Tag: Penn

  • Penn State Closure Plan Prompts Sharp Reactions

    Penn State Closure Plan Prompts Sharp Reactions

    As Pennsylvania State University’s Board of Trustees prepares to decide the fate of seven of its 19 Commonwealth Campuses where enrollment has collapsed over a decade, faculty, lawmakers and some board members are questioning the university’s commitment to the state and say administrators haven’t been transparent about their decision-making process.

    University administrators say the enrollment numbers alone don’t support keeping open the seven campuses slated to close. Several of those campuses have seen enrollment fall by more than 40 percent since fall 2014.

    Penn State’s Board of Trustees met last week in a private executive session but did not vote on the plan. They’re expected to do so Thursday.

    President Neeli Bendapudi has made the case for the closures, arguing such actions are necessary, as the university can no longer sustain all of its branch campuses financially amid severe enrollment declines. She proposed closing the Dubois, Fayette, Mont Alto, New Kensington, Shenango, Wilkes-Barre and York campuses. Those campuses enroll almost 3,200 students altogether, the largest of which is Penn State York with 703 students last fall. The smallest is Shenango, which enrolled 309 students in fall 2024.

    Now, as the proposal nears the finish line, its fate is up the air and Bendapudi is facing concerns about the process of reaching the seven names.

    A ‘Difficult But Necessary’ Plan

    University leadership began drawing up those plans in February after a difficult year for higher education across the Keystone State. Four universities in the state shut down (or ended degree programs, as in the case of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts) in 2024. The closures were mostly brought on by enrollment challenges, though some were dogged by concerns about fiscal mismanagement.

    University administrators spent the last several months reviewing 12 campuses for possible closure before the list of seven leaked to media outlets last week.

    Officials in a 143-page document cast the plan as “difficult but necessary decisions to ensure its long-term sustainability, allowing for continued investment in student success and dynamic learning environments for years to come” amid plunging enrollment and broad demographic challenges.

    Officials argued that the seven campuses identified for closure “face overlapping challenges, including enrollment and financial decline, low housing occupancy, and significant maintenance backlog.” They added that “projected low enrollments pose challenges for creating the kind of robust on-campus student experience that is consistent with the Penn State brand” and would require significant investments, including $200 million for facilities alone.

    “I believe the recommendation balances our need to adapt to the changing needs of Pennsylvania with compassion for those these decisions affect, both within Penn State and across the commonwealth,” Bendapudi said in a statement when the plan was released.

    She added that there is a two-year timeline for closing campuses, so they wouldn’t shut down until the end of the spring 2027 semester.

    Now the plan heads to the 36-member Board of Trustees. However, some trustees have openly expressed their opposition to the proposal.

    Jay Paterno is one of several board members who have pushed back on the plan, writing an op-ed last month with four other trustees that argued Penn State should explore other options.

    In an interview with Inside Higher Ed, Paterno criticized the proposal as rushed.

    “We’ve been presented with two options. One is the status quo, which everybody knows is not viable and is kind of a straw man. The other option is to close all seven campuses,” he said.

    Given that the costs of operating those campuses comprise “less than half of 1 percent of our budget,” Paterno said the board should take more time to explore solutions. He argues that the university has not tried to leverage fundraising to support struggling Commonwealth Campuses and that the administration should slow the process down and reach out to potential donors.

    “We’d rather be a year late than a day early,” Paterno said.

    He also noted the decision to close campuses is not Penn State’s alone. The university is state-affiliated but not state-owned, which gives it a greater degree of autonomy than fully public institutions. But since the university receives some public funds, it must submit plans to close campuses to the Pennsylvania secretary of education, who must then approve the proposal.

    ‘A Betrayal’

    Faculty have concerns about job losses, what will become of rural student populations and an alleged lack of transparency in the closure process.

    One faculty member at Penn State Wilkes-Barre, speaking anonymously due to concerns about retribution, noted, “While most faculty saw this coming, it was heartbreaking to see it in writing.”

    They questioned Penn State’s support for its Commonwealth Campuses, arguing that “the decision to decrease funding” to those locations that serve in-state students sends a strong message about where Penn State places its priorities” while it invests heavily in its main campus. They also pointed to renovations at Beaver Stadium projected to cost $700 million.

    (That project is believed to be the most expensive renovation in the history of college athletics.)

    “The lack of shared governance, transparency, and respect for contributions of faculty to Penn State University makes it easy to see why unionization efforts among faculty are needed,” they wrote, highlighting ongoing efforts by the Penn State Faculty Alliance and SEIU 668 to unionize.

    Some state politicians have also panned the plan.

    State Senator Michele Brooks, a Republican who represents a district that includes the Shenango campus, told Inside Higher Ed in an emailed statement that she recently met with trustees, who conveyed to her and others “that they feel this has been a deeply flawed process.”

    She urged Penn State’s administration and governing board to re-evaluate the decision and to work “with communities on innovative ways to reinvest in these campuses and help them grow.”

    Republican state representative Charity Grimm Krupa, who serves a district that includes the Fayette campus slated for closure, accused Penn State of betraying its mission in a fiery statement.

    “Shutting down the Fayette campus isn’t about financial responsibility; it’s about walking away from the very students Penn State was created to serve,” Grimm Krupa said last week. “It’s a betrayal of the university’s land-grant mission and a slap in the face of rural communities. Abandoning this campus sends a clear message: if you’re not from a wealthy or urban area, Penn State doesn’t see you as worth the investment. That’s disgraceful, and I urge every trustee to vote no against these closures.”

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  • Penn State Proposes Seven Campus Closures

    Penn State Proposes Seven Campus Closures

    Pennsylvania State University is weighing a plan to close seven of its 19 Commonwealth Campuses, which its governing board is expected to vote on in a virtual meeting Thursday.

    The campuses proposed for closure are Dubois, Fayette, Mont Alto, New Kensington, Shenango, Wilkes-Barre and York. Altogether, those campuses enroll just under 3,200 students. Penn State York, which had 703 students last fall, has the largest enrollment among the seven.

    If approved, the campuses will be shut down by the end of the spring 2027 semester.

    Penn State president Neeli Bendapudi announced the plan in an email Tuesday after several media outlets had already identified the seven Commonwealth Campuses targeted for closure.

    “I believe the recommendation balances our need to adapt to the changing needs of Pennsylvania with compassion for those these decisions affect, both within Penn State and across the commonwealth, in part because of the two-year period before any campus would close. As we work through the next steps, we will be taking steps to support every student in any needed transition and, we will take every step to provide opportunities to faculty and staff to remain part of Penn State,” Bendapudi wrote in a statement shared with the proposal.

    Penn State announced in February that it would consider closing some campuses due to declining enrollment. Officials reviewed 12 campuses for closure before settling on seven.

    While some trustees have pushed back on the proposal, they appear to be in the minority.

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  • Education Dept.’s Penn Demands Show Shift in Title IX

    Education Dept.’s Penn Demands Show Shift in Title IX

    The Department of Education’s demands that University of Pennsylvania “restore” swimming awards and honors that had been “misappropriated” to trans women athletes and apologize to the cisgender women who had lost to them offer a glimpse into how the second Trump administration could use Title IX to force certain changes at colleges, experts and attorneys say.

    The demands, issued April 28 in the form of a proposed resolution agreement, would resolve a civil rights investigation that found Penn violated Title IX by “permitting males to compete in women’s intercollegiate athletics and to occupy women-only intimate facilities.” The Office for Civil Rights didn’t offer specifics, but officials were likely referring to trans swimmer Lia Thomas, who competed on the university’s women’s team in the 2021–22 academic year.

    Today is the deadline for Penn to either agree to the proposed demands or potentially face consequences. Department officials said they would refer to the case to the Justice Department for possible enforcement—a process that could end with the university losing access to federal funding—if Penn didn’t comply. (Penn has already lost $175 million in federal funding over this issue, though White House officials said that decision was separate from the Office for Civil Rights inquiry.)

    Penn is among several colleges and K-12 schools, including San José State University, facing investigations over policies related to trans athletes, but Penn is the first college to be the target of such public demands. Experts say the speed of the investigation, OCR’s unusual demands and the fact that Penn was in compliance with Title IX at the time Thomas competed there reflect a shift toward a more aggressive use of Title IX to further President Donald Trump’s anti-trans agenda.

    The crazy part of all of this is they may be asking Penn to discriminate in doing so, because the Trump administration has its interpretation, but that’s not definitive.”

    —Brett Sokolow, former president of the Association of Title IX Administrators

    Opposing Interpretations

    The administration’s forceful attack on institutions that have been home to high-profile trans women athletes fits with its overall playbook, which includes using any tools at its disposal to advance Trump’s agenda.

    In the case of trans athletes’ participation in athletics, the weapon of choice is Title IX, the 52-year-old law passed to guarantee women equal opportunity to education, which has since been interpreted as a broad tool to address sex-based discrimination and harassment on campus.

    In recent years, though, the relationship between trans students’ rights and Title IX has become complicated. Those on the left argue that the nature of Title IX is to protect students from gender-based discrimination, and that includes discrimination against trans and nonbinary individuals. (Such protections were included in the Biden administration’s short-lived Title IX regulations.) But those on the right argue that allowing trans women to participate women’s sports and to use women’s bathrooms and locker rooms violates the rights of their cisgender teammates—a perspective the Trump administration squarely aligns with.

    “The previous administration trampled the rights of American women and girls—and ignored the indignities to which they were subjected in bathrooms and locker rooms—to promote a radical transgender ideology,” Craig Trainor, acting assistant secretary for civil rights, said in a statement when the Penn investigation was first announced.

    For those in the former camp, Trump’s demands of Penn are just another example of the president using any means possible to erode trans people’s rights.

    “The news out of Penn, to me, was just another example of the way they are, unfortunately, using [Title IX] as a battering ram to beat down safe and inclusive school environments for trans students,” said Emma Grasso Levine, senior manager of Title IX policy and programs at Advocates for Youth, a youth sexual health and LGBTQ+ equality advocacy organization.

    Conservative organizations, though, have applauded the proposed resolution agreement, with the Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian legal group that has repeatedly sued to prevent trans women from playing on women’s sports teams and using women’s locker rooms and bathrooms, calling it “another step in the right direction to restore fairness and safety in women’s sports.”

    An Aggressive Tack

    Since taking office in January, Trump has rolled back trans students’ rights, including signing an executive order banning trans student athletes from playing on the teams that align with their gender. That order prompted the Penn investigation, but at the time that Thomas was competing, trans women who met certain requirements related to hormone therapy—as Thomas did—were permitted by the NCAA and governmental regulations to compete on women’s teams.

    The NCAA has since changed that rule. But despite the NCAA’s stance and the executive order, current Title IX regulations do not disallow trans women from playing women’s sports. In fact, the regulations are the exact same set of rules, passed by the first Trump administration in 2020, that were in place when Thomas swam for Penn. This raises the question, experts say, of whether Penn should be penalized under Title IX despite the fact that the institution was following those regulations to the best of its ability.

    “That’s the interesting challenge, and probably where Penn will hang its hat if it fights this: ‘There was an interpretation of Title IX in place at the time that Penn followed. And there’s an interpretation of Title IX that’s different now. How is it fair to impose today’s interpretation of Title IX on a previous time period?’” said Brett Sokolow, former president of the Association of Title IX Administrators and chair of the crisis management consulting and law firm TNG Consulting.

    This is just one element of the aggressive tack the Trump administration appears to be taking against institutions that allowed trans women to play women’s sports. Multiple experts also pointed out the quick, almost dizzying timeline of OCR’s investigation into Penn.

    Timeline of Penn Investigation

    Feb. 5: Trump signs executive order prohibiting trans athletes from playing on teams that match their gender identity.

    Feb. 6: Trump launches investigation into Penn. NCAA ends policy allowing trans athletes to play on teams that match their gender identity.

    March 19: Trump administration pauses $175 million in federal funds to Penn.

    April 28: OCR says Penn violated Title IX and must “restore” swimming honors given to trans women.

    Ordinarily, investigations can take years to conclude—something that has often been a pain point for victims’ rights advocates, who argue that those timelines can seriously impede victims’ ability to complete their studies.

    But OCR launched this investigation within a month of Trump entering office—and just two days after he signed the EO related to trans athletes—and resolved it less than three months later.

    It’s also unusual for OCR to target a specific student with a resolution agreement, Sokolow said; most such agreements are stripped of names and identifying details. Although Thomas is not named in the department’s press release, it does call out her sport, swimming, and there have been no other out trans athletes at Penn.

    “It’s very indicative of this administration—and concerning—that they’re targeting one person and demonizing them,” he said.

    Experts also say the demands marks a sharp contrast from how OCR has resolved such cases in the past. Levine said that the requirements in resolution agreements are meant to “meaningfully impact a culture of sex-based harassment,” but she feels that OCR’s demands wouldn’t do that—if such a culture even exists at Penn.

    Title IX ‘Pendulum Swing

    If Penn fights the demands, the case could put the war between those who seek to protect trans athletes from discrimination and those who want to see them excised from their sports teams to the test. And until courts settle the question, students and institutions will be in limbo.

    “The crazy part of all of this is they may be asking Penn to discriminate in doing so, because the Trump administration has its interpretation, but that’s not definitive,” Sokolow said. “It does not have the force of law. If a court were to rule on this that Lia Thomas had rightfully won whatever competition the Trump administration is concerned about, any move to force to Penn to remove those victories could be discriminatory against a person who’s trans.”

    Lia Thomas, a swimmer at University of Pennsylvania, left, and Riley Gaines of the University of Kentucky tied for fifth place in the 200 freestyle at the NCAA swimming championships in March 2022.

    Icon Sportswire/Contributor/Getty Images

    Patricia Hamill, co-chair of the Title IX and campus discipline practice at Clark Hill, a Washington law firm, told Inside Higher Ed via email that the case “highlights the pendulum swing of Title IX in its enforcement and interpretation as well as in the government priorities over the last decade. Institutions are continuously being challenged on how to best to handle these very difficult situations on ground that continues to shift both because of Administration changes but also because of societal changes.”

    Penn had not publicly commented on the proposed resolution agreement as of Wednesday evening. When news broke that the government was suspending its federal funds, Penn officials stressed in a statement that its “athletic programs have always operated within the framework provided by the federal government, the NCAA and our conference.”

    Title IX experts expect that if the university does challenge the proposed agreement in court, it will focus on that very argument—that when Thomas was competing on Penn’s swim team, the university was, in fact, complying with NCAA rules and the department’s guidance.

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  • Penn to Lose Security Clearance in Trump Attack

    Penn to Lose Security Clearance in Trump Attack

    President Donald Trump signed a directive Wednesday removing the security clearances of University of Pennsylvania community members, the latest government action to pummel the president’s alma mater.

    In the directive, Trump, a 1968 Wharton School of Business graduate, ordered the Department of Justice to investigate Miles Taylor, a former senior Department of Homeland Security official who has criticized the president, including in a 2018 New York Times op-ed and in a book in which he alleges presidential misconduct during Trump’s first term.

    Taylor taught an undergraduate course at Penn in fall 2023 called The Future of Conservatism and the GOP, according to The Daily Pennsylvanian, and it’s this tie that has put Penn in the crosshairs.

    Trump’s memo asks the attorney general, the director of national intelligence and other relevant department and agency heads to suspend the security clearances held by Taylor “and any individuals at entities associated with Taylor, including the University of Pennsylvania.”

    According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, Penn does not conduct classified research and has no security clearance.

    “The University does not possess a government security clearance and cannot as a corporate entity possess classified material,” the website states. “It is the policy of the university not to accept agreements which require access to classified data, require university employees to obtain security clearances, or restrict the dissemination of the results.”

    Penn is also currently facing a $175 million funding freeze from the federal government, announced in March, related to participation of a transgender athlete on the women’s swimming team in 2022. The university was further affected by visa revocations of international students and scholars earlier this week.

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  • Penn State blocks embattled trustee from re-election

    Penn State blocks embattled trustee from re-election

    Embattled Pennsylvania State University trustee Barry Fenchak’s time on the board may be nearing an end: A subcommittee voted Wednesday that he was “unqualified and ineligible” to run again.

    Fenchak is one of nine trustees on the 36-member board who are elected by alumni. His term is set to expire at the end of June. But Fenchak—who is already locked in litigation with Penn State over what he considers its lack of fiscal transparency—plans to fight the decision.

    “This is completely in line with Penn State’s long-standing pattern with regard to trying to maintain their secrecy, and myself and our legal team will be evaluating these recent actions by Penn State and taking the appropriate actions in the court,” Fenchak told Inside Higher Ed.

    The outspoken trustee has been at the center of controversy for nearly a year as he has sought to obtain more details on the university’s rising endowment management fees, even filing a lawsuit for that information. Penn State initially refused to provide the financial details that Fenchak, an investment adviser, said he needed to perform his fiduciary duties; he argued that endowment management fees inexplicably climbed from 0.62 percent in 2013–14 to 2.49 percent by 2018–19. Eventually, as a result of his litigation, he was able to obtain the requested documents, he told Inside Higher Ed.

    His lawsuit is one of two brought against the university last year by trustees alleging a lack of transparency by the board. A local media outlet has also sued for alleged violations of open meetings laws.

    Efforts to Remove Fenchak

    Fellow trustees previously tried to boot Fenchak from the board last fall after he made a crude joke to a female staff member. Paraphrasing the PG-rated Tom Hanks movie A League of Their Own, Fenchak—who is bald and had just received a Penn State baseball cap as a gift at a university event—joked that it made him look like “a penis with a hat on,” according to court records.

    Fenchak’s remark prompted the board to call a meeting in October in an effort to remove him. However, a judge intervened, halting the board’s attempt to oust Fenchak.

    In his opinion granting the preliminary injunction, Centre County Court Judge Brian J. Marshall wrote that while he “is not suggesting that plaintiff should not be sanctioned,” the court had been “presented with credible and, in many instances uncontroverted, evidence that Plaintiff has been subject to ongoing retaliation by Defendants.”

    The judge also noted that Fenchak had sued Penn State just three days before the remark that the board used as justification for his removal.

    Now, months later, the board landed on a new tactic to remove Fenchak: The nine-member nominating subcommittee voted 8 to 1 last week to bar him from running for re-election.

    Daniel Delligatti, vice chair of the subcommittee, argued that Fenchak had been warned multiple times about “inappropriate behavior” and that he failed to live up to the board’s code of conduct.

    Fenchak’s attempt at humor made staff members feel uncomfortable, Delligatti said, and his candidacy for a second term was not in “alignment with Penn State’s mission and values.”

    Trustee Jay Paterno was the sole dissenting vote. He argued that “the process” as he understood it was “outside the scope of our review.”

    Fenchak attended the virtual meeting but was denied an opportunity to speak on his own behalf.

    Deliberations on blocking Fenchak from running for re-election were largely confined to a closed executive session meeting of the nominating subcommittee, which preceded the deciding vote.

    A Legal Fight

    Though a judge halted Penn State’s initial efforts to remove Fenchak, the board and the university’s legal team are again trying to oust him. The same day that the nominating subcommittee shot down Fenchak’s re-election bid, the university filed a motion to dissolve the preliminary injunction that allowed Fenchak to remain on the board as his lawsuit proceeded.

    Fenchak alleges the motion was filed mere minutes after the subcommittee’s decision, which would prevent him from finishing his current term as well as serving another one.

    Penn State officials did not provide a comment on the situation.

    In response to a request for an interview with trustees, Shannon Harvey, assistant vice president and secretary for the board, referred Inside Higher Ed to a video of the subcommittee’s virtual meeting.

    As of publication, Fenchak had not filed a legal response. But he noted one is coming. Beyond the impact on him personally, he also has broader concerns about the board’s process to bar trustees from re-election, which was adopted over the last year as he pressured the university to release financial documents.

    “Forget about my specific situation. This process disenfranchises and essentially steals the vote from our alumni,” Fenchak said. “That’s a right our alumni have had for 150 years, and now we are telling those alumni who they can and who they cannot vote for to represent them on the board. Frankly, that’s unconscionable. As a Penn Stater, it’s heartbreaking.”

    Changes to the way alumni trustees are elected have also caught the attention of state lawmakers.

    At a Feb. 20 Pennsylvania House Appropriations Committee hearing, Republican representative Marla Brown questioned Penn State president Neeli Bendapudi about the change. Brown said she had fielded complaints from constituents and seemed skeptical about the new processes.

    “I can tell you that people are not happy about it, and the optics on it are not good. As I’m sure you’re aware, it looks like a conflict of interest that the board is mainly concerned with picking and choosing the muscle in which the candidates will be serving on the board,” Brown said.

    Asked why Penn State made the change, Bendapudi noted it was a board decision.

    “Did you support the change?” Brown asked.

    “I report to them and I have no say in it one way or the other,” Bendapudi answered.

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  • Local lawmakers press Penn to uphold DEI

    Local lawmakers press Penn to uphold DEI

    Local lawmakers walked out of a meeting with University of Pennsylvania officials on Tuesday due to what they said was insufficient support for diversity, equity and inclusion, WHYY reported.

    Pennsylvania state senator Art Haywood and state representative Napoleon Nelson, both Democrats, reportedly walked out of the meeting after a Penn official referred to diversity as a “lightning rod.” 

    The meeting, which included several elected state and city officials, became contentious, with lawmakers pressing Penn to hold its ground against the Trump administration’s executive actions on DEI, according to WHYY.

    Penn has since removed webpages about its DEI initiatives and updated its nondiscrimination policies, despite swirling legal questions and a nationwide injunction handed down last week that blocked the Trump administration’s plans to crack down on college DEI efforts.

    University officials denied backtracking on Penn’s commitment to DEI, according to lawmakers’ accounts of the meeting.

    A university spokesperson told the Philadelphia radio station that Penn remains “committed to nondiscrimination in all of our operations and policies” and said the institution appreciated the concerns raised.

    Lawmakers indicated that they would continue to press Penn on its commitment to DEI; several provided fiery statements to WHYY casting the university’s response as weak.

    “Penn has made a cowardly move, rushing to heed dog-whistle demands from a feckless federal leadership and dismantle their programs that welcome students and workers from an expansive range of backgrounds,” state senator Nikil Saval, a Democrat, told the radio station.

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  • HEDx Podcast: Penn State chancellor Dan Greenstein – Episode 152

    HEDx Podcast: Penn State chancellor Dan Greenstein – Episode 152

    Pennsylvania State University chancellor emeritus Dan Greenstein joins Martin Betts to discuss his varied career and how it impacts his work today.

    The chancellor has held roles at the University of Oxford, the University of California, the Gates Foundation and Boston Consulting.

    He explains the recruitment platform that facilitated the university’s major mergers and what front office systems transformed student experience and institutional sustainability.

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