Well There‘s Your Problem - Episode 74: The Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education

Episode Date: July 7, 2021

PA has a two-tier system of higher education funding, and today we will learn how there is a two-tier system within the lower tier of that system, with Nick Marcil from PASSHE Defenders PASSHE Defenders: https://twitter.com/DefendersPasshe all PASSHE Defenders' links: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1cudpx-Qtxn_qnkygf3IY_mpGDFysjpD0jJ2G3DMc0g8/edit?usp=sharing The Slides: https://youtu.be/1-436HHocGM Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/wtyppod​ Our Merch: https://www.solidaritysuperstore.com/wtypp we are working on international shipping Send us stuff! our address: Well There's Your Podcasting Company PO Box 40178 Philadelphia, PA 19106 YOU ALREADY SENT US ANTHRAX so please don't bother in the future thanks

I'm gonna I just started recording the video. Cool. All right. So I think we are good. We are we are moving then. All right. Yes. We are moving at a good pace. Doing a podcast. Somehow. Welcome to Well, there's your problem. It's a podcast about engineering disasters with slides. I'm Justin Rosniak. I'm the person who's talking right now. My pronouns are he and him. Okay. Go, Liam. Oh, yeah. In case you're wondering where we have murdered Alice, unfortunately. Yes, buddy. She is dead. We wanted more of the Patriot money. Yeah, we are greedy bastards. So from now on, it's just Liam and Roz until I begin the coup. And I seize the radio stations. Alice is not feeling well, which is why it's just the two of us. And my name is Liam Anderson.

I'm very tired. My pronouns are he and him and we have a guest. Hello, guest. Thank you. My name is Nick Marcel. My pronouns are he and him. And what we have in front of us on the screen is a man making a strange expression. Yeah, what's going on with his glasses? Yeah, that's that's a good question. I think they're very fogged up from the heat emanating out of his body from the rage of what is going on. Yeah, he just I hope it's not what was the columnist that got that got in trouble because he wouldn't stop jerking it. Oh, CNN. Yeah, Jeffrey Tubin. Yes, yes. Hopefully we're not having a Jeff Tobin murder here. We can only hope we can only Nick, you're gonna have to do some of this. You're gonna have to do some of this. No,

I just didn't know if there was any additional banter. My apologies. So kick him off. Get him off. Oh, no, no. So yes, so we are talking about and let me do this because my headphones are stupid. We are talking about Pashi, which is the Pennsylvania state system of higher education. And I think that it's very, very well timed of when we're doing this and also a very, a very interesting topic as a whole is I think it sort of adds off of what some of you all had talked about in the college bonus episode, as well as I will tie it into some other sort of like engineering or like urban planning things that you all have said previously. Feel free. Next slide. And just to say that was the Chancellor of the state system who is Daniel Greenstein,

which I will talk about a little bit later. Was he one of ours? I don't want him to be Jewish. Maybe I could sit next to him at the next meeting. But of course, first, we have to do the goddamn news. We don't have a news sting because Alice is here. Yeah. Okay. Oh, shit. That's not good. Yeah. No, it's just probably fine. Yes. There was a pipeline burst in the Gulf of Mexico, causing a giant column of flame to rise out of the sea. This looks like something out of a goddamn video game. I was is definitely a definitely a hell of a shot, I got to say. Yeah. It's definitely one of those things,

which is, you know, just a nice visual metaphor for the state of the world. You know, we set the we set the ocean on fire. Yeah, we pulled a kaihoga. Yes. For a whole ocean. Yeah, dude, it's not fucking rules. Soon we can have a new addition to the X Games. We can have fire surfing, dude. You don't want to go fire surfing. That sounds dangerous. Oh, yeah. But it's, you know, we will be safety third. Well, you have to you have to have one of the issues with like extremely dangerous blood sports like that is, you know, you it's really hard to develop talent because if you screw up, you die. Yeah, I'm on the fire surfing scout team. Exactly. This is why I don't have limbs anymore.

Probably Roman gladiator battles sucked because so many of them died. Yeah, like a farm system. I think they might have, actually. That would honestly be kind of tight. Played a single a-ball and like a tiny little coliseum. I think I think it would be it definitely would be that could be a subject for a future episode would be gladiators. Did they suck? Anyway, yeah, I only put I only put one piece of goddamn news in this week, even though we keep getting bombarded with goddamn news. Yes. Honestly, the world is exploding and things are bad. And I guess we know there's stuff we didn't we didn't put in that you sent us and we're sorry. There was there was at least one more giant explosion in the sea.

Yeah, I think in the Caspian Sea. Dude, how do we have 15,000 unread emails? They're all from Patreon. I listen. We don't listen. Listen. Anyway, moving swiftly on to okay. All right. Here it is. Here's Pennsylvania, the greatest state in the union. It's a Commonwealth. It's shut up. I don't even have the energy to mock you. Oh, we're doing great. Doing great. All right, Nick, go. Tell us what we're looking at here. Faster, faster. So fast round on passing. There are schools and they are higher education institutions. So yeah, so this is sort of a map of Pennsylvania. As as was said, it is a wonderful

Commonwealth or state pick your preference or poison. But Pashi, the Pennsylvania state system of higher education has 14 state-owned institutions. This does not include Penn State, Pitt or Temple or others. Lincoln, you could say Lincoln. Yes, that that too. Yeah, they're weird. They appoint their own chancellors. I am a Temple boy. And we we're not obviously this map does not include Temple branches, Pitt branches, Penn State branches. So there are honestly more schools than just this, but they are state related. So basically, like you say at the slides, they're sort of private public hybrids. They get the yet funding from the state, but there's basically no oversight, which is how you get a Penn State locker room

situation. This is this is how you have this is this is where you have those confusing names like Indiana University of Pennsylvania and California University of Pennsylvania, right? Exactly. And, you know, to say of some of the history of these institutions, a lot of them were founded as normal schools, which sounds really weird. But they were teachers colleges, basically. It sounds pretty normal to me. And I weird at all. Yeah. Yeah, better than an abnormal school. Oh, my gosh. That would be interesting, like abnormal at Kutztown University or something. Oh, Kutztown's abnormal, buddy. Well, sure. Bar entrance to members of the odd fellows. Oh, those fuckers. They're tiny little tanks. Wow. You know, to also say some of them were

like originally seminaries, which I find is interesting, like Larry in her Mansfield or Cheney was originally a trade slash agricultural school. And then originally, the name African Institute, then Institute of Colored Youth, believe, and it's the oldest African American institution of higher learning. Also, it was a part of a civil rights lawsuit back in 1980, for historic underfunding. And they got $35 million. How many Xboxes is that? Um, good question. Alex usually does the math on these. Yeah. I got it. I got it. There are 50. How much is an Xbox? We'll say $300. That's one hundred. The new Xbox is really expensive.

Probably 116,666 Xbox. And that's not bad. That's better than the disaster victims normally get. This is true. Wow. Oh, yeah. Wow, Seb. Okay. So to briefly say, basically, there was the normal school act of 1857. And it brought, like, you know, these institutions, you know, to be, like, established in a sense as like teachers, colleges in a way. And then in, what was it, in 1921, there was a configuration of the 14 sort of like state institutions was established. But it wasn't until 1983 when they were all made state colleges, or those state colleges were sort of like made into universities. And they were all under now what's called Tashi in 1983, which the purpose, and I will reiterate this again, because it is something I don't feel like people actually

understand it, that its purpose shall be to provide high quality education at the lowest possible cost to students. Do we do that now? No. No. No. Yeah. So feel free. Next slide. So I just wanted to share some. Oh, yeah, the fight moral boroughs. Oh, my God. Thank you. Yeah. So here, here is some, you know, beautiful Pashi designs for your praise or critique. What is Cal's what? What's Cal use mascots supposed to be? Oh, now I now I forget. And I feel I feel bad for forgetting. Is he just holding a hammer he got at the Home Depot? Wait, I think it's like the back now, saying like Val can now. I can find it.

I'm spacing now. All as well. Yeah. But just to the Vulcans. Oh, Vulcan. Thank you. That's why I was like Val now. Thank you. But yeah, so the top left is the ESU logo. I'm sorry, the Marlboro logo. And then you see the ESU logo that they recently did. And then, yes, there are the Vulcans. And then on the right. So I attend Westchester University. That's a building at Westchester University. I'll let people decide for themselves whether or not the infrastructure was made in a certain way to show certain things. What it appears to be is an academic gothic cock and balls. Big old dog. Yeah. You have balls, but they're pointed arches. Is that on how they're supposed to look? I should see a doctor. They did what they did. I mean,

it is an interesting building because it is supposed to be very environmentally friendly, sustainable. I was a tour guide and we always said it was gold certified by LEED or whatever it is, which is environmental stuff that I'm sure you all know more than I do. That could be a whole episode. The LEED system. That would be a good episode. I don't, I really beyond the obvious cock and balls and then the window tumors on it. I don't love how tiny the windows feel like they are. Well, you got these big tumor window balls. Well, you got the Bay windows. Those are nice and big. I mean, one of the things about LEED certification is you need energy efficiency. One of the best ways to do energy efficiency is to have smaller windows.

They do have it facing whatever way to basically make it feel like, oh, we're taking in as much sunlight as possible and they do have like a sunroof or whatever for part of it or like a skylight. I mean, yeah, that'd be wild if a building actually had a full sunroof. That'd be tight. It's just like one of the domes. Yeah. Really, they should start calling it not even dome stadiums, just sunroof stadiums. Well, you can go to the next slide. Okey-dokey. So I have this picture and I'll let you both guess of who is there. Well, this looks like Richard Nixon. That is Richard Nixon. This looks like my pre-calc teacher in high school. And then, you know, it's this other guy looks like a vampire. This is true. Which one? The

guy on the left? The guy on the left looks like a fucking vampire. So is the guy on the right a werewolf? Yeah, look at the sideburns. Yeah, sideburns. Yeah. So so so Nixon was in Twilight before it was a thing. No, actually. Nixon's back. All right. So so the reason why I have this slide is because it sort of ties into a lot of the stuff that I'll be talking about with Pashie and like, you know, why I'm here and what I'm here to talk about. So way back when the the guy on the left, his name is Lewis Powell Jr., who he became an associate justice of the Supreme Court by Nixon. Before he was appointed to the court, he had been a corporate lawyer, as well as helping tobacco as the director of the of the board of Philip Morris, which was a cigarette manufacturer.

Nice. Oh, yeah. That's yeah. That's who I want, running my schools. But so this guy, a while before he was appointed to the court, and it wasn't even provided to like Congress, who was, you know, like voting on him, right? Was this thing called the Powell memo? Just to see, do either of you know what the Powell memo is or have either of you heard of it? I have not. Okay. So it is as I have been told, and I very much agree, like one of the most influential documents in terms of like neoliberalism, you know, from like, you know, if we say the precipice of it, you know, was like the 60s, 70s, you know, whatever you sort of want to say, like that, that sort of basically set out the idea that, you know, we need neoliberal logic because

business is the one that's running the show. It like explicitly in the Powell memo, it states, one of the bewildering paradoxes of our time is the extent to which the enterprise system tolerates, if not participates in, its own destruction. The campuses from which much of the criticism emanates are supported by one, tax funds generated largely from American business, two, contributions from capital funds controlled or generated by American business, and then the board of trustees of our universities overwhelmingly are comprised of men and women who are leaders in the system. So he was writing this memo basically to business leaders to sort of say, hey, you should understand that it's your money that is funding these universities where there's

activism happening. And you have the right to shut it down and say, hey, that's my money. So is this a response to the free speech movement? Yeah, I would argue. I forget the exact year I don't have it written in my notes. My apologies. 71 at Berkeley. Yeah. Yeah, so we have to stop these students being indoctrinated into Marxism by the professors and starting indoctrinating them into Marxism through crushing debt. Yeah, basically. But yeah, so second one works better and sticks longer. Well, yes. And I'll sort of show that here somewhat. But so to explain of how we've sort of continued from then of that logic is we've continued to defund higher education as well

as education more broadly, as we've probably seen. But you can see sort of in the top left, it shows a graph where it basically shows the percentage of funds that the university uses. And the yellow line is tuition fees and other sources. And then the green line is appropriations from the state legislature. So basically, the yellow line is like, this is what the percentage that students are paying or we're getting via private donations or whatnot. And then the green is like, this is the percentage that we're getting from the legislature to actually operate the schools. This is the graph that when your parents say, oh, well, school used to be so much cheaper and I could go from then and then. I mean, my dad went to UMass literally for free because he

lived in the state. I don't understand all the emphasis. And you can make, I think, a bad faith argument like not a bad faith argument, but you hear the argument, oh, everyone should learn to code. But the counter of that being like, that drives down wages and so on and so forth. But the demand for college degrees isn't going away. I don't understand like why you would make that path harder. Or like Joe Biden fucking saying he would, you know, forgive student debt and then just not doing it. That's a joke. Yeah. More like joke, Biden. Wow. Wow. Thank you. You're welcome. So yeah, basically showing with that and then also the graph at the bottom left, which shows, and I know it's very hard to read, but basically that's the amount of like state appropriations

adjusted for inflation that Pashi has received from, I think it's the year 2000 or 2001, which basically from then till now we've had like a 31% decline in the amount of money that we've gotten. Woo. So, you know, just sort of showing the continued disinvestment from the state, because we've basically transitioned in PA, which ranks 48th in state funding for higher education. Hell yeah. Yeah. Who do we beat out? Oh gosh, I don't think we beat out Arkansas, which is sad. But maybe it was Alabama, I forget. We probably don't even beat out Alabama because they have they fund that university real fucking well. Yeah, it's sad, but roll tide. So yeah, and then sort of showing of how in the top right, there's this thing called SHEO,

which is the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association, which just recently put out a report basically saying, yeah, the reason why students aren't attending your universities or the reason why graduation rates are down is because of the lack of state investment. Who would have thought? Damn. That's crazy how that works. Yeah, I had no clue. Yeah, it's deaf by a thousand cuts. Yeah, literally. Exactly. So, you know, with that, you know, as I'll say, like continuing down this path has led to decreased enrollment, decreased revenue, declining grad and completion rates. And, you know, we've also continued to not really fund like student financial aid. Now, mind you, I think all of us here are more for college for all rather than saying,

yeah, we're going to means test our way with financial aid to solve the problems. But I've just started saying people should not go to college. That's actually what I've also started doing. I really don't blame you saying that. But at the same time, I, you know, we'll say. So, go ahead to next slide. This next slide sort of shows some beautiful buildings. And there's a reason why I'm showing beautiful buildings. And it's because with the lack of continuous funding means that you need other things to try and attract students such as like fancy new dorms, residence halls, rock walls, like you name it, right? And those cost a lot more money, which, you know, you could say you're attracting some students, but with the increased

amount of money that you have to pay with like fees and things, it's really turning away a lot of students because of this increased price. And it's also saddling students and faculty and staff with debt because it becomes institutional debt, which instead of saying we're going to have the legislature help us pay for it. No, we need to right size these institutions in order to pay for these buildings that we don't need. Doesn't even make any sense. I was about to say you get this fancy, fancy pool over here for like what, to enjoy the beautiful climate of Lockhaven. Yeah, exactly. I hope it's heated. And 84% vacancy, 84%. Exactly. Yeah. It, you know, it's kind of crazy, but like it really is a cycle. And I would say it goes back

to sort of like the neoliberal logic in the sense of having like business like come in to do things because of a lot of these universities, we basically have nonprofit foundations through like the alumni association or whatnot. Like I know at Westchester, there's the Westchester University Foundation, you know, whatnot, which they were the ones who basically manage the like new residence halls at Westchester. Right. And I, you know, I think that that's fairly similar across the system from what I've seen and where they're the ones who manage it. So of course, they want to have more buildings to be able to like make more money, but there's not necessarily as many students out there to do that. But of course, for anyone who's building these buildings, they're like,

yeah, I'd rather have eight instead of four that I'm building that gives me more work. So, yeah, I will say the right is at ESU. Oh, go ahead, Rob. This is probably nice in the summer, the pool. Yeah. Except, you know, that's not when the kids are not there. Yeah. Yes, exactly. Which is of course, now, sad. All right, next slide. So now, with this whole thing with Pashy, it has to be run by people. And of course, just like any democracy, not, we like to use democracy, right? And elect people. Is that what we do for this? No, we avoid a board of governor, 20 people, 20 people. That's, that's too many people.

Yeah. So you can look through the list. There is the governor. So that's someone who is elected, like in a sense, or his designate. There's the secretary of education. And then there are four people from the legislature, two senators, two reps, and like two Republicans, two dams. And then 11 members who shall be appointed by the board, or by the governor, sorry, with the advice and consent of the Senate. And six members have to be residents of the Commonwealth and five that shall be selected by like the various trustees. So basically, at every single university, you could almost like imagine there's like a similar board, in a sense, and they're like a council of trustees of usually people who have,

you know, businesses or, you know, maybe they're politicians or who knows, who are appointed to like help oversee the university in a sense at like, you know, these various areas. And then there were three, which this is like very new. This is only from July 2020. There were three students. Yay. Oh boy. Yeah. And also, I mean, I feel bad because Alice isn't here. But I did notice it says the governor or his designate or the secretary of education or his designate. And I thought that was sad. Here's what I'm concerned about. Yeah, students term shall expire upon graduation separation or failure to maintain good academic standing. You need some C minus students on the board. And, you know, the students so like

they just started having students from a year ago. And I'll get into it a little later, but they just appointed two new students because two of the three just graduated. But of course, these students primarily or at least originally had to be student body presidents. Now they took that away. But like generally, they're going to be students that are picked from student government. Now, I will say I was in student government for a year. But at the same time, I don't always think students from student government are always the best representation of the entire campus. Oh, yeah, because they're nerds. Yeah, they're people who know people. They're not represented. Yeah. Exactly. The Drexel student government got really mad at me

because I pointed out in an editorial on the newspaper that they they had no power to do anything. They were very very very mad, very mad that pointed out. Yeah, well, I mean, go figure. But so, you know, and to reiterate with this board, yeah, they're appointed. And generally are, you know, as I'll say, generally have interesting other interests. And generally are not your normal everyday people in any way. So next slide, please. So this is the chairwoman of the board of governors. Myself and my best friend, we did some digging. We found this document, I guess, from like it was on the Pashi site. And it was some like interview or whatnot that she had had. And like within it, there was like her talking about how

she would have been a great spy and she wanted to originally work for the CIA. I find that interesting. Yeah. But but but Watergate turned her away and her parents, who said, don't do it. That doesn't even make sense. See, this is I respect there even less that she let her parents talk her out of working for the CIA. Like it's already pretty bad. You want to work for the CIA. But then mom and dad say no. And you're like, oh, no, I'm not going to not going to work for the CIA now. Pussy. Yeah. So. So and then another very interesting thing is the fact that we found a Podesta email. And do you both remember John Podesta? Oh, yeah. So this is just a portion of the email, but it says, well, I can't do public fundraising. I hope that I can be helpful in

other ways. By way of background, I'm on the board and executive committee of the Jewish Federation of North America and active in Jewish community philanthropy. On the secular side, I was a major fundraiser for Governor Tom Wolf and served as his vice chair for trans for his transition team last year was just confirmed by the PA Senate to the PA state higher ed system board. At least our PA legislature could get that done. But yeah. And also to mention that she is the president of the Shapira Foundation, which is leading the development and implementation of the foundation's philanthropic initiatives as well. She was appointed by Governor Corbett to the PA Commission on Women. Woo. And then what was it? Oh, and then also, yeah, as she said in

their part of Governor Wolf's advisory board on education and workforce development, she was in 2017, a distinguished daughter of PA. What does that even mean? I was about to say. Yeah. I know I like looked at it for a second and I was like, Oh, yeah, this is just like, you know, everyone and you do things because you have money. That's nice. It's, it's, it sounds like the daughters of the Confederacy, but for Pennsylvania. So does she, so does she have any fucking back? Like I'm trying to read her education. No. Okay. Oh, she worked at KMPG. Is it KPMG? Wait, what people? She went, she went to Wellesley. Oh, yeah. Her husband is part of like one of the families or whatnot that owns Giant Eagle. Oh, my God. Yeah.

It all comes back to regional grocery store chains in the end. Yeah. All right. Next slide. So these are just a few of the other board of governors. And, you know, there are others that I might mention a little bit later, but I'll just share these interesting fellows. So in the top left is David M. Mazer, who he is the vice chair of the Student Success Committee. And he is of counsel of Cohen and Milstein, some like law thing, which they're nationally known. Oh, yeah, they're a nationally known securities and consumer class action law firm. So got got great people. Yeah. Again, none of these people, I assume, have any background in education. Yeah, exactly. Right. That's, and they say that faculty cannot be on the board because that would be a conflict of interest.

That's insane. That's fucking crazy. They know they should be allowed to fucking advocate for themselves. Yes, you would think. But of course, they don't want that. Also, I want to I want to say I'm reading this. Well, I don't even know what this is. It's a bio on Pashi's website about Sydney Shapira, where she's talking about. I lost what she was talking about. We have to like basically do better fundraising, because that's where we get the funding now as opposed to like, I want to advocate for us actually getting the fucking money we need from the state. No, because we don't. And I'll talk about that in just a few. But yeah, we really don't as a state. And that's exactly why we are like 47th or 48th, like the past couple of years in terms

of state funding. And it's just a disgrace because like you would hope to yourself that we could at least be like better, like at least average or maybe at least like, I don't know, like 40th or something. Not hard, but yeah. Oh, yeah. And then he's a Philly 3.0 guy. Exactly. He's a founding member of that. Yeah. I do not. Do both of you know more about that than I assume? They're sort of, they're like, I don't know if you would describe them as like an urbanist advocacy organization. I can see that. Sort of. But they're also in, you know, they're sort of corporate backed good government people, you know, in the old fashioned sort of good government way, I guess, but you know, not in like, you know, it's your standard corporate progressivism,

I guess what you would call it, you know, it's like, it's like, you know, we're trying to be all these, we're trying to do all these like nice progressive things while actually, you know, tinkering with, you know, tax credits and stuff so that, you know, we have, we can have a policy outcome that we think is good, despite the fact we're not actually really doing very much at all. And of course, one of the fun things is they're all, you know, they're nominally urbanist, right? But all the money comes from a parking company. That's, yeah, that's weird. And also for folks, I'm reading off of their website, it says, we are leading an initiative to eliminate the city commissioners row office and producing

research on pension on the pension crisis, our tax structure and the impact of municipal regulations on business creation. Well, that sounds suspicious as fuck. Yeah. Now I forget if that's actually from that or if not, it's from some like Philly Magart Magartical called secretive new nonprofit aims to upend city council. It might actually happen. Whenever they put up, in my neighborhood, they put up a whole crap load of signs for Jamie got here, who is our new city counselor from West Philly, you know, I was on the Janney Blackwell is obsolete train as much as anyone else. But once all those signs went up, I was like, Oh my God, maybe we don't want this. Am I making a mistake?

But okay. So and then at the bottom is Samuel H Smith, who is the vice chair chair of the audit. Where are his lips? Yeah, that's that's that's a good question. Well, here, maybe I'll give some context of where they probably went. So he's the former Republican state rep and former speaker of that house from 2011 to 2014. So maybe it's from, like, I don't know, talking so much and saying things. And then it's like, Okay, yeah, your lips are gone. Talk about how hate crimes aren't really crimes. Yeah. Yeah. Also, he's from Puxitani, PA. Oh, boy. So he has the he has the groundhog's ear.

Maybe maybe he has its mouth, too. I think that I think the groundhog is in charge of the seasons, though. That's the thing. I don't think he has very much influence over Puxitani, Phil himself. I think, yeah, Phil does what he wants, right? Yes, this is true. And then on the right is a newer board member William Kindlesberger. He's a founder and chairman of E-links Solutions. This dude is a vampire. This dude is 110 percent a vampire.

Print Buyer's suite. What? Well, I'm just reading the logo here. E-links, Print Buyer. What is this thing do? So why the hell are those people on the board? What are they? They're just... I don't... Exactly. It's just so infuriating in that way. And I haven't even talked about the chancellor and I'll be there in like a couple of minutes.

But also to mention, he had a quote at the board of governor's meeting, which I just... I loved so much at one of the meetings. He said, the problem is we don't have any money. True. We are decreasing amounts of students and yet we still have this obligation. In my years in business, I've done a number of things. One of which is to consult for organizations that are having difficulty. Generally, when we have an organization that's having difficulty, it needs to cut its costs and increase its revenues.

That sounds a lot like us. So when we cut to the cheats, that's what we need to do. The problem is that when you do either of those things, let alone both of them, that is when you cut costs and raise revenues, then you have to make a change and change is difficult. Oh boy. I don't like that. I don't like that. I don't like business speak in returns. Yeah.

Yeah. Just wait till we get to the chancellor. Next slide, please. So here's the chairwoman. The Zoom transcription, any time that it was stated chancellor Dan Greenstein or like, we're just like said the word chancellor, it said cancer. 00:37:25,360 --> 00:37:27,200 So there was this beautiful screen clip.

Yeah. It says so with the arrival of Dan Greenstein is our cancer. Oh boy. Yeah. Just funny. And then we have, just to add a little bit more fun in this, this is the former chancellor before Greenstein. This is Frank Brogan. He was actually Jeb Bush's lieutenant governor. And he then became the president of Florida Atlantic University,

then chancellor of the state university system of Florida. Then he became cashee chancellor in 2013. And then he was a Trump appointee as assistant secretary of education for elementary and secondary. Yay. Obligatory photo with large bird. Was that him hugging Jeb? Yes it is.

Yes it is. Wow. It doesn't just look like, like, I don't even know. I want to kick this guy down a flight of stairs. Fair. Oh gosh. All right. Next slide, please. So to now somewhat start talking about the chancellor of the state system,

this is chancellor Greenstein who we saw originally with weird glasses or fogged up glasses and an interesting facial expression. He is formally, he worked for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as the director of post-secondary success. Fantastic. So he's just a ghoul. Yeah, he's a ghoul. Right.

You could say. Probably has been to the Epstein Island. Can't say for sure. Can't say, he could, he might not have been, but you know, there's always that chance. He's definitely hung around a lot of people who went to the Epstein Island. Okay, so just also to add a little bit more background, he began his academic career as a lecturer in modern history at Glasgow University in Scotland.

Oh my God. Unfortunately, we are missing Alice. Yeah. He also was a fan of Celtic poetry. Oh God. Oh God. Okay. And then he also got his bachelor's and master's from University of Pennsylvania.

Boo. And then he went to Oxford. Great. Yeah, then he went to Oxford. And this man during the most recent emergency board meeting, he said, I am a student. I'm a student of the early American Republic. Oh, shut the fuck up.

Shut the fuck up. I love all the founding fathers except Thomas Paine. We don't talk about that guy. Sometimes I sneak into the crypts of George Washington and I rub myself against it. Oh my God. Okay. And then he's also an enthusiastic cyclist, which is interesting. He usually tries to visit the Pashi schools and like goes for a bike ride.

I hate him. Oh my God. And then he also has a blog. I don't consider anyone reads it. It, I, yeah, I don't understand why you need a blog and why it's, yeah. And then at the top right, basically, I was listening to this podcast that he was on, which was like leaders talking about leadership. Great.

Yeah. Yeah. Basically having on like exclusively like university presidents or like chancellors or whatnot. And the quote that I have from him is, and he's talking about like, you know, leading and like, you know, making change and whatnot. He's like, this is super not fun. In these roles, you must leave from courage because the resistance you're going to face

is intense. It's profound and it is potentially a fundamental threat to your longevity in the role. And you can't get that. Let that get in the way of you doing the right thing. But what is his idea of the right thing? Gotting funding. Yeah.

Yeah. Or we must, we must destroy the village to save it. Yeah. All right. Next slide. All right. Just like that idea. Well, we have a podcast where we have some, have some wealthy

bit leaders come on and talk about how great they are. That's just some jerk off talking about how he's a student of the early American Republic. We should have him on and just boom. All right. That would be a good one if you could have some rich people on the podcast and throw insults at them the whole time. Well, I mean, has has has Michael Bloomberg yet donated for the Michael Bloomberg tier?

That's what he has not gotten. We've not gotten a Michael Bloomberg tier Patreon subscriber yet. How much did you set that up? Because that's not that much for him. All right. There's $15,000 a month for the Michael Bloomberg tier. Yes. And then we will say nice things about Michael Bloomberg on the podcast.

Until he cancel his subscription, in which case we'll stop. Yeah. Well, no. Then we take all the episodes down where we said nice things about Michael. Oh, okay. There we go. Yeah. Yeah.

All right. Next slide. So now I'm actually starting to get into like the real like issues and what's going on with Pashry. So back in July of 2020, the governor signed legislation or signed Act 50, which was legislation that was passed basically with the explicit purchase or the explicit purpose to create, expand, consolidate, transfer or affiliate an institution, except for IUP and Westchester, because both of them were not by names, you know, said that this and nothing like this would

happen to them, but by the population of students that they have. And it was something that definitely was like lobbied for by specific politicians and such to basically say, because this act, it's really not about creating anything. They're just using it for the purpose of consolidating institutions. And no one wanted IUP or Westchester to be consolidated. Well, of course. And and within it, right, they basically, they give the board the authority and they have this authority from three years after like, you know, three years after July 2020.

So, you know, currently, this is like, you know, finalizing like year one of their authority. They have two more years to be able to do something like with it or else it'll expire. As well, I know, which is something that definitely is annoying from what I have like seen and heard is that APSCAF, the Faculty Union, took more of a business approach to shaping this instead of actually trying to oppose it. Yes, business unionism. We love to see it, folks. Yeah. But and, you know, to say, so this, you know, this piece Act 50, it basically, the chancellor and the board or really the chancellor creates a plan to consolidate

institutions. And he has to have a public comment period for not less than 60 days. And that the board after that 60 days will vote. And then it has to be two thirds of the board that vote for it. So two thirds of that 20. And basically, the chancellor put forward a plan on April 28th during a board meeting for this, and it was approved for public comment. There were two people who voted against that a student and representative Tim Briggs. And basically, then they had the public comment period. And I'll talk a little bit about that. And there is a board vote come a July 14 slash 15 that next slide. So the universities that they chose are the following in the, as they call it, the northeast,

which I find is laughable. We have Mansfield, Lockhaven and Bloomsburg becoming one university. The schools have nothing to do with each other. Would they have, would they still have separate campuses or would they merge into one? No, basically, they are basically Bloomsburg would be designated in the northeast as sort of like the main campus and the other two would be satellites. Students are, you know, depending on your program, you could be forced to take 25% of your classes online or remote or have to go to the university to take them. But they're saying we're expanding the program access at, let's say like Lockhaven and Mansfield. They're basically, as they say, they like to say we are integrating. No, they are consolidating.

So, and then in the west is Clarion, California and Edinburgh. I feel like the folks up in, the folks up at Edinburgh would not like to drive down to California University of Pennsylvania to take that to take, I don't know, calc one. Yeah, that's, that's ridiculous. But, but, but of course, the chancellor likes to try to say that, you know, it's only, you know, like this major or that major and you know, what not, which, you know, it is true that it's not every single one, but there are still a lot that are going to have 25%, which equals an entire year of your college experience that you would need like online classes for or potentially, seemingly for a lot of programs, it seems like it's like your first two

years, let's say you would take classes at Mansfield and then you would have to, you know, potentially move to Bloomsburg or take classes online or, you know, what not for some of them. But yeah, you got to love it. Next slide. So here, here's something which this is, this now happened like a while ago, but it was really funny. Basically, to try to talk about the integrations, as they call them, instead of having actual students try to talk about what integrations will mean and how it will better their lives. They did like two Draw My Life videos, well, they actually had a third one that they didn't show, but they had Stephanie and Keisha. Kill us, Megatron. Yeah, exactly. That's why she's a student at Kill Us, Megatron.

It could be Kill Us Megatronics, home of Car Audio and Samurai Swords. And more, and more, buddy. Is Bumblebee around? For more information, listen to the Liam's Van bonus episode. Okay. And I don't know who did this, but someone made Twitter accounts that were fake Keisha and fake Stephanie, and they had some kind of funny tweets. I give them props. Redesigned state systems. So they did, they did these in like a cutesy, like a man drawing on whiteboard style thing. Yeah. Even though the result is clearly computer generated. Yeah. That's incredible. My tax dollars paid for this bullshit.

And I'll talk about it a little later, but I have sent right to no requests about certain things, and I'd be very interested to see how much money we spend on these. So, all right, next slide. Here's why this bad thing is a good thing. That's my favorite genre of communications. So now you might have heard the chancellor talk about, or anyone talked about state system redesign, right? So state system redesign is something, as the chancellor says, has been happening like over time, right? It's something that even before he was given the position of chancellor, and when he was even like searching for the position, it was something the prior chancellor had like put into place this idea that we need to redesign

the system. Because basically, way back when Governor Corbett, part of the reason why we have like such low funding is because Governor Corbett had slashed funding and then kept it stagnant for like however many years in a row. And not like Governor Wolf has believed really funded the state system. It's just given small increases barely. The reason why I say that is because they are in what is called phase three of state system redesign. And it's like all about the university integrations, which as I say, it's consolidation. They literally say on the first page of the plan, consolidation. And then they say, we're using the term integration. Well, it sounds solid. Yeah, but integration sounds good. It's like it's like ending segregation

as opposed to making a worse experience for students. Yeah, exactly. And that's what they try to frame it as because it's like the chancellor said, he's like, we're retooling all of the student supports at these universities to make them better. It's like, okay, just now you're cutting. So basically, with these university integrations, there has been a thing, you know, a public comment, as I said, for 60 days, right? And they had public hearings, which there were four of them, the law mandated two, and the four of them were back to back on a Wednesday and Thursday of eight, eight to 930 in the morning, and then 430 to six. Those seem pretty difficult to get to if you have a nine to five.

Yeah, it almost feels intentional. Yeah, you would say, and you know, it's almost intentional that this is all happening over the summer after COVID and students are not really on campus. Those meeting, you can't make those hearings if you work any of the standard three shifts. So you gotta love it. And also, the chancellor, he originally created a five year sustainability plan, a financial sustainability plan, which he then shortened to a three year plan. And basically, I would say that this financial sustainability and system redesigned as a whole is what has led us to, we like, we integrate because we are not fully funded by the Republican legislature. And the chancellor has continued over his couple of years to only ask, like,

not even really demand from what I've seen him talk, only ask for 2% increases, which is just inflation. But he wants $100 million for his state system redesign, which recently Governor Wolf did just give like a one time like 200 million, like right now he just gave 50 million, and then he's giving another 150 over the next like three years, you know, for stuff. But of course, it's not really going as I always like to say, because I thought you guys did a really good job in talking about it, that just like with like public transportation and infrastructure and such, we don't fund the day to day operations, we make nice new building and say, look, nice new building, right, made a nice new building. Yeah. Yeah. Or do state system

redesign and say, wow, we're doing great. And a lot of people during these public comment hearings, which I spoke at every single one of them, and there were over 100 people who spoke, you know, they, they were very frustrated. There was one person who was for this plan, quote unquote, and literally someone later on sort of picked apart what he said. And he was like, you know, the only thing that I heard that person say was right sizing, I come from business, I know what right sizing means, it means to cut. That's what we're doing. It's incredible when you have like a public hearing on something like this and 100% of the feedback is negative. And they decide to do it anyway. Yeah.

Well, it's exactly what's happening because, you know, well, let me say this first, and I'll get into that. But, you know, the public comments as a whole that they've gotten, and this is a screenshot from like a while ago that they showed, because the chancellor basically, he broke up the comments because you could either, you know, you could go to the public hearings, you can submit an email to Pashi, what is it? Or sorry, public comment at Pashi.edu, or you can fill out their survey on their website. And then they split up the comments. And now there've been, I think 700, but this was originally at like a prior, prior board meeting, or yeah, prior, prior board meeting, where you can see he splits it up to plan actionable,

non-plan actionable, and then viewpoint comments. And as he said, he was like, you know, you know, those are viewpoint comments. You know, I really want actionable items, like things that I can take action on. Well, you know, I would say a pretty actionable item would be don't do it. Just not fucking doing it. Right. Like don't do it. And as I said, yeah. And as I've said, just actually fight the legislature for more funding, like, because he's not doing that at all. But, you know, and also I find it funny, because these public comment hearings, you know, as we said, definitely not during good times or accessible, and they only have for over a 60 day period, like, come on, you could do more

than that. But, you know, people were like, you know, pissed off, they, you know, continue to say, like, vote no, or delay the plan. You know, it was like students, faculty, staff, you know, different community members. And, you know, that's pretty much what you heard. Next slide. And, oh, wait, go back, please. Going back. I'm missing a slide. Oh, no. Oh, that's sad if I am missing slide. So yeah, stay there then for a second. I have some wonderful pictures and I feel sad that they're not in there. But basically, at these public comment hearings, you were only given two minutes to speak, then they ended up changing it to three minutes. How noble. Yeah, so kind. And of course, during the meeting, we saw the chancellor looking down probably at his phone

or looking at different screens. We saw a university president from Bloomsburg slash Lockhaven, because they basically for a couple of the universities that are slated for consolidation, they've kind of put like someone who's going to become in charge of like the whole thing. He was visibly on his phone, like you could see his phone in the zoom screen. Incredible. Someone else who was like looking off, who was another university president. Go ahead to the next slide. Concerns. One thing you should do in zoom calls is just not have your screen. Just just don't have a camera. That was my strategy. That keeps me unimpeachable. Same, bud. So just a few of the concerns, you know, people being fearful that it's a step

closer to Kaling colleges, because basically only the legislature has the like expressed ability to be able to close an institution. However, with this, I'm fearful as others are that basically you're making these campuses branch campuses and then like in a later date, they could probably be closed as well of, you know, the idea of major layoffs and, you know, the increasing of class sizes from 17.9 to 20.5 as like a whole system from 2018 to 2023, cutting and eliminating student services or moving some online programs to be moved online for like cross campus as well. They continue to say that there's like cost savings, but over five years, it's like it's going to save us like not even 19 million and it's going to cost 25 million or something like that.

That's a net cost in general. Yeah. Yeah, that's ridiculous. Yeah. Now, as the chancellor says, it or sorry, yeah, the plan to cost 30 million, sorry, I have it there. And then we'll only save 18.5 for the first five years. Now he says, oh, wow, there's continued cost savings over time. But like in five years, you can't even reap like anything from it. As well, the NCAA and middle states still don't have decisions. So like, you know, the NCAA, we don't know whether or not athletes at the like integrating institutions will have their sport like within like that name and like have a separate like sport like almost like I think at Penn State

don't they have like, if I'm not mistaken, they have like separate teams for the different campuses. Just to know. Yeah. And the middle states is like an accreditation board for like higher education stuff and also for like other education things. And you know, you haven't heard from them. It's going to kill rural communities. No guarantee of reducing tuition or the cost of students, which is the whole point. Yes. I mean, I would argue it's not the point, but they are trying to make no, but in their charter, it's provided. Oh, yeah, exactly. As I said, originally, right? Yeah. Yeah, but we now have an infinite source of non-dischargeable student loan funding. So honestly, when you think about it, just shoving all the cost onto the student cost

the state nothing. So, you know, why not do it? All right. And then what was it? Oh, yeah. And then people just being concerned of whether or not they were actually being listened to. As I like to say, I think we were listened to, but we weren't heard, right? Like they were not like they were there to quote unquote, listen, but they didn't actually care to hear it. Like after the first public comment hearing, the chancellor and the chairwoman basically said, like, you know, we appreciate the feedback. And you know, from this, we've learned that we need to do a better job at communicating and like had not heard. Well, it doesn't fucking mean anything. Yes, exactly. And they did a great job of communicating as the things that they were communicating were bad.

Yeah. Well, I don't even think they were even communicating them well. But next slide. So, this is a report that was not commissioned by Pashi, but commissioned by the P.A. Budget and Policy Center from UMass Amherst. Yeah. And basically from Perry, which is a political economy research institute, they had taken not what the plan was when it was like shown in April, but like what it seemed like that it was going to be in the continued financial sustainability and such and basically outlined of how the institutions that are, you know, getting these cuts, especially are those and the ones that are being consolidated are those with some of the highest poverty rates. So, if you look other than Cheney and the next six up are the ones that are actually

being consolidated and those have pretty high poverty rates for like higher than the average of P.A. because I'm pretty sure the average is like 11.5 or 12. I like that, you know, that the ones they were like, we're not going to consolidate these are like Westchester, right? And then IUP, yeah, Indiana, yeah. But, you know, so sadness. Go ahead, next slide. So then here you can sort of see as the chancellor likes to say, and I'll talk about this a little later, but in the most recent emergency board meeting, he was pissed people were using the terms layoffs or major like mass layoffs because he was like, I want to use employment reduction. So in this, you know, in this, they were kind enough to say employment reductions

and you can see that it's a total of 14% of patchy. Oh, shit. Yeah. And literally, there was a, I think it was a meeting that apps scuff held or like some sort of like event thing just on Zoom. And there was the president of the PAA, FLCIO, and he was like, and, you know, Perry, this report says it specifically, but I'm just showing the graphs. But, you know, he was like, yeah, this is equivalent to like a plant closure or shift eliminations and, you know, many of these areas. And, you know, I mean, you can see as well on the right slide, it sort of shows the induced versus the indirect in terms of sort of like, what else is going to result within these communities. Now, I forget which is which,

I'm going to think that like indirect was the idea that they're going to like have less needs like that the university would like contract for. So let's say that they need paper and then induced is like the idea that there's less students, faculty, staff, so they're not going to be going to like a local like, you know, office shop or, you know, whatnot. For Mansfield specifically, that I mean, that school is in the middle of nowhere. That's a death blow. I was about to say, yeah. And that's what it is for many of these institutions. I mean, like they're the ones and, you know, and like a slide or two, I'll show it, but they're the ones that are really like the major employers for a lot of the counties. But, you know, as well,

you know, the report says that Pashi is to experience a roughly 11% budget cut as of 2023 relative to 2019, you know, from everything that's happening. And it's also interesting because of the fact that, you know, we are eliminating 1500 jobs from like 2018 or 2019 to 2023. And there are portions of, there are parts where we're cutting more than 100% like personnel in the sense that non personnel budget is growing, but we're cutting like more staff to like, you know, fund that. Kind of love that. Does this mean there will finally be enough chalk? Maybe. I don't think I've seen, wait, no, I have seen chalk at Westchester.

But yeah. And also to say that, you know, I know that the president of Apscuff, which is the faculty union had said this, that, you know, during a lot of these like, you know, forced retirements or, you know, like even like actual layoffs that, you know, people were ending up without health insurance because of, you know, the retrenchment incentives that they were given because they were like, oh, yeah, it's right. You know, it was before the pandemic and they were like, oh, yeah, I could get like a retirement incentive. So I'm going to take that and then pandemic hits and it's like, oh, wait, I might be without health insurance now. So God, I love that. Next slide.

Incredible that, you know, we have a, we have a democratic gubernatorial ship and we're just like planning on, yeah, everything's going to get worse. It's just going to keep getting worse and we're planning for that. They just don't give a shit. Yeah. I'm so tired of hearing shit run like a business. Yeah. Yeah. So speaking of business, I do have Trump because you're fired. You're fired. Get out of my office. So this, so this slide, it's just like another graph from this report and it's sort of, if you've ever heard of the worker adjustment and retraining notification, which is like the WARN Act, basically they're supposed to help warn communities when mass layoffs are happening and Perry actually compared,

you know, what these communities were going to face along with, you know, from like WARN layoffs, like basically employers reporting like how many people that they're, you know, cutting over the previous decade. And for a couple of these areas, this is like the like biggest layoff or like, you know, biggest employer reduction is the Chancellor likes to say that these communities are facing is insane. That's, that's, that's a lot of people losing their jobs. Yeah. That's not good. Go ahead. Next slide. Folks, nobody cares about the University of Pennsylvania system. Look at that. Yeah. That's 44%. That's insane. All. Yeah. They're, they're, they're, and they're not even being consolidated. Right. Listen, I went, I went to the University

of Pennsylvania, the Philadelphia University of Pennsylvania. Thank you. Okay. So as well, they sort of showed in this report that it's actually going to be hurting more women who are faculty because they are primarily, you know, are more likely to be, you know, people who are without tenure, you know, as well as I would assume that like other marginalized populations in a sense would, you know, be facing this at higher rates, right? It's just this report sort of looked at it just in that way. And then also because Pashi, there, you know, is, is you look at the bottom or is it I think it says, you know, that's the, oh, I think it's on a prior, like, or another slide, but that basically the gender composition of like students, like, you know, I know at Westchester

that it's more like women than men. But yeah, next slide. So to briefly say, I helped sort of start a group called Pashi Defenders. We are fighting for a fully funded state system of free public higher education. You know, like, truthfully, like, you know, I want Palatrol not like I think it's necessarily going to happen at the state level. Like, I definitely think it's going to happen federally, but at some point, hopefully, you can see that. But, you know, eliminate tuition. And, you know, we want to prevent state system redesign slash consolidation and increase Pashi state funding. You know, we've been having weekly meetings, some different calls, rallies, petition, as well as some social media pressure, right to no letters that I sent, which are

definitely interesting. I've attended some of the public hearings. And also, you know, we will be trying to attend the vote. So, gotta do what we gotta do. And, you know, it's students, faculty, staff, allies. It's fun. At least try to be. Next slide. Okay, so this, as I'll preface, this is the picture on the right is what got me to sort of first be connected with Liam, because if you notice, I am wearing a Well, There's Your Problem shirt. Thank you for buying our stuff. Thank you for buying our merchandise. You too can buy our stuff. You're welcome. But, yeah, so, yeah, so this was a rally that we had now, like, you know, a while ago. But in Westchester, and we've sort of been continuing to have them, like along with PSL,

which is the party for socialism and liberation. And we were specifically trying to target and you might be able to see her in like the middle picture on the right, Chester County Commissioner Moskowitz, because she actually, while being Chester County Commissioner, she is on the board of governor. And, you know, she came, she actually spoke with us. I had a phone call with her. She said that she was willing to, you know, talk to people. I think that it was more of like trying to say that than necessarily do it. But anytime that I've tried to get like a meeting with her and like some students and faculty or whatnot, she sort of has been like, you know, send your comments to the board. It's like, wow, thanks. Thank you. Yeah. Super helpful.

Exactly. And go ahead. Next slide. All right. Okay. Darn it. Yeah. Now, what I sent you is definitely like the other power or whatever one that you pulled up. Go to the next slide. Okay. Well, this is the last one after this is safety. Okay, wait, then go back to the prior slide. Okay. So what I'll mention is, and you can see it on the left in the left picture. So there's sort of a banner. We've gone to each of the six universities that are slated for consolidation. So a few weekends ago, you know, I went and some others, we went to Bloomsburg, then Lock Haven and Mansfield, we actually got like 40 to 50 people at Lock Haven, which was pretty good. Yeah. And then was I thinking to myself, the prior weekend, I was not able to go.

But some people went to the western side. So California, Clarion, Edinburgh, and did get some good showing and even got some coverage from CBS, like a CBS affiliate, which I thought was pretty cool. But to also mention, right, of some of the things that the chancellor has said most recently, because they recently had an emergency board meeting, which was to appoint two new students to the board. And then also to have an integration workshop, which basically was the chancellor trying to like, cover up everything that's going on and say like, Oh, yeah, look at the good things we're doing. Yeah. Yeah. You know, as he specifically said, he was like, these aren't layoffs, they're employment reductions. No, they're fucking layoffs. Yep. And and then and then I loved this

because I got a funny tweet, I think out of it, I forget exactly what I tweeted, but he said twice, he was like, facts matter. At least they do to me. Oh, God. Dude. Yeah. Okay. Facts matter. That's why that's why they're fucking layoffs, dude. Yeah. You don't like fucking you don't need to dress it up. I mean, I get like, the way you see it, you're just doing your job, which is to fuck people over because that's all your jobs ever been. But like, at least be, I'd like, don't piss on my head and tell me it's raining sort of deal. Yeah. Yeah. But, you know, and also to and, you know, I feel sad that this slide isn't up, but I find it very funny. So from the first public comment hearing, I spoke. And I, in the summer, I usually cut grass for a bit. And I decided to listen in on my

headphones, instead of listening to podcasts or things while cutting. And, and then I made a comment. And my comment got me sort of an article that was framed around my comments, where it says, grad student cutting lawns to pay off college debt gives officials a lecture on PA State University more murders. It's in the PA Post Gazette. Find it kind of funny, because it says from an undisclosed lawn. Yeah. Yeah. So I don't know, it was it was just kind of funny. And I did say something which like became a quote, which I was glad was cutting grass, just like you're cutting public higher education. Zing. Yeah. Zing. And, you know, and also to reiterate again, of just like, you know, some other concerns and things briefly is currently, you know, I had seen an article that

the NCAA still is missing information from the state system about things. So with that communication that they said that they were going to do better with, that's a good one. Got to love that. And then also, you might hear the chancellor or the governor or others say that there has been an enrollment decline of I forget what they say, I think like 21% or something. Now conveniently, that's over the past 10 years. And yes, there's been an enrollment decline over the past 10 years. And as I will reiterate again, that's because college is not as affordable as it was, even though that's the mission of Pashi. Wow. But if you actually look at enrollment from the year 2000, which was at about 96,000 students and enrollment in 2019, which was 95,800 according to Wikipedia,

that's roughly the same amount of enrollment like and that's like, you know, pre COVID in a sense. And yet our funding has decreased by over 30%. So, you know, them saying that we need to write size, I like is absurd. It's just the chancellor does not want to fight for more funding. He doesn't want to actually fight the legislature. He specifically was asked a question by like a Republican rep, I think, around like, Oh, well, the school in my district IUP is facing a lot of cuts because other universities, which are smaller and are not making a profit are, you know, IUP is having a hold, you know, like having to like make cuts for those universities to survive. And then the chancellor is like, you know, you're right. And you know what, if my state system redesign and

such doesn't work, I'm going to come back here, I'm going to dissolve the system. And then he had to like write an apology letter and stuff saying like, that's not what I was saying. That's not what I was saying. Well, I mean, if you were, if you were doing, I mean, the thing is like the system doesn't need to contract the system needs to expand. There's about, there's at least 48 more universities they have to build for Wyoming University of Pennsylvania, Rhode Island University of Pennsylvania. Let me get a Kansas University of Pennsylvania, right? I've heard of that. So on and so forth. Wow. Just to continue to confuse people. Yeah. And, and, and sort of, you can go to the next slide because I'll sort of wrap up. So this was something that I had previously of

things were like some of the dates of like, there were council of trustees meetings, public hearings, that was like a while back. But, you know, to sort of get folks in the know, as I'll remind them again, the board vote of this is for live 14th and 15th. I have called their office, I have tweeted at them, and have been like, is there public comment? Do you have an agenda of the thing? They're like, we will get that to you as soon as possible or like your, or whatever they want to say. And yet for the emergency board meeting that they had, they notified people on Sunday, yet I had seen an email that like some someone who works with me because I am a graduate assistant. They got an email like a while back saying that there was going to be a meeting on June 30th.

They never publicized it until like the weekend right before. It's like, you don't communicate. You really don't. But we got to love that. But yeah, also I called their office and then I got transferred to a number that was a retired staff member. Nice. Jesus Christ. Just why? Just please. Yeah, so you got to love it. But, you know, please, I encourage everyone out there, you know, if you can or will the follow Pashi Defenders on Twitter, it's at Defenders Pashi. We also have like a Facebook, Instagram and we're, you know, trying to like read out things, keep people in the know as well. I highly encourage folks to call their own like local representatives and elected officials to urge them to make statements. I know that the like

council of trustees, I think the California council of trustees put out a statement or maybe it was Clarion where they were saying we are against this plan. This needs to be delayed. I know that some of the House Democrats and the PA legislature wrote a letter urging like a one-year delay and, you know, so on. But like, please do that. Please also just like annoy and call the governor's office and say that he should vote no and that he's not actually the education governor that he wants to be. Yes. Yeah. Things like that. But you got to love it. But yeah, I think that's it. Whoa. Yeah. Yay. Yeah. Save Pennsylvania education. Yeah, please. All right. Please. We don't we don't have Alice here. So here's Alice.

Liam, you have to do you do the safety third guitar riff. Don't shake hands with danger. No, no, I was gonna I was gonna do the shake hands with danger while you did the guitar riff. Okay. Yeah. Let's try that again. Okay. Are you going? Yeah, you go. Don't shake hands with danger. Okay. Yeah. We have a segment on this podcast called safety third, right? Yeah, I was supposed to do that beforehand. Real professional. We're doing we're doing great. This podcast is completely falling apart without Alice. It's fine. Let's just get this over with. Oh my god. I came across your podcast because YouTube told me I'd probably like it. So far, WTYP has passed my utterly subjective

three point eyes, ears, nose inspection. Here's one for you. With your nose, but I don't know you can smell this podcast. Thank God because I fucking reek right now. In the mid 90s, I briefly worked for a small rebar fabrication company in my hometown. My job as rebar tossing FNG was in the provocation portion of facility, an environment covered in the flecks of steel viscera from from shaking cutting and bending the bars of material, the accumulated dirt and grime from years of this cinder black room being opened to the industrial lubricants and the elements and musty midwestern air. Mounted about 25 feet above the main work floor were two heavy lift cranes, one that was relatively

new and one that was clearly quite old of indeterminate age. My guess was 30 years at the time. But nobody really knew because it was there before they all showed up. The older unit, which was rated to lift heavier loads than the newer one, had periodic problems with the rotating drum for the lifting cable losing its breaking power, such that when it lifted loads at even a quarter of its capacity, the load would start dropping back down, forcing whoever was operating it to keep tapping the up button to keep the load in the air. All good.

Yes. That's fine. Being that the company was small and only operated with a small staff of draftsmen by today's standards, the fabrication crew was similarly small and understaffed, having to operate two eight hour shifts, six to four and four to midnight each day. So I guess I guess some of them could have made those patchy meetings then. Yeah. Anyhow, the crane would need a periodic fixing and we had only one unlicensed guy who knew how to do it or at least knew how to make it work normally for a few weeks until it

needed fixing again. Surely this situation was a result of the owner not seeing a professional fix as necessary on such an old unit and that the problem could be corrected by one of us with enough know how and lack of concern for personal safety. There's no safety harnesses attached to anything on this to perform a work 25 feet in the air on a tall leaning ladder braced only against the crane's body. Anyway, did I mention that in addition to the crane's drum's brakes not working, the brakes on the wheels used to move the crane longitudinally through the building also chronically did not work or that one end of the building had a minor but visually perceptible slope to it. Oh boy. Oh boy. Well, this crane finally got bad enough that the foreman told our tech

to fix the crane's drum. The foreman, knowing this person's pigheaded personality, especially about the things he was the only expert available for, told him how to position the crane and the ladder he'd be climbing so the unsafe work could be done as safely as possible by putting the crane down at the sloped end of the building where the crane would be resting against the stops to cancel out any rolling and the ladder could be assured of at least that as a bracing at the top. Note should be taken here that this tech that tech is in quotes had performed this fix operation before and even still the foreman was reminding him a person who had been working there for at least a few time a few years by the time I took the job how to do this as safely as possible

as the OSHA flouting environment allowed. The tech instead chose the position to crane over the pass through truck bay which also happened to be very close to where the building slope began. To add plus two difficulty to his task he decided to place the ladder against the crane in the direction it would roll away from should he be should it begin moving while he was up there. He moved the crane into position proceeded to get the ladder up and once he felt it was safe he began climbing. The foreman continued about his work a look of I told you so already creeping into his facial and expression. Now I being all of 19 years old at this point watched anxiously as I continued about my work at my station. Right on cue as the tech got about two-thirds

of the way up the cranes wheels began moving towards the slope a sensation he felt in the ladder shifting orientation. He immediately tried scooting down the ladder but by the time he got even one step down the ladder was braced only against oxygen as the cranes slammed into the stops and gravity pulled the ladder with him to horizontal against concrete and steel filth. He lucked out with only a broken leg and knowledge he had barely missed being impaled by an 18 inch section of number five four eyes yeah which was sticking straight up through the rungs of the ladder he was positioned over. Rebar impalements are not nice because you know they get that blunt end um yeah yeah I imagine this is not a environment where they put rebar

caps on there um but obviously it was out for weeks afterwards likely getting workman's comp well putting more strain on the rest of us already working those eight to 12 hour eight hour shifts on six days out of five days a week. This anecdote would be one of the few cases on your show where at least some personal responsibility on the part of the task individual should have been involved to prevent the outcome and maybe one where the boss man had more sense than the guy is under him anyway what's going to happen so yeah not the case for pastry though signed anonymous wage slave the third junior wow heck of a name yes uh moral of the story don't put a ladder up against an unbraked overhead crane well I was safety third shake hands with danger okay our our next episode

is on the Tacoma Narrows Bridge does anyone have commercials before we go uh I will plug again pashy defenders and defenders pashy on twitter uh and then also put a link in the description put the links in the description uh as well just to say if you want to bother the governor his phone number is 717-787-2500 uh please do that at your earliest convenience always a good idea to bother the governor suck it tom yeah and and lastly I will say um I also have a podcast with my best friend which we probably will be talking more about pashy and such and keeping folks in the know even after like this vote uh so if you ever want to listen to non-applicable you can find us on Spotify uh what else anchor apple podcasts everywhere fine podcasts are sold yeah go listen

to lions led by donkeys yes listen to kill james bond I just listened to some of it listen to trash future yes all right that's enough all right all right we did we did we did a podcast