‘What gets measured gets managed’: Penn State president launches her vision for the university

Pennsylvania State University this week is rolling out a new dashboard showing student graduation rates by race and the diversity of faculty by rank, from assistant to full professor.

It’s part of president Neeli Bendapudi’s plan to make diversity data transparent so everyone can agree on the true state of the school’s diversity numbers and begin to chart a path toward common goals.

“What gets measured gets managed,” Bendapudi, 59, said during an interview earlier this month at University Park, Penn State’s main campus. “I am really focused on outcomes, on holding ourselves accountable.”

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The dashboard is part of her plan to address her goals on diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging, one of five broad areas she laid out for the university community Monday, with a town hall on the DEI effort planned for March 28. Other goals focus on students’ success as measured by employment outcomes — “Do we have the most sought-after talent for employment?” — interdisciplinary research, better service to the state to fulfill its land grant mission, and a reorganization of operations to achieve goals.

“What’s good for the commonwealth is good for Penn State; what’s good for Penn State is good for the commonwealth,” said Bendapudi, who earns an annual salary of $950,000.

Bendapudi, former president of the University of Louisville, has been in the job for less than a year, but she’s already faced significant challenges including an inherited structural budget deficit of $140 million in the school’s $3 billion general fund that she learned about after she started in May.

Also since her tenure began: A student club in October invited the founder of the Proud Boys, a far-right white nationalist group, to speak on campus, which resulted in protests, a counterprotest, and the eventual shutting down of the event due, the university said, “to the threat of escalating violence.” The university now is developing a visitor’s code that would set a policy around speaker behavior — and where and when they speak — to minimize any negative impact to the campus.

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And she’s made some controversial decisions, including a plan to join the university’s two law schools in Carlisle and University Park and the cancellation of a pledge made by her predecessor for a $3.5 million Center for Racial Justice, which brought national scrutiny and a letter of opposition signed by more than 400 faculty.

“I wish there had been a more concrete plan to replace it,” said Michele Stine, faculty senate president and teaching professor of biobehavioral health. “It’s difficult to say, ‘We’re not going to do this, stay tuned.’ ”

Bendapudi is beginning to roll out that plan now.

But Stine said Bendapudi’s positive energy and enthusiasm — she already has visited all 24 Penn State campuses and met with students, faculty, and staff — have not gone unnoticed and likely will help her overcome early criticism.

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“She’s genuinely interested in moving the university forward ... as an educational institution, as a research institution, and I think that speaks to people,” Stine said. “At her heart, she really sees this as an educator and is invested in that role. If she can continue to play to that strength and bring people on board with her, I think there is promise there.”

Bendapudi, a native of Visakhapatnam, India, who is the first woman and person of color to lead Penn State, has inspired students.

“When you were on stage, I felt like I saw Beyoncé,” Breslin “Bre” Toles, a sophomore international politics and national security major from Florida, told her.

“Come on!” Bendapudi responded, kiddingly skeptical of being likened to a pop star.

Sydney Gibbard, 21, a senior biomedical engineering major from Yardley and president of the University Park Undergraduate Association, touted Bendapudi’s warmth.

“She has this way of making you feel like you are the most important person in the world when she speaks to you,” Gibbard said.

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But some students have been upset by her decisions, and Gibbard said she has talked to Bendapudi about the need to communicate better and earlier with those who will be affected by her decisions, which Bendapudi acknowledged during the interview.

“It takes more time to sit down with people, explain where you are coming from and get to that decision together, but you’re building a relationship that can be used in the future,” Gibbard said.

Travis Madden, 20, a junior biotechnology major from Malvern, suggested a monthly email from Bendapudi to students, outlining changes recently made and others being considered.

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Bendapudi embraced it, and during a meeting with the Lion Caucus, a student group that is advocating for more state funding for the university, Bendapudi asked what they thought about Madden’s idea.

Several suggested video messages.

“It will be more effective if students can ... hear you and see your expressions,” a student said.

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Bendapudi said closing the deficit — which she aims to do by 2025 — and boosting enrollment at Penn State’s commonwealth campuses are among her early and most important priorities. The university is looking at making the campuses more affordable, given average incomes of communities where they’re located, and is offering grants to help students live on campus.

She also is lobbying for more state funding, as she said Penn State receives less per pupil than other state-related schools, including Temple University.

She also emphasized the importance of demonstrating the worth of a college degree.

“Half jokingly, I tell people a parent actually came up to me one time, and said, ‘Neeli, please never forget that my child, whether it’s a BBA, an MBA, or a Ph.D., the three letters we’re hoping to see is JOB,” she said.

Her goal on student success calls for more internships, mentoring and research opportunities, and aligning academic courses and advising with employment trends.

Bendapudi has earned early high marks from the trustees board, which at times has wrestled with internal conflict.

“Dr. Bendapudi has had a profound unifying influence on our board,” said Alice Pope, an alumni-elected trustee. “She has brought us together because we believe in her vision. We believe she can lead Penn State into a future we all support.”

For years, Black faculty at Penn State have been calling on the school to address the lack of hiring and retention of Black professors. After George Floyd’s 2020 murder, faculty in the African American studies department wrote to former Penn State president Eric Barron, urging that the school cut ties with local police and disarm campus police, require students to take a course in anti-Black racism, offer more support to Black students and scholars, and create a task force on local policing and communities of color.

And a majority of Black faculty who responded to a survey said they had experienced racism from students, as well as from administrators or supervisors and colleagues, according to a report released by Black faculty members in 2021.

About 3.6% of Penn State faculty are Black or African American, while more than 60% are white, the dashboard shows. Black or African American students make up about 6% of undergraduate enrollment.

Bendapudi recently met with the authors of the report.

“My big goal there was that we walk away and agree we are all working toward the same goals,” she said.

The new dashboard, she said, is not for setting quotas but rather having everyone agree on data, which isn’t currently the case.

“Then we will talk about investments we will make in each of these areas and where we hope to go,” she said. “The strategy on how we get there, that’s my prerogative and my responsibility.”

In addition to student graduation rates by race and diversity of faculty, the dashboard also includes staff diversity. Eventually, the university plans to include information on other groups, including those with disabilities and LGBTQ+ identities.

On closing graduation rate gaps, Bendapudi emphasized it’s not the failure of students: “How is Penn State failing the student or how is the system failing the student?”

The university must remove barriers that hinder student success: The dashboard shows that nearly 76% of white students graduate within six years, compared to about 53% of Black or African American students and 63.3% of Latino or Hispanic students.

Her goal on expanding research calls for the recruitment of more diverse scholars who come from historically marginalized and underrepresented groups.

The university is looking at ways to make Penn State more welcoming to diverse faculty, possibly by hiring spouses and improving mentoring, she said. Bendapudi cited the need for growth in faculty diversity across all departments and subjects and in all ranks and tracks.

“It’s not just bringing them here,” she said. “It’s making sure they make it all the way to full professor.”