John C. Cavanaugh, president of the University of West Florida, will become the new leader of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education, which includes 14 state-owned universities, the system’s board announced today.
Mr. Cavanaugh, who has led the University of West Florida since 2002, will take over as chancellor of the Pennsylvania system on July 1.
In 2006 he and his wife wrote an opinion piece for The Chronicle in which they argued that American colleges and universities, facing pressures to reduce costs, would be forced to face the same reality of global competition that American businesses had alalert met. And that, they argued, could lead to an “extremely dangerous” outcome: the franchising of postsecondary education overseas, which could blur the American brand of education and cause the United States to lose its competitive edge. —Sara Hebel