PennWest interim president approved for return to West Chester University

R. Lorraine “Laurie” Bernotsky will leave the interim presidency of PennWest University in June to become the 16th president of West Chester University in suburban Philadelphia.

The State System of Higher Education in Harrisburg approved Bernotsky’s selection Wednesday morning at a special meeting conducted via Zoom.

The vote was unanimous.

She was the sole candidate advanced by trustees at West Chester, the largest of the system’s 10 state-owned universities with more than 17,000 students. She was provost and had built a 27-year career there before agreeing in February to fill the position vacated at PennWest by Dale-Elizabeth Pehrsson.

After the vote, Bernotsky said she is deeply honored by the presidential appointment at West Chester, part of a career spent in public higher education. She also expressed gratitude to faculty, staff, students and trustees at PennWest.

“I learned so much at PennWest, and I look forward to bringing those lessons learned back with me,” she said.

Wednesday’s system board vote authorizes Chancellor Dan Greenstein and Board of Governors Chair Cynthia Shapira to develop a contract with Bernotsky, including salary, over the next several months, system spokesman Kevin Hensil said.

Her salary as interim at PennWest is $331,700 annually.

PennWest is assembling a search committee headed by longtime trustee Larry Maggi to identify a successor. An education executive search firm, Greenwood Asher & Associates, has been hired to support the process.

PennWest, the largest state-owned university in Western Pennsylvania, was created on July 1, 2022 through the mergers of California, Clarion and Edinboro universities. The new institution, with about 11,300 students, has been working to shore up finances amid drops in overall enrollment and first-year students from a year ago.

“We realize that the PennWest presidential search is unique among state system presidential searches, not only because of our three geographically diverse campuses, but also because we are in the process of implementing a plan for long term sustainability of our integrated university,” PennWest Council of Trustees Chair Kathy Pape told campus on Nov. 20.

She said there is ample time for the university to complete a thoughtful search and expects the sustainability plan will be finished by summer.

At PennWest, some have stressed the heightened importance of making a careful presidential choice, given the stakes for the institution’s momentum.

Samuel Claster, head of PennWest Edinboro’s campus chapter of the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties, put it this way to the Council of Trustees in September as search plans were unveiled.

“The average length of a presidency is 5.9 years,” Claster said, citing national data. “Edinboro, including its brief time now as Penn West, has had 10 presidents in 20 years and seven presidents in the last 10.

“Those are average presidential tenures of two and 1.4 years, respectively,” he added. “We’re crushing the national average, just not in a good way

In addition to PennWest and West Chester, the State System member universities include Cheyney, Commonwealth (a merger of the former Bloomsburg, Lock Haven and Mansfield universities), East Stroudsburg, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, Kutztown, Millersville, Shippensburg and Slippery Rock universities.

Systemwide, enrollment is about 83,000.