One Penn State 2025 continues efforts toward inclusive educational experience

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Penn State’s work to reimagine education through the One Penn State 2025 initiative — one of five central elements of the Penn State Strategic Plan — is underway and ongoing, with working groups anticipating making policy recommendations based on conversations with stakeholders across the University.

“Students select Penn State in pursuit of high-quality, world-class education,” said Yvonne Gaudelius, vice president and dean for Undergraduate Education and One Penn State 2025 co-chair. “It is our mission to remove barriers that might hinder their access or academic success by providing a seamless experience in all interactions with the University.”

First introduced to the University’s strategic plan in 2020, the initiative began when a task force, charged by Executive Vice President and Provost Nick Jones to examine the future of online education, recommended a much broader approach to rethinking the future of Penn State.

One Penn State 2025 focuses on five guiding principles: provide a seamless student experience, achieve curricular coherence, design relevant and responsive programs, engage learners throughout their lifetimes and achieve the highest level of efficiency of University resources, with nearly 150 Penn State faculty, administrators, staff and students working on these guiding principles. Working groups dedicated to each of these five guiding principles have been meeting with stakeholders including the University Faculty Senate, Policies Influencing Equity Task Force, Budget Task Force, Social Science Research Institute and the Office of Planning, Assessment, and Institutional Research.

Common themes have included a focus on the importance of educational communities—faculty, staff, and administrators —who come together regularly to develop, plan and deliver lifelong education to Penn State undergraduate or graduate students, continued growth to meet 21st-century expectations for offering degree programs in-person and online, and optimizing resources while balancing the University’s mission of teaching, service and research through a focus on data-informed decision making.

Some possibilities under consideration as methods for helping to realize One Penn State 2025 come from the work of the guiding principle teams and include providing students access to centralized resources for navigating the University – such as a digital information desk or student ombudsman position, creation of a pilot website to present Penn State's non-credit programming to prospective students across the Commonwealth in a unified, user-friendly manner, and standardization around the creation and use of micro-credentials, badging and non-credit experiences on all campuses.

“We want students and the larger University community to have access to educational opportunities to advance their careers and interests throughout their lifetime in ways that suit their needs," said Vice Provost for Online Education and One Penn State 2025 co-chair, Renata Engel. “Under this model, graduation is no longer an endpoint and students are always connected to Penn State. They know us, and we know them and can serve them in whatever education endeavors they may have.”

More information on One Penn State 2025 can be found on the One Penn State 2025 website.