LOCK HAVEN — Speaking to a group of high school guidance counselors recently, Dr. Ron W. Darbeau, provost and vice president of academic affairs at Lock Haven University, praised them for “laying out a better pathway to do better to rise to their best selves” for their students, comparing it to the integration process that the state’s system of higher education is instituting during the next four years.

“In a very real way, a very meaningful way, that is what integration is at its core,” Darbeau said. “How do we do this by providing more for our students at lower costs?”

“How do we constrain costs so that students are not disenfranchised because if you look at the data, if your household income is less than $150,000, you are locked out. We were built as PASSHE to serve the underserved,” he said.

“The intent of integration is to try to reset, reframe, rephrase higher education, not just in PASSHE, but perhaps be a roadmap for the country. To reframe so that we serve our students and our state as effectively as we can — to provide more for less,” he added.

Darbeau, who is a native of Trinidad, shared with the group his life growing up in poverty with no indoor plumbing and a roof of palm fronds and rusted corrugated metal on what he termed a “hovel.” He credited free tuition for higher education in Trinidad with lifting him out of that situation.

“For any number of reasons, I should not be where I am, but I am because of the power of higher education,” he said.

“I have four children: one’s in med school, one’s in vet school, one is a senior in business school, and one is a freshman in high school,” Darbeau said. “They don’t know what it means to be without electricity; they don’t know what it means to be without running water. Their children, their children’s children will not know that, and that is because of the power of high education and how it changes not just individual lives, but generations.”

In describing the process which was used to formulate the integration of three state universities — Mansfield, Bloomsburg and Lock Haven — into one entity, which is now being called the Northeast Integration, Darbeau said that it was important to provide pathways to students in all situations and not just those that take the traditional route to higher education.

To achieve this, Darbeau explained that those working on integration looked at the enrollment in various programs across the three campuses. They then identified three disciplines that students gravitate to: health professions and related clinical sciences, business management and marketing and education. These are the three larger disciplines which are then broken down into more specific programs.

“These are the three biggest enrollment drivers across the three institutions,” Darbeau said.

He added that the process was not just driven by where students were moving, “but how does that marry to what are the needs of employers.”

“That’s the sweet spot you want. What are students interested in, but what are employers interested in. Part of the job of higher ed is to find that sweet spot where those two things interact,” he said.

Across the state as well as in the northern tier, work force demand is dominated by the three areas identified. What this means, according to Darbeau is that employer demand lines up with the three programs and the breakdown of majors under those headings that popular with students at the three campuses.

“When we design the array (of course offerings), this is the data that we are taking into consideration — employer demand and student interest,” he said.

“We are building this triad, not just for 2022-23 or 2023-24. We’re building this to position it for student success and to meet employer demand looking forward,” he said.

“We’re doing this trying to prepare our students to meet an emerging work force. To meet a demand that is current and to meet a demand that is projected in the future,” he said.

During the process, experts in the various disciplines from the three universities were asked to reimagine education to design the perfect curriculum for the areas of study. Over 500 faculty participated in the exercise, which he noted would be the starting point for the next phase.

Another issue that needed to be addressed was that some programs of study can only be delivered in a face-to-face setting. Factored into this is if there is a facility at one campus for a specific area of study, would it make sense to replicate it at the other schools.

According to Darbeau, probably not.

“Part of the intent is to make sure that cost is controlled, because cost is the enemy of our students enrolling,” he said.

“We can see a situation in which a student might be working on the Lock Haven campus and they want to do research in a certain area, but none of our faculty do that, but they do at Bloomsburg and Mansfield,” he stated.

“So, our faculty have access not just to more programming, but they have access to more faculty expertise. They have access to their peers on the other campuses,” he added.

Distance learning was another issue that needed to be addressed in the process of designing integration.

“One of the things we are absolutely committed to doing is making sure that we are going to use distance ed as a lubricant for delivering curriculum,” Darbeau stressed.

He explained that the state education system is going to build out the physical infrastructure to make sure that Zoom rooms are top-of-the-line.

“We are going to build out the personnel infrastructure to make sure our faculty who are in this space are at the top of their game, so that the experience that students had last year in the heat of COVID is not replicated. We’ve learned from our missteps,” he added.

Some classes across the three campuses would be offered face-to-face, some blended and some entirely virtually.

“So, for example, I can be teaching a group of students where I’ve got you in this room and I’ve got TVs across the area. Students who are sitting at Bloomsburg, and at Mansfield… are able to Zoom in. And not that I can just see them, but they are part of the class. They can ask questions, their friends can see them; their peers can see them. They are a vibrant part of the conversation,” he explained.

“We are making sure that we are building that out, so that when we do this we do this right. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity and (we) are committed to making sure we do this right,” he added.

When completed, integration will enable students to not only take advantage of a greater number of course offerings, but will also provide an increase in the depth of the programs, according to Darbeau. He used the example of nursing degrees. Because of the degrees offered across the campuses, a nursing student could move from an associate degree in nursing to a bachelors degree, to a masters degree and to a doctor of nursing practice.

“It is getting more … for less. If we can control the costs, which is the intent, we will honor that commitment,” he said.

The proposed new array will be divided into five colleges: the college of business; the college of education and human development; the college of health professions; including a separate school of nursing; the college of science and technology and the college of arts, humanities and social sciences. The fourth and final version of this is expected to be released this week, Darbeau said.

“Although integration will burst into being on July 12, 2022, the academic array won’t. For the fall of 2022-23 year, each campus will retain its current array while the faculty and the interim curriculum committee gets done. For the 2023-24 academic year we will introduce the first set of integrated programs,” he said.

“We understand that some of are going to be more difficult than others, particularly the ones that have accreditations. So, they would blink into existence in the 2024-25 academic year. There’s a three-year phase-in process because we want to get this thing done right,” he added.