Stress, uncertainty mark end of Penn State semester as campus closure decision looms

Yahoo

10-05-2025

Heather Page has worked for three years at Penn State Fayette, a campus she loves and hopes her children will one day attend. But this past semester, the atmosphere at the campus was 'very bleak,' she said, with her colleagues riddled with stress while they await word on whether the campus will still exist by the time her kids are ready for college.
'The sun shiniest people I know are now just shadows of themselves, just from the stress,' Page, a student engagement and outreach librarian, told the CDT in a recent interview. 'It would be one thing if we were getting transparency from the administration, but the way we're being treated is just like, incredibly disrespectful to professional people who dedicated their time and lives here, and to our students who are here on purpose and sought out this education.'
Penn State Fayette is one of 12 commonwealth campuses under consideration for closure, an announcement that came in February. Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi said a final decision on which will close would come in May, but guaranteed the seven largest campuses would remain open and invested in. Beaver, DuBois, Fayette, Greater Allegheny, Hazleton, Mont Alto, New Kensington, Schuylkill, Shenango, Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and York could close.
Enrollment is just one factor the university will use to make the decision; across the 12 campuses under consideration for closure, enrollment has declined by 39% over the last 10 years, according to university data. They'll also consider the university's evolving land-grant mission, population shifts, student experience and success, and the higher education landscape in Pennsylvania.
But for Page and others closely connected to commonwealth campuses, there's more to consider than data and trends.
'I know that all of our faculty and staff are dedicated across all commonwealth campuses, so I'm not knocking anyone else,' Page said. 'It's just, these are my people, and I see them every day, and I see what they do and how they go above and beyond helping students — like giving them money out of their own pocket if their car breaks down or they can't afford gas. Just the most altruistic people are here at Fayette. I just see how much people love their students and their colleagues, and I'm like, how can you even think of closing this?'
Josh Wede, faculty senate chair, painted a grim picture of employee morale during an April 29 meeting when he said morale is lower now than it was during the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal over a decade ago.
Part of that stems from what is happening at the campuses, he said.
'Morale is low. It is lower than I have ever seen it,' he said. 'I mean, I've been here for a while, even Sandusky, when I thought Sandusky was about as low as it can get, it is far lower now. And if we want to get back to the greatness that Penn State can be — and there are some great things happening right now but it doesn't feel like it — we have to work on improving morale.'
He acknowledged that there are challenges with the campuses that have been present for a while. But how the administration has approached the closures has left some feeling like there's a lack of evidence to support the decision.
'We expect to make decisions based on evidence. And what is happening now with the campus closures, to me, does not feel like we are evaluating everything that we possibly can, that we are looking at other opportunities that might exist, and I hope there is serious consideration taken for pausing what we're doing ... this is a decision that is going to impact Penn State for generations, we need to get this right,' Wede said.
Michelle Rodino-Colocino, president of Penn State chapter of the American Association of University Professors, said in a phone interview the announcement has been one more source of stress. Amid national attacks on higher education, she said, this attack is 'coming from inside the house.'
It's been a stressful and destabilizing time, Angela Pettitt, an associate teaching professor at Penn State Shenango, said in a phone interview. She learned in January that her contract would not be renewed, but is able to transfer to Penn State DuBois next year with a one-year contract.
Now she's waiting to find out if either — or both — of those campuses will close.
Pettitt is grateful to have a job, especially looking at the national landscape and federal government employees who have been abruptly laid off, and is sympathetic to the decisions campus administrations have had to make. But it's still disorienting.
'I have a job. I have a paycheck coming in. I'm still part of Penn State. I'm still getting to do the work that I love, but for how long? And why? We still don't really have a really good sense of why what we're doing isn't valuable to the university. I think that hurts more than anything,' Pettitt said.
In a written statement, Tracy Langkilde, interim executive vice president and provost, said she knows the discussions around the campuses are personal for students, faculty, staff, alumni and local communities. The leadership team believes in the mission of educating students and creating opportunities across Pennsylvania, she said. While the decisions they're making will put Penn State in a position to continue thriving well into the future, she said they're not being made lightly.
'While the future shape of our Commonwealth Campus ecosystem is still under consideration, I can say that throughout this process, we will remain steadfast in our commitment to our students, and their experience and success at Penn State. We also are working with care to minimize the impact of changes on our employees,' Langkilde said. 'While there are still many questions to be answered, we have workstreams working to address the complexities for our faculty, staff and students at the forefront of our work. Our teams are developing extensive transition plans to support members of our community.'
She continued: 'With resolve, collaboration, and patience, I believe Penn State will emerge from this transformation stronger, more resilient, and more focused on our mission than ever before.'
She pointed to the commencement ceremonies planned for the weekend as a reminder of why they do what they do, and of the impact a Penn State education has on thousands of students and families. As the university community celebrates the achievements of the gradates, there's reflection, hope and anticipation for what lies ahead, she said.
'That same forward-looking spirit is guiding these efforts as we work to evolve and strengthen Penn State's promise for future generations,' Langkilde said.
Bendapudi's announcement came after weeks of closure rumors and the administration avoiding giving direct answers on the matter. At that point, low employee morale was already an issue as commonwealth campuses had seen budget cuts, a voluntary buyout program that hit staff especially hard and a shift to a regional leadership model.
Since the administration introduced a new budget model, Pettitt said it was clear it wasn't a sustainable model and the campuses couldn't meet the expectations. But she said they were told this wasn't the first step in closure, and later that closures would be a last resort.
'So it was like, first it was off the table, then it was a last resort. So it's been this kind of progression of when you look back in hindsight, you kind of can see some of the writing on the wall,' she said.
Margo DelliCarpini, vice president for commonwealth campuses and executive chancellor, Langkilde and Michael Wade Smith, senior vice president and chief of staff, are co-leading a group that will give Bendapudi a final recommendation of which remaining campuses should close.
Bendapudi is expected to give her recommendation to the board of trustees later this month. The board will have to take action on the recommendation before it is official.
Some faculty members feel like they've been given mixed messages about the driving factor behind the decision to close campuses. In Bendapudi's initial announcement, she cited financial pressures as one thing Penn State and higher education in general is facing that 'require us to make difficult choices.' During an April 1 faculty senate meeting, Bendapudi said the closure decision is not driven by financial savings but rather student success, experience and other factors.
But what 'student experience' or 'student success' means is unclear.
'...They have refused to define the student experience, time and again, so we have no idea what they mean,' Page said. 'It's a different campus from University Park but every campus has unique qualities, unique faculty and staff support, and outstanding quality. Because this is Penn State. We're not going to drop our standards no matter what.'
And the idea that commonwealth campuses do not provide a robust student experience stung — and seemed counterproductive — to some.
Pettitt said she understands the student experience piece to some degree, because the students at campuses don't have the course offerings, student organizations or facilities that larger campuses or University Park have.
But just as importantly, she said, some students aren't looking for that.
'We do have a lot of students who do just kind of want to come to campus, take their classes, and then they have competing priorities in their lives,' she said. 'They have families and children, and there's a reason that they chose to come somewhere where they can commute. ... They don't want to live in a dorm, they don't want huge classes.'
Tuition is also less expensive at the campuses compared to University Park, and the majority of students at campuses are from the county the campus is located in, or a surrounding county, so they're able to live at home, reducing living expenses.
Pettitt also questions if the students would remain in the Penn State system once campuses close, or if they'll lose them to other local universities. Or they might forgo a college education completely, she said.
Brian Bannon's daughter is a second year student at Penn State Mont Alto — a school she attended specifically for its forestry major. The campus is a 'microcosm of the entire point of Penn State' and the land grant mission, Bannon said.
Penn State Mont Alto was founded in 1903 as the Pennsylvania State Forest Academy and was one of the first public forestry schools in the country. It later merged with Penn State and became a commonwealth campus.
'It's kind of a cool little campus. It has a big nursing program and forestry are kind of the two big things there, two things we need,' Bannon said, alluding to the significant economic impact of the state's forestry industry and a nurse shortage.
Langkilde in an April 1 faculty senate meeting said once they identify which campuses will close, they'll work on ensuring the right programs are offered in the right place to be able to serve local communities. The Academic Portfolio and Program Review data will be informative in that process, she said.
'We've already got some people working on this but that's going to be a big stage once we've identified what the remaining campuses are,' Langkilde said.
Bendapudi previously said no campuses would close before the end of the 2026-27 academic year. Bannon's daughter won't be directly affected by a campus closure because she's doing the 2+2 program and will have moved to University Park or graduated by the time any campuses close, but he's still concerned about the impact to morale.
He's worried about the current educational impact too, after seeing some of her classes move to an online format.
'You're supposed to have an in-person class and you end up being remote, that's a whole different thing, especially in forestry,' Bannon said. 'In forestry, they would go out on hikes and walk through the forest, they would tag and name trees. They would cut down trees in certain areas and things as part of their program. So then to have a class that's by Zoom, is a major difference, not exactly what we thought we were paying for.'
A Penn State alum who attended a commonwealth campus himself, Bannon is frustrated with the lack of transparency from the university and wonders what Penn State's financial priorities are, pointing to different multi-million dollar projects around the university, like the recently opened Palmer Museum of Art, or the Beaver Stadium renovation project.
Bendapudi has emphasized the $700 million stadium renovation project does not use any tuition or state funding, and the Penn State athletic department has raised nearly $131 million in funding from gifts to go toward the project.
'I understand it's a different pot of money but the stuff that's going on at Beaver Stadium could probably sustain Mont Alto for 100 years. Six, seven hundred kids could learn for the next generation based on what we're trying to do to build some luxury suites for some really well heeled alumni. So the priorities seem to be not in line with the original land grant,' Bannon said.
With the campus closure decision looming, hundreds of students and employees are waiting to hear what their future may hold. Rodino-Colocino hopes the trustees hear everyone's concerns when they meet to vote on Bendapudi's recommendation.
'I hope the trustees are moved by the voices they're hearing from the students and the faculty and the staff across the system, at University Park and at all the campuses, whether or not they're under threat of being cut,' she said, and also hopes students and faculty and staff come together, organize to fight for campuses to remain open.
Pettitt echoed something a faculty senator mentioned during their last meeting when they compared the commonwealth campus system to the athletics programs at the university. In a 'perfect world,' she said, Penn State would subsidize the campuses in the same way it subsidizes smaller athletic programs that don't drive revenue.
'The same way that any major organization, you have a budget as a whole and the areas that are flush and profitable help subsidize those that aren't as much but still provide a valuable, worthwhile service,' she said. 'I think the education that we provide, the jobs that we provide, the research that the faculty are doing at the campuses is worth preserving, is worth funding and keeping us going.'