Modernizing Curriculum Governance Post-Merger: Lessons From Commonwealth University

In the face of declining enrollment and budgetary pressures, many state higher education systems are beginning to examine where it is possible to share resources and merge institutions. The Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education (PASSHE) recently went through this exercise and ultimately made the decision to merge three distinct universities—Bloomsburg University, Lock Haven University, and Mansfield University—into a single entity, Commonwealth University of Pennsylvania. 

As part of this merger, leaders decided that rather than selecting the curriculum from one campus and forcing it upon the others, they would evaluate the curriculum from all three institutions and create a new curriculum. The goal was to create a single, unified curriculum that would take the best elements from all three campuses—their traditions, program strengths, and innovative practices—and merge them into a single, cohesive academic structure. To learn more about this complex process, Dennis Frohlich, Associate Professor and Chair of the University Curriculum Committee shared his insights on this important work. 

Navigating the Initial Curriculum Review Process

With a firm deadline to get the new curriculum in place for the fall 2023 academic year, the university had to quickly establish a process for reviewing and approving thousands of course and program proposals. The review process began with working groups composed of faculty from the three campuses, followed by a formalization of proposals at the department level. From there, the proposals entered a multi-step review process consisting of:

• Reviewed by the college dean
• One-week open comment period for the wider university community
• Reviewed by the Interim or University Curriculum Committee
• Sent to the provost for final approval

With the curriculum review process kicking off with little time to investigate new processes and technologies, Commonwealth relied on a manual method where proposals were created as Microsoft Word documents and managed within a series of SharePoint folders that corresponded to each stage of the review process. To keep track of the large number of proposals, the curriculum coordinator was tasked with manually shepherding documents from folder to folder, tracking their movement, and ensuring they reached the correct reviewer. According to Dennis Frohlich, “This became a very cumbersome system to navigate, because you had literally thousands of files, hundreds of different folders. It would take a long time for these folders to load, because there were so many proposals in there.”

Examining the Challenges of a Mass Curriculum Review 

As with any major project, Commonwealth experienced challenges during their curriculum review and consolidation efforts. According to Dennis, the timeline was arguably the most pressing challenge. With a hard deadline to have all curriculum in place for the fall 2023 class, the curriculum committee had to work overtime during the winter and summer to progress through the sheer volume of proposals and meet deadlines. This not only resulted in overtime costs, but the lack of sufficient time for review led to errors and other unintended issues that required clean up in the months and years to come.

The mandate to create a unified curriculum also required extensive collaboration, but the process of reaching agreement was not always easy. Faculty and administrators from the three campuses were put into new departments and colleges with colleagues they didn't know, creating a need to build trust and collegiality from scratch. 

Finally, the manual system for review created significant issues with file management and transparency. Faculty would submit proposals but then have little visibility into where they were in the review process, why they were delayed, or what feedback had been provided. The system’s lack of transparency meant that a proposal could be held up for months with no clear reason, leading to widespread frustration among faculty. 

The Strategic Pivot: Transitioning to a New Curriculum Management System

Faced with these significant challenges, the university leadership realized that the manual review system was not sustainable in the long term. The decision was made to seek a tech solution that could automate the workflow and provide transparency and accountability. The new curriculum management system, Coursedog, was introduced to the campus community as a solution to the existing pain points.

The leadership team framed the transition by directly addressing the frustrations faculty had experienced with the old system. According to Dennis Frohlich, they would tell faculty that "in Coursedog, you can see with your proposal exactly what stage of review it's at, how long it's been there, what comments have been made, etc. You can go check it at any time, you don't need to ask a staff member where your proposal is." 

This approach, which highlighted the tangible benefits of the new system, was crucial for garnering buy-in from a user base experiencing overwhelming change. Additionally, having the challenges of the old system front of mind allowed leaders to clearly articulate why a new technology was necessary.

The university intentionally ran both the old manual system and the new Coursedog platform simultaneously during the initial launch. This "soft transition period" was a deliberate choice, as it avoided forcing faculty to redo all of their proposals in the new system and allowed them to acclimate gradually. 

Leveraging Workflows for Automation & Transparency

The adoption of a new curriculum management system marked a fundamental shift in the university's curriculum governance process. The old, manual workflow was replaced with a centralized, automated system that leverages a new workflow-based structure, a clear series of automated steps, and built-in deadlines.

The centralized system also dramatically improved transparency. Faculty can now log in and see exactly where their proposal is in the queue, eliminating the need for constant inquiries and reducing frustration. New deadlines created also dramatically decreased the time to approval. For example, two-week deadlines for key reviewers, such as college deans, were implemented in an effort to eliminate the bottlenecks that occurred historically.

According to Dennis Frohlich, the new system also helps identify and resolve proposal issues much earlier. By the time they reach the University Curriculum Committee, they are in "much better shape now than they were 3 years ago". The university also continues to refine the system by "listening to their [faculty] needs, their concerns, their questions, and adapting the forms and workflows as needed".

Lessons Learned: A Framework for Institutional Leaders

The journey from a manual curriculum review process to a streamlined, automated system offers a case study for any institution considering significant change. For Commonwealth University, clear and consistent communication was key to the successful transition. Leaders must not only provide training on a new technology but also continuously articulate the why behind the change. As Dennis Frohlich noted, "Oftentimes, people didn't really understand how a new technology works, why we were switching to it." Therefore, setting the "vision of why we are doing this and where we're going with it" is essential to combat user resistance and maintain momentum.

To gain faculty buy-in, the strategy of highlighting quick wins was particularly effective. Instead of focusing on the abstract, long-term benefits, leaders focused on tangible, immediate improvements that directly addressed faculty frustrations. Dennis advises other leaders: “Highlight those quick wins, some easy things that Coursedog has improved for us. For example, tracking proposals, knowing what stage it's at, etc. Trying to explain to people, ‘Why do I have to do this, learn this whole new system?’ Well, ‘Here's what it's doing for us.’ And once they started seeing proposals move faster through the system, I think people started to buy into, yes, this is a much better system that we have in place now than what we had in the beginning.”

The Final Outcome: A Renewed Focus on Quality and Student Impact

While the merger of the curriculum of three institutions was challenging, the ultimate outcome was overwhelmingly positive. From a process perspective, Dennis Frohlich explains: “There's definitely opportunities at all levels to streamline the curriculum review process, because it can be so different, even within an institution. College by college, or department by department.”

The mandate to create a single, unified curriculum forced faculty to modernize their offerings, identify redundancies, and address structural issues. Dennis Frohlich noted that many courses and programs "hadn't been touched for years, if not decades, prior to the integration... This forced all of us to do more than just put a fresh coat of paint on our programs, but to identify issues that we had, even with our own programs, of bottlenecks that we knew that students struggled with…It really freshened everything up and moved our curriculum forward in a positive direction.”

The project led to a modernized curriculum that is better equipped to serve students and meet the demands of the future. Ultimately, the successful implementation of a new curriculum system was not just about making a process more efficient, it was about ensuring academic quality and positive student outcomes.

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