PennWest University is taking steps to save costs.

The university is in its infancy under this name. Until the 2022-23 school year, PennWest didn’t exist. It was born of the merging of three Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education universities: California, Clarion and Edinboro.

The purpose of the merger was to keep doors open and students educated while reducing the economic burden. With that in mind, it’s not surprising to see PennWest’s announcement Thursday that it was merging even more.

The university’s Council of Trustees approved a merger of several individual colleges within the three campuses. Universities generally arrange themselves into a series of schools or colleges for majors and specialties that work together.

At PennWest, those were the six colleges of Arts and Humanities; Business, Computer Sciences and Information Systems; Education; Health Sciences; Natural Sciences and Engineering Technology; and Social Sciences and Human Services. Now those are compressed into three: Science, Technology and Business; Education, Arts and Humanities; and Health Sciences and Human Services.

So why wasn’t this step taken sooner? Why not make it part of the same reorganization that combined the universities into one multi-branched entity?

The State System keeps having good ideas that get bogged down in reluctance to implement them. The Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania was also created from a merger of universities: Bloomsburg, Lock Haven and Mansfield.

However, Commonwealth University barely acknowledges that fusion. The individual campuses still give the appearance of separation, with their own names and colors and logos, but only a fine-print subtitle of the new school identity.

“The reorganization of the colleges will provide more opportunities for collaboration among faculty and staff,” said Wendy Mackall, a PennWest spokeswoman. “We expect that it will save approximately $2 million. The reorganization is not reliant upon a reduction in faculty.”

That’s just one of the two merged universities. What if it had been done earlier?

If the mergers are going to work and help the State System schools survive amid the problems of dropping enrollment and rising costs that are affecting many post-secondary institutions, there has to be a real effort to embrace both new solutions and new identities.

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