This article originally appeared on pages 4 to 9 of the Sept. 2026 edition of The Gettysburgian magazine
By Brandon Fey, Editor-in-Chief
Over the summer of 2026, Gettysburg College has undergone restructuring changes across several offices and programs on campus. While there are multiple reasons behind the changes, several have stemmed from the new VSIP program and reduction in support staff. The following information is from certain campus offices that responded to requests for updates.
VSIP and the Musselman Library
On Feb. 16, 2026, the College launched a Voluntary Separation Incentive Program (VSIP), which offers enhanced financial benefits to eligible employees in exchange for their choosing to end their employment at the College. VSIP agreements were offered to about 50 employees: administrators in Dining Services and Catering, administrators and support staff in the Musselman Library and administrative support staff from various departments and programs. Eligibility for the program included at least five years of continuous full-time employment as of June 1, 2026.
At the time of the launch of the VSIP, Chief Communications and Marketing Officer Jamie Yates stated that the program was planned to create organizational flexibility for the College and to provide financial support for employees who had planned to leave the College.
The College had instituted similar programs in the past decade, including two Faculty Retirement Incentive Programs (FRIPs) before the COVID-19 pandemic, and an earlier VSIP program in 2022 for full-time administrators over the age of 55 who had worked at Gettysburg for at least 10 years. However, the current VSIP iteration is offered to employees who are not nearing retirement.
Yates stated that programs like the VSIP are being implemented across other colleges and universities, citing a demographic cliff in the number of college-aged people as a result of the 2008 financial crisis, in addition to changing trends in national university enrollment.
The College has declined to share the number of VSIP offers that have been accepted since the program launched.
The Musselman Library has had four staff members depart over the summer through VSIP agreements: Assistant Dean and Director of Collections and Technical Services Jeremy Garskof, Assistant Dean for Scholarly Communications and Graduate Programs Janelle Wertzberger, Reserves Coordinator Lisa McNamee and Stacks and Offsite Storage Coordinator Paulette Blount. At the same time, the library has had two employees retire: former Research and Access Services Librarian (and part-time librarian as of the 2025-26 academic year) Betsy Bein and Special Collections Assistant Ron Couchman. As of late September, the library does not plan on replacing any of the six former staff and administrators at any time in the future, and has divided their tasks among remaining staff. Wertzberger’s former office (016) on the lower level of the library has been converted into a second reservable study room.
Support Staff Reassignments
There has also been a considerable reorganization over the summer of administrative support staff for academic departments and programs. The total number of support staff has been reduced, and the remaining eighteen support staff have been assigned more programs to support. These staff were among those offered the VSIP.
At a faculty meeting on Sept. 10, Provost Jamila Bookwala spoke about the reorganization, stating that the support staff assigned to more programs have received salary increases commensurate with their positions and years at the College, as well as the new title of academic operations assistant.
The Provost’s Office also sent a list of links to department chairs with information on how faculty can manage former support staff tasks that they have now inherited due to the support staff reduction. Information included vehicle and travel booking; travel reimbursement submission; risk management forms for trips; hiring, onboarding, timesheet submission and approval for student employees; and purchasing and ordering supplies.
Yates stated that the changes in administrative support involved discussions with faculty, administrative assistants and other campus offices as well as a review of staffing needs and opportunities to voice feedback. She said that the reorganization “will continue to be evaluated and refined as we [the administration] learn from its implementation.”
Under the new system, the academic operations assistants for anthropology, Ancient Greek and Roman studies, history, interdisciplinary studies, Jewish studies, international & global studies, Middle Eastern and Islamic studies, women gender & sexuality studies, the newly combined philosophy & religious studies, public health policy and public policy are Andrea Switzer and Amanda Martin.
Assistants for computer science, management, mathematics, political science, sociology, teacher certification and the Center for Quantitative Learning are Valerie Andrews, Jordana Hudson and Liz Hedin-Schmidt.
Economics, finance, Africana studies and peace & justice studies are assigned to Sue Holz and Suzanne Gockowski.
Biology, biochemistry & molecular biology, chemistry & biochemistry, environmental studies, health sciences, physics, psychology, X-SIG, Health Professions, AI, the Johnson Center for Creative Teaching and Learning, Phi Beta Kappa, STEM Scholars and the Hatter Planetarium are assigned to Christine Hopkinson, Emily Benson, Kristi Waybright and Lea Czar.
English, East Asian studies, cinema & media studies, communication studies and the Writing Center are assigned to Carol Coon and Lyn Myers.
The newly combined French & Italian studies, German studies, Spanish and Latin American, Caribbean and Latino studies are assigned to Robin Oliver.
The Eisenhower Institute, Civil War Institute, Civil War era studies and public history are assigned to Ann Wofford.
Theater arts, the Sunderman Conservatory, art & art history and the art gallery are assigned to Liz Hedin-Schmidt, Triada Chavis and Leslie Casteel.
The Eisenhower and Civil War Institutes have each reported pursuing new measures to compensate for the loss of their own specialized support staff members. The two institutes now share a single academic coordinator who divides her duties among them and two other academic programs.
Eisenhower Institute (EI) Executive Director Tracie Potts reported that to compensate for the limited support staff role, EI has distributed additional administrative responsibilities among other staff in Gettysburg and at its Washington, D.C. office. She said that this change has created a “domino effect” on the total work of the staff.
“These changes are a reality now, and we’re all working together so they’ll have minimal impact on student programming and services,” Potts commented.
Additional changes to EI involve the departure of Expert-in-Residence Susan Eisenhower in December. The departure, which was announced by the College last April, has led EI to retire the Strategy and Leadership in Transformational Times (SALTT) capstone seminar, which had been taught by Eisenhower since 2011 to over 150 students in total. Eisenhower delivered her farewell lecture on Sept. 14 at an event in the CUB ballroom to begin this year’s EI Democracy Week.
EI has also welcomed three new and one returning program expert this fall. These include government relations expert Maia Comeau as director of the Fielding Center for Presidential Leadership Study, former foreign service officer Dana Banks to lead a new Global Focus seminar on economic development in Africa, as well as Gettysburg Mayor and public policy professor Alison Lintal, who will advise students in developing a business plan to support long-term affordable housing in Adams County, Pennsylvania. Lintal will work with returning educational consultant Emily Samose ’95, who is directing a yearlong seminar studying the impact of federal funding cuts on American communities.
The Civil War Institute (CWI) has experienced a change in leadership over the summer after Professor of Interdisciplinary Studies and History Ian Isherwood resigned as institute director in late June to spend more time teaching, conducting research and serving in other roles on the faculty council and Gettysburg 2.0 Committee.
Former CWI Associate Director Dr. Jill Titus has reassumed the role of interim director, which she had held from 2024-2025. Isherwood continues to direct the Civil War era studies program, co-direct the public history program with Titus and has a new role as CWI faculty affiliate, thus remaining involved with the institute.
Titus reported that she feels that the “two and a half person [referring to the shared academic coordinator] CWI staff is spread thin” in supporting all its current initiatives.
Office of Campus Life
The former Office of Student Activities & Greek Life (OSAGL), Office of Residential Education and Office of Student Rights and Responsibilities have merged on June 1 into the new Office of Campus Life. The merger was originally announced in December 2026.
The creation of the new office was inspired by similar models at other colleges liberal arts colleges to combine all aspects of student social experiences into a single office, given that the staff of the three former offices had been reduced in prior years.
The Office of Campus Life is led by Associate Dean of College Life Jon Allen, who had previously served as director of OSAGL. Under Allen, the campus life administrative staff comprise two overlapping divisions.
The “operations” division of the office is headed by Assistant Dean of College Life Danielle Phillips, who previously served as director of Residential Education. This division is focused on conduct, housing management and housing finance and events, including relevant technical support.
The “programmatic” division is directly under Allen and focuses on residential staff, Greek life and student activities.
The office is under the newly formed College Life and Operations Division at the College, which is overseen by Vice President for College Life and Institutional Operations Anne Ehrlich. This division was formed out of the former College Life and Finance & Administration divisions.
College Life will also assume a new responsibility in managing audio-visual support in classrooms, which had originally been the task of the Information Technology Office but was transferred as part of a desire to offer on-call assistance after business hours. The Office recently hired Matthew Phillips as an audiovisual technology manager to oversee AV support.
The new office has also reshuffled student employment positions from its former offices. The CUB information desk will now be staffed only on “major weekends” when the College expects large numbers of visitors. This is because campus life offers the same service during the week through its student office staff assistants who work out of the CUB 220 office. The office has also created new positions, including student logistics teams that assist with event setup, and student compliance coordinators to assist with student organizations and module training. While there are fewer residential and community advisor positions given the decrease in College housing, College Life has sought to balance vacant roles from the former offices with new positions.
“We are already starting to see benefits through student support and the integration of the full student experience,” Associate Dean of College Life Jon Allen commented about the new office.
Dining Services
Over the summer, Board Operations Manager Joe Wheeler (known to students as “Servo Joe”) and Purchasing Manager Chuck Lovett retired after several years in Dining Services. These positions will not be replaced and their responsibilities have been distributed among remaining members of the Dining Service Leadership Team. Lead Retail Dining Supervisor Tristan Gibbon also left in July for unspecified reasons, and Dining Services is currently looking to fill his position.
Servo has replaced the salad and yogurt bars with a new cold bar that combines yogurt, salad and a deli station in one location. Dining Services cited “significant mechanical issues” with the previous salad and yogurt bars as the reason for the new cold bar.
Another change has been the removal of The Grill on Lincoln in the back of Servo, where patrons had been able to get grilled items during dining hours. The space has been converted over the summer into a seating area for faculty and staff. Dining Services attributed this change to decreased student enrollment and lower usage data than when the grill opened in 2018.
As of the fall semester 2026, Servo has also switched to self-service across all meal periods and serving areas, which had originally been in place for Saturday dinner hours only. Under this system, dining staff no longer serve uniform portions to patrons, who now serve themselves in any quantity they wish. Dining Services has stated that the transition was made as part of a greater effort to allow meal customization and has reported observing that patrons now make fewer trips to the serving line and use fewer dishes for their meals. However, students have reported that this change has also led to more frequent meal substitutions in busier dining shifts and longer lines.
In addition, Lite Fare is now available daily from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. in Servo, and The Bullet Hole now offers Halal hamburgers and a weekly rotation of special menu items. Dining Services also recently became part of the new College Life and Institutional Operations Division.
Dining Services was among the campus institutions that were offered VSIP agreements, though it did not specifically reference the status of this when contacted.
Center for Student Success and Writing Center
At a Sept. 10 faculty meeting, Dean of Academic Advising and Student Success Josef Brandauer presented new initiatives at the Center for Student Success (CSS).
This semester, CSS has begun working with incoming students to build study skills at the beginning of their academic careers, in an effort to be more proactive as opposed to acting as a purely retroactive service for those who are struggling. The center has held study skills and integrity sessions for over 300 incoming first-year students across over half of the first-year seminar courses, the instructors of which have reported a positive effect on student academic performance. Professors of non-participating seminars were given relevant materials.
CSS is encouraging faculty to use the Navigate platform to report concerns about students and refer students to the center, as the site can compile forms from multiple offices, including Counseling and Wellness.
The center is also requesting that all students receive at least one progress report this semester, as only 12% received any last semester. On Navigate, students are only able to see their own progress reports and cannot see any other reports or concerns filed by a faculty member.
There have also been changes to the access and navigation of the Kuali site, and course drop forms are no longer paper and are now through Kuali as well.
CSS lost Associate Dean for Student Success Christopher Bloomford over the summer and plans to find a replacement.
In addition, CSS is working with the College AI initiative to address academic integrity in terms of AI usage. The Honor Commission, which operates under CSS, has processed an increased number of AI-related cases, having amounted to over 100 in the past year.
At the same meeting, English professor Christopher D’Addario and English lecturer Melissa Forbes reported new plans for the Writing Center.
The center plans to offer more specialized writing-tutoring for specific classes and departments, and a consulting model for students to give specialized help to other students with different kinds of writing. There is also interest in making the Writing Center into the official hub of all writing activities on campus for students and faculty, beyond its current focus only helping students who are struggling. The planned expansions intend to make the center a resource for all writing needs, including faculty publications and fellowship applications.
The changes will be part of a three-year evolution, which includes applying for grant money to remodel the office in Breidenbaugh 109, and creating semester-long training programs for student consultants with different writing specializations. The center also intends to provide pedagogical, professional and AI-specific support and resources for faculty, as well as career-centered workshops that will include club partnerships and outreach events to teach about continued relevance of writing skills in an AI world.
In addition, the center will run a three-semester program to help develop inclusivity in writing.
The Writing Center is also in the process of hiring three writing fellows to conduct research on student and faculty perceptions of the center to inform the expansion.
Counseling and Wellness Services.
Over the summer, Counseling and Wellness Services received a grant from the PA Liquor Control Board to run new programs over the next two years to reduce underage and dangerous drinking. The office has hired a new wellness coordinator with expanded hours, Antonio Ambris, to assist with grant programming in addition to a fourth PEEP peer counselor position.
It has also ended its contract with the tele-therapy provider BetterMynd, stating that the service had been “significantly underutilized.”
Beyond that, a “Wellness Garden” is being built behind the building with donor support, which will act as a new gathering space on campus.
