PennWest University unveils its plan to seek a new president

PennWest University announced that it is embarking on a search for a successor to president Dale-Elizabeth Pehrsson, who stepped away from the job in February, effective immediately.

“When I say embark, I mean we’re at the very, very beginning stages. We will communicate more as we go along,” PennWest Council of Trustees Chair Kathy Pape told the council at Thursday’s afternoon’s public meeting on the Edinboro campus.

For months, PennWest has been silent on its plans. Interim President Lorraine “Laurie” Bernotsky says she will serve at PennWest through June 30, 2024, though she has emerged in recent days as a potential candidate for West Chester University’s presidency.

PennWest, formed in July 2022 by mergers of its California, Clarion and Edinboro campuses, enrolls a total of 12,780 students. It is the second largest among the State System of Higher Education’s 10 state-owned universities, after West Chester in suburban Philadelphia, and is Western Pennsylvania’s largest public institution after the University of Pittsburgh.

As a new institution, PennWest has faced issues including a consolidation of six colleges into three as it works to strengthen enrollment and finances. Pape pledged a deliberate presidential search as those efforts continue, noting the complexity of a three-campus university separated by hundreds of miles.

“We are focused on quality, not on speed, so rest assured, we will not be racing to the finish line to get somebody in place by a certain date,” Pape said. “We have three campuses, but also we are in the process of building the structure of this newly integrated university as we go along.”

”But everybody should know, we are at least starting,” she said.

“We were talking earlier about making sure we have a page on our website that shares all the data related to the search and all the information, so anybody who has access to the website can go on and understand what’s going on,” she said.

The council has focused since summer on building internal as well as external relationships needed for the newly created council to work effectively.

During Thursday’s meeting, Samuel Claster, head of Edinboro’s chapter of the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties, cited the need for long-term stability as PennWest seeks a new president.

“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.

“Something is wrong with the way we approach leadership at our institutions.”