(04-28-2021 06:46 AM)Fighting Muskie Wrote: (04-28-2021 12:42 AM)Stugray2 Wrote: They say all six athletic departments will remain, which seems like a redundancy to me.
It’s probably the only way they could get this to go through. Threaten to take their athletic brands and they’d have an uproar on their hands.
Yeah, pretty much.
PASSHE is ripe with internal strife. Cheyney is a problem as a failing and failure of an institution, but one that carries significant HBCU legacy, and its location within the Philadelphia region. But, honestly, the biggest issue with these schools is their respective locations. Many are in the old anthracite and steel regions, which started seeing their populations and communities shrivel in the 70's and definitely the 80's and 90's. Couple that with Penn State's commonwealth system expansion across the state and community college programs, as well as other small private colleges fighting to stay open: many mouths are open, but little can be fed to them all.
It was wondered with the northern part of the state was seeing this supposed boom in natural gas drilling/fracking that some of those old pockets (such as Mansfield, Lock Haven, Clarion, Bloomsburg, and even IUP) would see some kind of economic or population rebound. That was simply overstated.
Meanwhile, West Chester chugs along, and IUP as well. Can't speak for the furthest western schools to me (Edinboro, Slippery Rock, California), but I do wonder if Kutztown can rebound as the Philly burbs and Allentown-Bethlehem-Easton area push further into Berks County respectively. Millersville out in the Lancaster area is also in an area that picks up some ex-pat traffic and some higher rollers can swing commutes into the Philly, Baltimore, and DC burbs. Or East Stroudsburg, which is that coal region, but not terribly far removed from the NJ/NY metro hustle (that area has produced some D1 talent over the years).
But, yeah...it does feel very tense with all of these schools. Consolidation is overdue, and now the ugliness of addressing that is front and center of sorts.