It might not be a truly “once in a lifetime” opportunity Monday, but the visit of newly-minted State System of Higher Education Chancellor Daniel Greenstein to Slippery Rock University is a chance for students, faculty and staff members at the school to get involved with the system at a higher level.

So far Greenstein has proved to be a cautious and methodical chancellor. For example, rather than push ahead last week with a move that would allow the system’s 14 schools to set their own tuition, Greenstein urged the PASSHE board to delay their vote.

He told members that it first needed “a handful of well understood system goals,” before moving forward with the plan.

That’s a fairly blunt way of intimating that he’s not convinced the system — which has suffered greatly over the last eight years from enrollment losses and financial pressures — actually knows where it’s going.

It may have a plan — nearly two years worth of consulting work on how it can reimagine the way it operates virtually guarantees that — but what are the goals of that plan? What will the system look like after that plan is complete? And what, exactly, will be deemed a success?

In Greenstein’s opinion, PASSHE officials aren’t there yet. And it’s difficult to argue with him when he points out that leaders are still unable to cite specific guiding ideas for the shake-up.

Simply saying that we want our students and our universities to be successful isn’t wrong — but it’s not good enough, either. And neither is doing things simply because a report says they should be done.

So what does it mean that Greenstein is visiting SRU now, amid a continuing shake-up throughout PASSHE and pressure on the very top of the system’s leadership to do a better job of defining how they want the system to operate and why?

That’s up to SRU students, staff and faculty to determine. The quality and value of Greenstein’s visit to campus Monday will be based on whether people show up ready to ask good questions and have a real conversation with the former director of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s Postsecondary Success program.

Greenstein’s visit is one of many — he’s visiting all 14 PASSHE schools, in fact — across the state. But you only get one chance to make a first impression.