilities
I.        Human Resources
J.        Diversity
 
By way of corroboration, the most recent PASSHE FactBook in my possession¹ is for fiscal year (2010-11), which is one year newer than the most recent one currently listed on the PASSHE website (2009-10).
 
All of the above facts raise some interesting questions regarding changes to PASSHE’s policy on data:
1)      Is it possible that PASSHE—an entity with 12,000 employees and annual revenue of $1.6 billion—is now operating without producing annual FactBooks to allow for analysis of key long term trends?
2)      Or is it more likely that PASSHE continues to assemble the FactBooks but is keeping that information secret to prevent individuals other than PASSHE “leaders” from being able to identify those trends?
 
More later on some inconvenient trends PASSHE leaders may not want the public to know about.
 
Recall that the most recent FactBook of which I am aware is the one for FY 2010-11 and right now, in late November of 2015, PASSHE is approaching the middle of FY 2015-16.  That could either mean that PASSHE has not generated a FactBook for more than four years or, alternatively, that PASSHE has continued to generate annual FactBooks but does not intend to reveal their existence, or provide access, to the public.
 

Recent PASSHE History regarding Strategic Plans

 
While it might seem strange for an organization as large and complex as PASSHE to suddenly stop producing (or at least stop admitting the existence of) annual FactBooks, its recent history regarding strategic planning may offer some insight into PASSHE as an organization that appears to be more than capable of doing extremely peculiar things.

For 27 years—from PASSHE’s creation in 1983 until 2009—it produced a succession of highly publicized strategic plans that were developed by the Office of the Chancellor and approved by the PASSHE Board of Governors.  And during that entire 27-year period, the presidents of the fourteen PASSHE universities were directed to develop institutional strategic plans that aligned with PASSHE’s overall strategic plan.

As one of the fourteen presidents between 1992 and 2012, I recall that we all worked hard to develop individual university strategic plans on our campuses which were faithful to the PASSHE strategic plan while, at the same time, allowing a few strategic goals that were unique to our individual universities.
 
That 27-year pattern ended abruptly on October 13, 2010 when the PASSHE Board of Governors issued an eight-paragraph document² entitled “PASSHE Strategic Initiatives,” the first paragraph of which states that “PASSHE’s most recent strategic plan, Leading the Way, expired in 2009.”
 
When the 14 PASSHE presidents asked Chancellor John Cavanaugh why PASSHE was planning to operate without a strategic plan, he replied that “This Board of Governors is not interested in strategic planning.”
 
On January 23, 2014, PASSHE issued a news release³ with the following headline:  “PASSHE Board of Governors approves new strategic plan.”  It began with the following sentence:    
 
​“Harrisburg – The Board of Governors of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) today approved a new strategic plan⁴ that will enhance and expand student learning opportunities and ensure the Commonwealth receives the greatest possible return on its annual investment in the System and its 14 universities.”
 
Note that this news release seeks to ensure that the “Commonwealth receives the greatest possible return on its investment”—a minority (25%) share, while making no mention of the return on the investment of the students, parents and alumni donors for their majority (75%) investment. 
 
Chancellor Cavanaugh’s blunt reply to the presidents about the BOG and strategic planning was subsequently borne out by the fact that PASSHE went on to operate without a strategic plan for five years—from 2009 until 2014!
 
Not only that, but PASSHE’s new strategic plan (2014) makes no mention of PASSHE’s statutory purpose from Act 188: “Its purpose shall be to provide high quality education at the lowest possible cost to the students.”   According to Merriam-Webster the word ‘shall,’ when used in laws, means a directive “to express what is mandatory.”

Regrettably, after going five years without a plan, the Board of Governors did not see fit to include this directive from Act 188 in its “Strategic Plan 2020: Rising to the Challenge.” 

In view of the above, PASSHE’s failure to issue annual FactBooks for more than four years and its failure to issue a strategic plan for five years appear to constitute a pattern rather than an anomaly.

 
And the fact that PASSHE’s recent strategic plan brazenly ignores the statutory purpose of the 14 PASSHE universities suggests that this failure is both intentional and a key part of the same pattern.
 
To be continued.

¹ https://www.keepandshare.com/doc/7682589/passhe-factbook-2010-2011-pdf-2-5-meg.
² https://www.keepandshare.com/doc/7682596/passhe-strategic-initiatives-october-13-2010-35k-pdf-35k.
³ https://www.keepandshare.com/doc/7682678/passhe-strategic-plan-news-release-january-23-2014-pdf-130k.
⁴ https://www.keepandshare.com/doc/7490741/strategic-plan-2020-rising-to-the-challenge-10-14-pdf-2-1-meg.