Cal U students step into new era as PennWest University

With all the change on campus, a couple of words stayed the same for fans heading to Adamson Stadium in California on Thursday.

“Go Vulcans!”

The university’s diplomas, logos and colors may be changing, and eventually the signage around campus will catch up, but the California Vulcans defeating the Fighting Falcons of Fairmont State provided some consistency for a campus trying to keep up a new identity: Pennsylvania Western University at California.

In July, the 170-year-old California University of Pennsylvania officially ceased to exist and now is one of three campuses of the new Pennsylvania Western University, or PennWest for short. It was formed by combining Cal U with the former Clarion and Edinboro universities, all state-owned schools that struggled with enrollment and increasing tuition costs. PennWest has a total enrollment of about 14,500 students.

The NCAA announced in April that along with the Vulcans, the Clarion Golden Eagles and Edinboro Fighting Scots will continue as independent and separate athletic programs.

If the signs, banners and car decals around campus — and even pillows and shirts for sale in the college bookstore — are any indication, the new name might take some time to stick.

In establishing PennWest, the board of governors for Pennsylvania’s State System of Higher Education said the three schools combined could offer students more than each alone.

Freshman Evan Ott is on board with the change.

“It is no longer a tiny campus with limited resources. It opens up those classes from other campuses that I can take,” Ott said. “And I think it will look better on my resume. It won’t be from a small school that people may not know. It will be from a much larger university, and that could help me.”

Some international students gathered in the student center agreed, saying the name change makes it easier to explain to family and friends where exactly they would be studying.

“I like the name,” said Mauree Josih, a first semester freshman biology student from Liberia. “It tells you exactly where it is — in Western Pennsylvania. When I applied, it was California University, and that was confusing to many people and even myself at first.”

Her friends from Kyrgyzstan and Japan agreed.

“I had to explain that I was not going to (the state of) California like they thought, but a smaller town by a city in Pennsylvania,” said Nursultan Kermkubv, a freshman medical biology student from the former Soviet republic.

Mike Adamson, a nine-year custodian at the university wearing a “Cal U” polo, said something needed to change. His daughter graduated from the university, but he knew there were issues with its overall health.

Plummeting enrollment and increasing costs led to the merger, according to PASSHE officials. The three formerly independent schools together averaged almost a 50% decrease in student enrollment over the past decade.

The schools also were becoming too expensive for the region’s high school graduates, the group that makes up the majority of students enrolled at state-owned schools, which have about 110,000 students total.

It is not just PennWest California that is facing changes.

Bloomsburg, Lock Haven and Mansfield — three struggling eastern schools — officially became Commonwealth University in March.

Unlike their western counterparts, however, the diplomas and the publicly displayed names of those schools will not change, according to PASSHE. In Western Pennsylvania, Slippery Rock University and Indiana University of Pennsylvania will stay independent, as will six eastern universities: Cheyney, East Stroudsburg, Millersville, Kutztown, Shippensburg and West Chester.

Some of the students said they learned they were not going to be attending “the old Cal U” from a source that didn’t exist the last time the name was tweaked in 1983, when the name changed from California State College to California University of Pennsylvania.

“I found out in an email,” said Willa Flick, a freshman from Bedford. “I came to orientation in May, and they didn’t say anything. They acted like everything was fine, and then I opened it up and read about all these changes. It was a lot.”

Flick said there are some kinks with the computers and software in the office of student accounts, where she works part time. Pulling up financial aid information has been a challenge.

“Putting the three systems together must be giving them issues because there are some things we cannot do. Some of it is not ready yet.”

While many of the students and parents at last week’s game were in traditional “Cal U” gear and said they didn’t mind the name change, Scottdale natives Leigha Miller, a nursing student, and her friend, Maddy Garlowich, a psychology major, said they are not impressed with the new logo, colors or moniker.

“I don’t like it. It sounds like a hospital or something,” Miller said. “I picked and applied to California University. Now we are going to PennWest.”