Dr. Joseph DeRenzo is running again for an alumni-elected seat on Penn State’s Board of Trustees, and he says his motivation remains rooted in the same place it always has been. As a two-time Penn State graduate, a physician, and a longtime educator, he believes he can help fill a gap in expertise that the university itself has identified.
“I really value my relationship with Penn State,” DeRenzo said. “As I progress in my career, it’s been increasingly important to me to give back. I really want to give back as much as I can. I think I have a degree of expertise that’s missing from the board that I may be able to help with.”
DeRenzo points to the Board of Trustees’ Skills and Demographics Report, which outlines the areas of experience the board aims to include. He highlighted the report during last year’s campaign, but says the gap in healthcare and higher education representation has widened since then.
“Penn State trains clinicians and health science professionals, but the board really only has one trustee listed on the demographic report with healthcare expertise, and only four with higher education,” he said. “If you look at the demographic report, the goal for those is the highest. It’s nine for each of those. And it’s actually gone down from last year. I believe there were three in healthcare last year.”
He emphasized that the issue is not about criticizing the board’s current members. Instead, he believes certain conversations require firsthand experience from people who work in clinical and academic environments every day.
“There are certain conversations that require more experience and experts at the table that I think are very important to the university,” he said. “There are decisions that have to be made about curriculum, accreditation, research investment, the partnerships, the healthcare partnerships that I mentioned. From where I sit, I see how these systems and these educational arrangements function day to day.”
DeRenzo says the intersection of healthcare delivery and higher education governance is where his background is most relevant. He currently serves as chief of anesthesiology at UPMC Magee-Womens Hospital, directs multiple clinical divisions, and oversees a fellowship program while teaching medical students, residents, and fellows.
“At a large institution like Penn State, whose reputation is really dependent on building the next generation of leaders, whether it be in clinical care, research, and other partnerships,” he said, “I think where they intersect is curriculum and program development for nursing, medicine, and all the health sciences, health policy, administration, and biobehavioral health. There are a number of majors at Penn State, undergraduate and even at the graduate level, and extending to Hershey Medical Center, where those program developments and curriculum are really important.”
He also pointed to research priorities, biomedical investment, and clinical partnerships as areas where trustees need to understand how decisions affect students, faculty, and the broader healthcare ecosystem.
“Students obviously need to be thought of, their well-being, their mental health, all those things,” he said. “Just having the perspective of working in higher education and seeing residents and medical students training in this environment, I know the impact that that can have on themselves.”
Last year, DeRenzo emphasized that he was not running with a predetermined agenda. He says that remains true, even as he speaks more directly about aligning governance with Penn State’s healthcare mission.
“I would say that the underlying approach has not changed,” he said. “My message really has not changed, in a sense that trustees really should listen first, collaborate, and really avoid coming in, I believe, with rigid agendas or rigid ideas. Because on the outside, where I sit right now, I don’t know the whole story, really, of anything that I read in the paper or hear people talk about. I don’t really know all those details.”
What has changed, he says, is how clearly he is pointing to the skills report.
“What really changed is putting a little more clarity on the skills and demographics report,” he said. “Since they’re underrepresented, highlighting that gap is really important. But highlighting that gap isn’t really an agenda. It’s really just responding directly to the university’s stated needs.”
DeRenzo also pointed to workforce shortages and rising mental health needs as challenges that have grown significantly in recent years. He believes these issues require long-term planning and a clear understanding of how training pipelines and clinical environments operate.
“Every year, they become more and more, I feel, defining features of healthcare and healthcare education,” he said. “We have sustained workforce shortages across nursing, primary care, anesthesia, behavioral health, all the allied health providers. Right now, healthcare has shortages in all those areas that the educational systems currently are not meeting the demand.”
He said the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated retirements and strained training programs in ways that universities and health systems are still trying to address.
“When a large portion of the workforce leaves unexpectedly, what we had in place to manage that attrition is all of a sudden irrelevant and needs to be completely changed, and it’s really hard to keep up,” he said. “We really need to kind of expand how we do healthcare delivery, things like telemedicine, new technology, and then just the competitiveness of Penn State, balancing education, research, clinical operations, to draw the best trainees to the state and to the university.”
DeRenzo says his leadership roles have shaped how he approaches governance. He describes his work as rooted in shared leadership and collaboration.
“Everything I do along the way has to be collaborative,” he said. “Everything involves a complex system, and it’s really best when people with different expertise, different experience, bring different thoughts and ideas to the table so that you do develop shared ideas and shared decision making.”
He believes that model aligns closely with how the Board of Trustees operates.
“Balancing education, the operations, the quality, the resources, it really aligns, I think, closely with how the board’s responsibility is to balance the mission, the strategy, the sustainability,” he said. “I hope to bring that to the board by bringing another dimension in healthcare.”
If elected, DeRenzo says he expects to contribute most immediately in areas tied to healthcare education, clinical partnerships, research strategy, and workforce development.
“We train physicians, nurses, the advanced practice providers, public health professionals, graduate and undergraduate both,” he said. “I think decisions affecting these programs will benefit from trustees who understand how the training pipeline works, how the clinical environment operates, how academic medical centers balance competing priorities.”
Asked what he wants voters to understand about his campaign, DeRenzo pointed to his approach rather than his résumé.
“I think that every situation that I come to, I do with my entire heart and with passion and with goodwill and good intentions,” he said. “I envision a board made up of people that feel that same way and work in that same way to be an ideal board, people that have the university and the alumni and the greater good and mission at the forefront of their best interests.”
The election of trustees by alumni begins April 20 and will continue through May 7. More information on how to cast your vote can be found here.
Editor’s note: DeRenzo’s interview is one of a multi-part series aiming to feature alumni running for open seats on the Board of Trustees. Onward State does not, and will not, endorse any candidate(s) in this election. Check out our site to read more about the remaining candidates vying for spots on the board throughout this year’s election cycle.
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