West Chester University’s president is retiring next year

After a 40-plus-year career at West Chester University, the last six and a half as president, Christopher M. Fiorentino announced Monday he will retire next summer.

Fiorentino, 69, said while he loves the job as leader of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education’s largest university, it can be grueling and he’s ready for a less-demanding schedule.

“This job, it’s a lifestyle,” he said. “I do spend a lot of time with my family, but I’m never actually completely there because I’m always half the president of West Chester, even when I’m off.”

» READ MORE: Fiorentino completes a 33-year climb to the top at West Chester U.

His last year on the job, he said, promises to be just as active. The university will aim to finalize plans for a new residence hall to ease a campus housing crunch, close out a $65 million fundraising campaign largely for student scholarships — it’s $6 million from goal — and launch a new strategic plan. It’s also working with local municipalities toward the creation of a university district to help with new construction projects. And he said the university’s commitment to close achievement gaps in education outcomes among racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic student groups by 2030 will continue to get a lot of attention.

» READ MORE: West Chester and DCCC are the first local colleges to join national program to close equity gaps

“I’m going to be fully engaged as president this year,” he said, while the state system searches for his replacement.

Fiorentino has spent his entire career at West Chester, starting in 1983 as an assistant professor of economics and serving as the dean of the College of Business and Public Affairs, now the College of Business and Public Management, for about two decades. He then became vice president for external operations and subsequently interim president for nine months in 2016 before getting the permanent job.

“President Fiorentino is an outstanding leader who is admired at West Chester University and across the state system,” Daniel Greenstein, state system chancellor, said in a statement.

» READ MORE: Why West Chester, at 150 years old, has emerged as the state system’s best

West Chester has remained one of the strongest colleges in the state system, growing for many years while other system schools lost enrollment, maintaining the largest budgetary reserve, and posting the highest graduation and retention rates. About three-quarters of its students graduate in six years, and about 85% of freshmen become sophomores.

While West Chester, like many colleges, has lost a bit of enrollment since its peak in 2019 at 17,700 students, the university expects to bring in its largest freshman class this fall, topping last year’s record of 3,025, Fiorentino said. The academic profile of the class has only gotten stronger over the last decade, the average SAT rising from 1074 to 1145 and the average GPA remaining at about 3.5, he said.

Under Fiorentino’s leadership, the university moved from a master’s institution under Carnegie classifications to a doctoral institution with high research activity.

The school also last year opened an academic and dining hall building, called the Sciences & Engineering Center and The Commons. The 175,000-square-foot building and adjacent 164,000-square-foot parking garage was the largest construction project in the state system’s history.

» READ MORE: West Chester fully opens new academic and dining hall building, the biggest construction project in the state system

Fiorentino said building a residence hall, with possibly as many as 1,000 new beds, is the next most urgent construction project. West Chester — with an enrollment of 16,500 students, about 14,000 of them undergraduates — has 5,100 beds, a number that recently proved inadequate to meet demand. In the aftermath of COVID-19, many more students want to live on campus, he said.

“We’re trying to move as quickly as we can,” Fiorentino said.

The university last year tried to come up with other housing but wasn’t successful and couldn’t keep its commitments to housing for some students. It ended up providing a couple million dollars in scholarships to students who lived near enough and agreed to commute, opening up housing to those who lived farther away,Fiorentino said.

In December, students marched on Fiorentino’s residence in protest of the lack of affordable and available housing for students.

» READ MORE: West Chester University students protest affordable housing shortage

“This year we were much more cautious about making offers,” Fiorentino said. “We didn’t make promises we couldn’t keep.”

The waiting list for housing has dwindled to almost nothing, he said, with some students finding alternate housing and others deciding not to attend West Chester.

“We’ve been very honest,” he said. “And in some cases, students have looked at that and said, ‘Well, if you can’t give me a residence hall bed, then I’m going to have to choose another university,’ and I fully respect that.”

With planning and construction, it usually takes about three years to build a residence hall, Fiorentino said. The university has a consultant and is considering where the new facility could be built, whether it will replace an existing building or go up on an open site.

He described leading through the pandemic as the biggest challenge of his career. West Chester was the first university in the region to move all classes online when the pandemic hit in 2020, a prescient decision that Fiorentino helped to make and that other schools in the region followed.

“I came out of that a stronger leader,” he said. “And this institution came out of it stronger based on how we responded.”

Fiorentino said he hopes to continue to use what he learned over his career working as a consultant after he retires from West Chester.

“I love the idea of staying in higher education,” he said, “and helping other people to be successful.”

He also would like to do some writing and serve on nonprofit boards.

“I don’t see myself just stopping and going and playing golf,” he said. “I plan to stay busy but a little more on my own terms than in the past eight years or so.”