Welcome to the President’s Blog! I’m grateful you found your way here.
Over the course of my presidency at Harrisburg University of Science and Technology (HU), I will use this space to provide a glimpse into what’s happening on campus, share how our priorities are evolving, and aim to inspire you the way I’ve been inspired. This is a homecoming for me, and it certainly has felt like one.
I began my presidency at Harrisburg University on June 30, 2026, and I enjoyed a whirlwind first month. I’ve gotten to know the staff and faculty, heard from the students and learned their stories, and helped set in motion the institutional priorities that will drive us through the coming months and years. As we approach our 25th anniversary of incorporation in this Commonwealth, know there’s so much to celebrate, much to do, and much to look forward to.
Let me begin with a moment that happened before my first day.
Touring campus a few days before I officially started, I stopped into one of our advanced manufacturing labs and picked up a 3-D printed replica of a human heart. It was printed to scale from a patient’s CT scan: eerily accurate and lifelike. It’s an object a surgical team can hold and study before ever making an incision, and it represents a nexus of advanced fabrication technologies, patient-centeredness, and biotech research.
I am not a technology person by training. But this experience helped me understood something about HU that no briefing had quite captured. The work happening here is consequential. It changes what’s possible for patients, employers, and the state of Pennsylvania. And most of all, for the students. The commingling of talent and the extraordinary ways our learners work across disciplines are truly inspiring.
It’s been approximately one month since I became HU’s fourth president. I want to use this first post to share honestly what I have found, whom I have met, and where I believe we are headed.
Coming Home
There is a second reason this work means what it does to me, and it’s more personal.
I was born and raised in York. I earned my bachelor’s degree at Dickinson College in Carlisle. I spent much of my early life in and around Harrisburg, and I worked in this city during my summers at PennDOT. My career then took me across the Commonwealth — to Penn State Erie, The Behrend College; to Clarion University of Pennsylvania; to the Community College of Beaver County outside Pittsburgh — and, for the last eight years, across the Hudson River from New York to Jersey City, where I had the privilege of leading a community college serving 24,000 students.
I have now worked in nearly every sector of Pennsylvania higher education. And I have come back to the place I have always called home. What I did not anticipate was how literal that homecoming would turn out to be.
In my first weeks, I sat down with UPMC Regional President David Gibbons — a colleague and partner from years ago, when he led UPMC Northwest and I was executive dean at Clarion. We are working together again now, in Harrisburg, deepening a partnership that already places our nursing students in clinical rotations.
Not long after, I had dinner with Brian Hayden, president of PA Cyber, who served on my staff when I was president of the Community College of Beaver County. We spent the evening talking about what our two institutions might build together for Pennsylvania students.
There is something fitting about arriving at this particular moment. Harrisburg University is the only university headquartered in the city of Harrisburg and the capital city’s third-largest employer. As we approach 25 years, our future and this city’s are bound together. Growing HU’s impact means supporting the revitalization of Harrisburg, strengthening the workforce our regional employers depend on, and increasing the number of Pennsylvanians who hold a meaningful, life-changing postsecondary credential.
I cannot think of more meaningful work than bringing people together around that kind of change.
Listening First
On my first day, we held a University-wide Town Hall Meeting, exceedingly well attended by students, faculty, and staff both on campus and online. I made three commitments that day, and I will restate them here: I will listen before I lead. I will communicate openly and honestly, especially during difficult moments. And I will always strive to make decisions guided by our mission, our students, and the long-term success of this University.
I have been working to keep these promises. Over these first weeks, I have met with faculty, staff, and students throughout the University, and I have begun a listening tour with University departments and community members that will continue for months. Town Hall Meetings will now be held monthly. I have welcomed new students and their families at two full-day New Student Orientation sessions. I joined colleagues for the Women Thriving @ HU professional development seminar. And in one remarkable week, I learned of two successful doctoral defenses in our Computational Sciences program, with a third on the way.
What I have found is a faculty and staff of extraordinary dedication. The past several years have not been easy — not for HU, and not for higher education broadly. The resilience, commitment, and professionalism that brought this University to this moment are real, and they are a great part of why I am optimistic. We are a people enterprise. A mentor of mine once told me that happy universities are successful universities. I believe that. Our faculty and staff are by far our greatest institutional asset.
Beyond Our Walls
A university headquartered in a capital city ought to be woven into that city. Much of my first month was spent beyond 326 Market Street.
I met with UPMC Regional President David Gibbons, HU trustees, and UPMC leadership to deepen a partnership that already places our nursing students in clinical rotations. We agreed to continue meeting monthly.
Alongside LJ Holmes, executive director of the Center for Advanced Manufacturing and Materials (better known as STORMWERX) and Lorelee Isbell, vice president for external affairs and strategic growth, I represented HU at the Pennsylvania Defense and Innovation Summit at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, where our advanced and additive manufacturing capabilities drew genuine interest from leaders across defense, industry, government, and the military.
I also met with members of Pennsylvania’s legislative delegation about HU’s role in developing the Commonwealth’s workforce and supporting the economic vitality of downtown Harrisburg.
And I joined Trustee Jeannine Peterson to celebrate 16 graduates of the Hamilton Health Center Medical Assistant Training Program, hosted at HU in partnership with Harrisburg School District and Steelton-Highspire School District. In three years, that program has achieved an impressive 93% completion rate. Its graduates enter healthcare careers immediately — and I hope many will continue their education with us.
Where We Are Going
Let me name our priorities plainly.
- Growing and diversifying enrollment. University-wide entering new student enrollment is up more than 27% over last year, and our overall enrollment across all categories (credit and noncredit) exceeds 10,100 learners. Our new Doctor of Physical Therapy program reached 99 students in its first year. Our goal now is to diversify enrollment at every level, with particular focus on growing the number and proportion of domestic, local, and regional students.
- Keeping the students we have. Recruitment is just one step in changing lives; next comes retention. Our new 2026–30 Student Retention Plan is a data-informed roadmap built around four drivers: academic success, financial stability, engagement and belonging, and student wellness. Roughly one in five HU undergraduates is a first-generation student. Many work while they study. Many are raising children while they do both. If we want them to finish, we must attend to the whole life, not merely the transcript.
- Growing our reach into the region’s high schools. More than 1,600 students already take HU courses through College in High School and Dual Enrollment across more than 100 school districts. I want many more of them to walk through our doors after graduation, and I am exploring new high school academy models that would bring students onto our campus to work in our makerspace, our labs, and our advanced manufacturing facility.
- Advancing investment in HU. Over time, more of our budget should be funded by private, corporate, foundation, and granting-agency partners — and less by asking students and their families to pay more. Financial stability is not an end in itself; it is the means by which we carry out our mission.
- Building a plan we all own. We have begun developing a new strategic plan: a living document with specific goals, timelines, accountabilities, and metrics. It will be shaped by the entire University and the surrounding community, and it will guide us into our reaffirmation of accreditation with the Middle States Commission on Higher Education.
A New Front Door
You are reading this on a newly redesigned HarrisburgU.edu.
I want to thank our Marketing and Communications team, our Office of Information Services team, and our close friends at JPL for work that is far more than cosmetic. Our identity should reflect our University’s culture: we are nimble, entrepreneurial, future-focused, and devoted to delighting and enlightening our students, their families, and the wider community. This new site — cleaner, easier to navigate, and better on every device — brings our public face into alignment with the culture our people have built.
As we approach our 25th anniversary as a community of learners, there is much for which to be thankful, much to celebrate, and much more to do. I will keep writing here, and I will keep sharing what I’ve found and what inspires me. Please keep telling me what you think; my door is always open.
With gratitude,
Chris
