SLIPPERY ROCK — William “Bill” Behre said he always planned to retire before he hit age 60, and now, approaching 58, he had a choice to make when considering another five-year contract as president of Slippery Rock University.

Ultimately, he chose to not pursue a new contract, and in February 2022, announced he would retire from his role effective June 30, 2023.

Sitting in his office Wednesday, June 14, with half-filled shelves and boxes of papers nearby, Behre said the choice made sense for university administration continuity as well.

“Stepping away at the end of this contract was the more responsible thing to do rather than get something started, get it maybe halfway and then step away,” Behre said. “While I am sad to be leaving, I still feel good about that decision.”

Behre became president in July 2018. His hiring by Pennsylvania's State System of Higher Education Board of Governors concluded a national search for a successor to former SRU president Cheryl Norton, who retired in July 2017.

At the time of his hiring, Behre had a bachelor's degree in economics from Vassar College, a master's degree in education from Hunter College of the City University of New York, and a Ph.D. in education with a focus on special education policy from the University of Michigan.

With less than one week until his departure from SRU, Behre reflected on the memories he has of The Rock, the best of which were interactions with students on campus.

“I will desperately miss the students,” Behre said. “There is nothing more exhilarating than hanging out with the marching band at a football game … Sitting in Boozel (Dining Hall) just listening to folks and finding out what's on their mind.”

Behre said that the coronavirus pandemic was a big marker of his presidency, striking just before his third year at SRU.

While administrators had to make numerous decisions regarding the health and safety of the university population, Behre said SRU made it through COVID-19 in better shape than other universities.

“We were not forced into some hard decisions … some people had to lay people off in the pandemic,” Behre said. “Our first-year class is going to look strong, our finances are strong, and we made it through, at least I hope, the worst couple years of our lives.”

Domenic Ionta, chairman of SRU’s council of trustees, said he was happy for Behre’s leadership through the pandemic. Ionta was appointed to the council of trustees in February 2020.

“Probably one of the biggest things is I got on right when we had COVID, and he was dealing with COVID,” Ionta said. “I thought he did an excellent job with how he handled the situation. He had one thing jumping after another with that.”

According to Behre, the university has been able to increase its enrollment since 2020 — the incoming class is the largest since the pandemic began. He said that although the pandemic put a halt to several of his plans and initiatives, the university is in recovery.

“The numbers today are much more like the numbers before the pandemic than the last couple years,” Behre said. “It feels like the wood pile is going OK.”

Behre said one of his initiatives for the university was to increase student diversity.

At the beginning of his presidency, he listed a number of goals for his time in office related to that, including building a “truly inclusive campus,” increasing financial aid, focusing on affordability and continuing to emphasize educational outcomes with a particular focus on addressing achievement gaps.

Looking back on his five years at the school, Behre said some of the struggles with affordability continue at SRU.

“There was and still are issues of affordability and diversity that this institution has to struggle with,” Behre said. “We're still very affordable, but for the least-wealthy in our communities, it's still very difficult for them to come here, and that's something we haven't stopped.”

Jeff Smith, a member of the council of trustees, said Behre’s focus on diversity, equity, inclusion and belonging at the university, including bringing in Anthony Jones as chief diversity officer, led it in a positive direction. Smith also commented on Behre’s work in bringing together the university and the SRU Foundation.

“His restructuring of the university advancement function and how the university and its foundation function together was valuable to the school,” Smith said.

Behre said he leaned toward another tuition increase before the pandemic, because Slippery Rock has some of the lowest fees in the PASSHE system, despite tuition being the same at each school.

“I have always had a notion — and it's not just me, it's actually a model in higher education — that you charge a little bit more and then you provide a little more financial aid for your most needy students,” Behre said. “I always thought we could raise our tuition just a little bit, keep ourselves in the middle of the system, and then increase our financial aid a little bit.”

Behre also said the university’s push to improve mental health services was important to him, after facing the first student suicides in a decade during his first year.

“We have built an incredibly strong mental health support infrastructure on this campus as a direct result of that,” Behre said. “We have a triage structure that reaches out to them, helps them; we are able to refer people off campus if they need a hospital. We could do it before, but it was less robust.”

In 2022, California, Clarion and Edinboro universities merged to become Pennsylvania Western University, or PennWest; and Bloomsburg, Mansfield and Lock Haven merged to become Commonwealth University.

Behre said he doesn’t foresee SRU merging with any other schools in the state system, in part because the legislation that allowed the merger to take place is expiring, but also because the university is financially robust.

“Slippery Rock right now has no substantial financial worries, except all the other schools,” Behre said. “We're in very good shape; it's just the system has to be in good shape for us to thrive.”

Smith said SRU navigated the merger of the six universities well, thanks to Behre.

“He was a strong voice for Slippery Rock University at the PASSHE level during the early stages of … consolidation in the system,” Smith said.

Behre said it likely would be several more years before PASSHE would reconsider any type of merger.

“I think what would have to happen first is you'd have to see really strong stabilization at PennWest and Commonwealth University and real proof of concept that these things work,” he said.

Behre said he believes he is leaving the university in good shape for his successor, Karen Riley, who will take over July 1.

He said university reserves have increased from $50 million to $80 million in five years.

Behre added that the university is about $28 million in debt, much of which is in bonds for building improvement projects. He said money from the reserve could be used to pay off debt, but it also could be put toward paying for infrastructure projects on campus.

“In truth, the things a university like this really needs are not the cool fancy stuff that people like to see,” Behre said. “It's plumbing, it's roofs, it's HVAC systems. And we could spend almost all of it on that.”

Behre said he doesn’t plan to hold a position as high as university president again, but he would consider work in higher education, or at a nonprofit that interests him. He and his wife, Leah, are moving to Maine to be closer to family, and Behre said he is looking forward to a relaxing summer, followed by a return to interesting work.

“I'm defining retirement as I'm going to take on projects that interest me, not because I need a job,” Behre said. “I'm really looking forward to the next steps.”