Tag Archives: penn state board of trustees

Apr 7 2013

Penn State Board of Trustees Needs Scott Kimler


Scott is one of the 6-person Executive Committee on PSU-ReBOT.org – which formed as a direct result of the Sandusky scandal. Our group mission has been to reform the Penn State Board of Trustees. We embarked on several initiatives to improve Penn State, which include:
-Supporting the Faculty Senate “BOT Vote of No Confidence” by making presenting at the January 2012 meeting and collecting more than 4,500 petition signatures
-Embarking on an ambitious research project to collect & evaluate governance metrics from 60+ land-grant and BigTen universities for peer review comparison with Penn State
-Advocate for Alumni BOT election reform, which resulted in:
-first-ever Meet and Greet during Blue/White weekend;
-first-ever 86-candidate straw poll (Scott) http://goo.gl/dG478 and
-a single, interactive web-page with candidate information for all 86 candidates “Super Table” (Scott) – http://goo.gl/NjPnc
-Work with existing Board members to advocate reform (spring 2012)
-Work with former Auditor General Jack Wagner and his staff on governance reform (summer 2012) http://goo.gl/bqfRS
-A letter-writing campaign to BOT members urging Wagner reform recommendations (Jan 2013) – http://goo.gl/76DLz
In addition to strategic planning and leadership duties on the Executive Committee, I am also responsible for PSU-ReBOT.org web properties. I designed, created and maintain the http://www.psu-rebot.org website, the Facebook page and the @psu_rebot Twitter presence. PSU Board Relevance – Demonstrated daily commitment to improving Penn State, for over a year. I didn’t wait for a seat on the Board to make a positive impact, I got involved and have applied myself to the task of improving Penn State with both purposeand resolve. Through my involvement, I am aware of the history of decisions the Board has made post-Sandusky, have made many contacts with members of the Penn State community including members of the current Board, various members and leaders of alumni groups, Penn State faculty and many students. As a Board member, I can hit the ground running and am eager to continue reform efforts in person and working with other reform-minded Trustees. My web development and social media abilities will be an asset to the ‘tip-of-the-spear’ efforts for transparency, openness and trust desperately needed within the Penn State Board of Trustees.

 

Apr 1 2013

Mark Emmert Declares “Eternal Winter in Happy Valley”


Big 12 Meetings Emmert Football

This is funny, but you must read the WHOLE Thing!!  Onward State‘s April Fool’s Joke!!  (it made many of us very angry today when we misunderstood a shortened version).

Earlier today, NCAA President Mark Emmert made an addition to the sanctions levied against Penn State this past July. In an uncharacteristic abuse of power, Emmert bypassed his publicist and decided to write the press release himself. Read the full document obtained by Onward State below:

Mark Emmert National Collegiate Athletic Association Indianapolis, IN April 1, 2013

My Fellow Americans,

I have personally crafted this press release to discuss the July 23, 2012 sanctions against The Pennsylvania State University. Up to this point, as far as we can tell, every penalty we implemented has been upheld by Penn State. (Note: When I use ‘we’, this pronoun represents both myself and the NCAA as a whole. Definitely not just me.)

However, we feel as though Penn State still has work to do. After closely watching the University’s leaders over the past eight months, it is clear the sanctions (including a $60 million fine, a four-year football postseason ban, vacating all wins dating back to 1998, and scholarship reductions) are collectively not enough.

Following a careful examination of the facts (while avoiding all biased and largely-opinionated media sources), we have determined the next step necessary to the successful re-shaping of Penn State’s culture.

State College, Pa. will no longer reap the benefits of a four-season ecological cycle. Summer, autumn, and spring are hereby eliminated, thus creating an eternal winter in Happy Valley. Previously unbeknownst to State College residents, this measure has already been in place since October.

The Penn State Board of Trustees and President Rodney Erickson have complied 100% with our requests, and I am happy to report that in March 2013, Happy Valley saw snow, rain, sleet, and hail, with an average temperature of 25 degrees Fahrenheit.

Despite our climate and atmospheric alterations, we have a problem. There has been little to no change in Penn State’s culture. The community didn’t crumble. Students are still having fun. PSU athletes continue to rank towards the top in terms of collegiate academia. If these problematic trends continue, other actions – such as discontinuing THON, which definitely shows exactly what’s wrong with Penn State – will be taken.

Many people will question why we altered State College’s climate. Many will wonder how we achieved this. Some might even ask what winter has to do with Penn State’s imminent culture problem.

To those people, I say this: Louisiana State University was lucky enough to have me as their Chancellor, and I can promise you that football has nothing do with LSU’s culture and success as an academic institution. It was all me. That school was terrible before I arrived. And besides, I’m President of the NCAA. I don’t have to answer to you. I can do whatever I want without solid reason. I can even overstep my legal boundaries and contradict myself if I want to, although of course, I would never do either of these things.

Rest assured, the NCAA will continue to assess The Pennsylvania State University’s horrible problems. Together with Penn State’s Board of Trustees, we will weigh each decision heavily and avoid making any rash judgments, just as both parties have done throughout this entire ordeal.

Thank you, Mark Emmert

Apr 1 2013

Merck Tries To Control Frazier’s Racist Comments


On the morning of March 17, 2013 – before Frazier’s apology had run in the CDT – a user with the screen name “BroadSt Bully” restored a paragraph that had been deleted 2 days before describing Frazier’s role in hiring Louis Freeh and firing Joe Paterno.  BroadSt Bully also added a paragraph about the racially insensitive comment made by Frazier 3 days earlier:
On March 14, 2013, at a sub-committee meeting of the Penn State Board of Trustees, Frazier uttered a racist and bigoted remark at a candidate running for the Board of Trustees who criticized the Freeh narrative.
BroadSt Bully also removed the qualifier “blue ribbon” which described the Special Investigative Task Force (“commission”).  12 hours later, a user identified only by his IP address 67.165.19.29 removed both of those paragraphs.  This IP address traces back to a Comcast user in Doylestown, PA.  3 hours later, a user in the Netherlands (possibly an administrator) restored the paragraphs with the qualifying edit note:
“The previous edit deleted balancing material that provides criticism of the figure in question. Wikipedia articles are not “fluff pieces” that say only positive things”
 Approximately 14 hours later (11:54 18 March 2013), the previous user once again deleted these 2 paragraphs.  40 minutes later, they were restored by an admin in Connecticut.

Merck Corporate Works on the Cover-up

 An hour later a user identified by the IP address 155.91.28.231 once again removed those paragraphs.  However, this IP address traced back to a corporate ISP:  Merck.
General IP Information
Top of Form
IP:
155.91.28.231
Decimal:
2606439655
Hostname:
155.91.28.231
ISP:
Organization:
Merck and Co.
Services:
Type:
Assignment:
Blacklist:
Bottom of Form
Geolocation Information
Country:
United States <!–[if !vml]–><!–[endif]–>
State/Region:
New Jersey
City:
Old Bridge
Latitude:
40.3958  (40° 23′ 44.88″ N)
Longitude:
-74.3255  (74° 19′ 31.80″ W)
Area Code:
732
Postal Code:
08857
And then the internet sparks began to fly.  Over the next 3 hours, users would attempt to restore those 2 paragraphs, only to be deleted within minutes by the Merck user. 
At 14:03 user “Cornmd” restores the 2 paragraphs.  14:15 the Merck IP address deletes them.
 At 14:16 user “Ubiquity” restores the 2 paragraphs.  14:21 the Merck IP address deletes them. 
 At 14:22 user “BroadSt Bully” restores the 2 paragraphs.  14:22 the Merck IP address deletes them. 
 User “Arctic Kangaroo” tries to restore the paragraphs and within minutes, the Merck IP address deletes them.  Arctic Kangaroo restores the content at 14:25, at which point the content is temporarily removed for discussion by “Edgar181” at 14:31.
 At 14:39 BroadSt Bully restores the content with the edit note:  “Re-added sourced material. User’s IP address traces to Merck, who is Frazier’s employer”
At 14:57 BroadSt Bully adds titles to the 2 paragraphs “Jerry Sandusky sex scandal” and “Racially insensitive outburst.”
At 15:30 the Merck user deletes them.  Over the next 2 hours, the Merck user makes 5 more attempts to delete content, and add flattering career highlights for Ken Frazier, until an admin warns him that he is violating 4 different Wikipedia terms of service.  Five minutes later, the Wikipedia admins lock down edits of the Wikipedia page. Two hours later, the Merck user is blocked for one month from editing ANY web pages. 
This was not the first time this user was blocked by Wikipedia.  Here is the discipline history of 155.91.28.231 which warranted the one month penalty for “disruptive editing”:
 21:53, 18 March 2013 Ronhjones (talk | contribs) blocked 155.91.28.231 (talk) (anon. only, account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 1 month (Disruptive editing)
  22:21, 10 July 2012 Materialscientist (talk | contribs) blocked 155.91.28.231 (talk) (anon. only, account creation blocked) with an expiry time of 1 week (Copyright violations)
  20:11, 7 November 2008 RoySmith (talk | contribs) blocked 155.91.28.231 (talk) (anon. only) with an expiry time of 24 hours (Repeated reversion of text to Yak shaving contrary to prior AFD decision)
  22:13, 25 January 2006 Hall Monitor (talk | contribs) blocked 155.91.28.231 (talk) with an expiry time of 48 hours (massive content removal)
  21:00, 1 December 2005 Brian0918 (talk | contribs) blocked 155.91.28.231 (talk) with an expiry time of 24 hours (vandalisms)

Previous edit on Freeh Report entry on Frazier’s wiki page

Interesting to note Ken Frazier’s Wikipedia page had a previous edit disputed.
 On October 21, 2012, a user named “Callancc” described the Freeh report as being accepted “without review, but was reported to be riddled with conjecture, research with gaping holes, and unsubstantiated conclusions.”  It was revised on November 5, 2012 by an IP address from Boston University to say the Freeh report was accepted “and used as the basis for the NCAA sanctions against Penn State.” With the edit note:
“The last sentence was ridiculously partisan, clearly there only to attempt to discredit the Freeh report which was widely seen as fair and thoroughly done.”)
The Merck user created an account on Wikipedia on October 10, 2005 and spent most of his early time updating the Wikipedia pages of Ann Coulter and Ron Dellums (a long time member of the House of Representatives from California, who became the Mayor of Oakland in 2007).

Controlling the PSU Narrative

Ken Frazier’s comments to Bill Cluck had been widely  but they never reached a global audience until they were posted in Wikipedia.
There is a dogged determination from this Merck user to remove this content from Wikipedia.  In addition, the Merck IT team has been hard at work over the weekend to bury any negative articles circulating about Frazier on the internet and pumping up his bio and other positive articles as they appear in google searches.  Once again, it appears that Frazier is trying to control the narrative by controlling the information available to the public.
Which begs the question, what audience is he really trying to control?
Posted by at 8:20 AM
Mar 18 2013

Mark Battaglia Addresses Board of Trustees


Mark Battaglia was the starting center on the 1982 National Championship Football Team.  The first of Penn State’s many National Championship Teams (1968, 1969, 1973, 1986, and 1994) to be recognized as such by the AP and UPI polls.  I was fortunate enough to spend a week of fly-fishing in Montana with Mark back in 2003 and we’ve been friends ever since.
On March 15, 2013, Mark addressed the Penn State Board of Trustees at the meeting in Hershey.

Here are his words: “Thank you.  And thank you for the opportunity to address the Board today. My name is Mark Battaglia and I was fortunate enough to be on the 1982 National Championship Team.

Sadly, to date, there’s only one man who has admitted that with the benefit of hindsight that he wished he would have done more. You see Joe Paterno held us to a higher standard as players. In the classroom, in our lives, on the football field.
And we’re here today to hold you, the Board, to a higher standard.
More specifically, those who have already been held to a higher standard because they played for Joe Paterno or they had brothers or nephews who played for Joe Paterno.
They knew Joe Paterno like we knew Joe Paterno.
They were in the huddle with him when the game was on the line, they looked in his eyes, they saw the man, they knew the man.
And yet, they wouldn’t take his call. They wouldn’t make a call.
They sat around silently.
Worse yet, maybe they led the effort to fire Joe.
Was it personal? A personal disappointment?
Did they let a personal issue lead to a potentially $100 million debacle?
You know, Joe always said ‘you’re never as good as you think you are when you win and you’re never as bad as you think you are when you lose.’
The good news here is that we are losing, we didn’t lose, we are losing badly.
We need to change the strategy.
We need the leadership from those very people who played for Joe to lead us out of this thing by changing.
You painted yourself in the corner with this Freeh report. I’m sorry Mr. Frazier…
And this ‘move on’ thing…it’s not happening. The alumnus, the alumni are not buying it.
So Joe said, always said, ‘you have to believe deeply in your heart that you are destined to do great things.’
You guys can do that. There’s still time.
There are 500,000 alumni out there hoping and praying that you accept the challenge.
Thank you.”
Posted by at 11:25 PM

Mar 14 2013

Lettermen to Blast Trustees on Friday–live stream


By Mike Dawson — mdawson@centredaily.com

Before the fireworks Friday, when former Penn State football lettermen have promised to lay into the board of trustees, a handful of board members will convene Thursday to pave the way for ground-breaking changes to how the 158-year-old university is governed. The board’s committee on governance and long-range planning is expected to review and recommend reforms for a vote of the full board on Friday in Hershey. Exactly what those reforms are, though, will not be known until the meeting, because its agenda is confidential, and a university spokesman could not provide firmer details about which reforms will be up for consideration.

The committee meeting is at 1 p.m. This will be streamed live on WPSU.com

Regardless of the uncertainty, the result will be unprecedented because of the long tradition of university and board governance, which became a lightning rod for criticism after the Jerry Sandusky scandal.

Politicians, elected officials and alumni have been calling for reform and changes, and the board of trustees continues to bear the brunt of the anger from seething fans and alumni over its handling of coach Joe Paterno’s ouster and the NCAA sanctions. Some groups want to purge the board of those who voted to remove Paterno as coach, while others want the size of the board reduced, a different composition or certain members stripped of their voting ability.

The best hints about what reforms to expect Thursday  are from the  committee’s last discussion on the topic in January, when the members reviewed the long list of reforms suggested by former Auditor General Jack Wagner.

Among the reforms that were discussed: whether the Penn State president or the state’s governor should have voting powers, whether the president will be the board’s secretary or whether retired university employees have to wait a few years before they can run for a board seat.

The committee is chaired by James Broadhurst and includes the former chairwoman Karen Peetz and  Joel Myers, who fired off an email a few weeks ago criticizing the NCAA and the Freeh report.

Peetz and Myers were supportive of removing the president’s voting powers, and the committee sounded in favor of stripping the governor’s voting powers, too. Broadhurst said he first wanted to discuss the latter one with Gov. Tom Corbett.

A reduction in the president’s powers was one of Wagner’s core recommendations. The former auditor general also recommended reducing the size of the board from its size of 32 members

Mar 10 2013

Rush to judgment: Penn State trustee recounts decision to fire Coach Joe Paterno


Posted on March 10th, 2013 in News and Commentary

“Let me be clear – we got this wrong.”

“None of us are proud of how we handled this.”

by Bill Keisling

Penn State trustee Stephanie Nolan Deviney is up for reelection to the school’s governing Board of Trustees. On March 9, on her webpage, she responded to the following question: What was your thought process with respect to Coach Paterno?

“PLEASE NOTE: THE THOUGHTS BELOW ARE MY OWN, NOT THAT OF THE BOARD.  EACH BOARD MEMBER HAS THEIR OWN REASON FOR MAKING THE DECISION.  I DO NOT SPEAK FOR THEM.  ALSO, I AM NOT TRYING TO LAY BLAME OR MAKE EXCUSES.  I AM ONLY TRYING TO ANSWER THE QUESTIONS YOU HAVE ASKED.

“Saturday, November 5, 2011, I received an email from a fellow PSU grad at approximately 3 p.m. with a messaging along the lines of ‘I bet you never thought you signed up for this!’ There was also an email from the university scheduling a conference call. Realizing something was going on I googled ‘Penn State’. This is how I learned the news.

“I immediately searched the web and found the presentment. I read the entire thing by our 5 p.m. call. When I read the presentment my initial reaction was that we needed to determine who knew what and when. The Presentment stated that Coach Paterno had been told of activity “of a sexual nature” between Sandusky and a young boy. During our call we planned a meeting for 7 p.m. the next evening.

“When I arrived at Old Main I was given a press release that had been issued by the Paternos. I asked if the press release had been run by anyone at the university before it was issued. I was told it had not been run by the university. When the decision was made to cancel the regularly scheduled press conference, there was no agreement with this decision. Instead, the press was told to stay tuned as plans were in the works for an off campus press conference (no such conference ever took place).

“At that time it was clear that the university’s interests and Coach Paterno’s interests were not aligned. We should have been working together on this issue – the biggest crisis the university had ever faced. Rather, we were two ships not communicating with one another. I did not think these actions were in the best interests of the university. My decision to remove Coach Paterno as head coach was largely based on the events that transpired after the presentment was issued.

“The trustees had a call on Tuesday night during which time I thought we would decide what actions to take with respect to Coach Paterno and Graham Spanier. However, many trustees thought that such a decision could not be made over the phone. Rather, we needed to be face to face, to look each other in the eye, to read each other’s body language in making such a monumental decision. We agreed to make the decision on Wednesday night when we met in person.

“I could not sleep that night as the decisions weighed heavily on my mind. I did not know what other trustees were going to decide. I appreciate all this University has done for the Commonwealth. I appreciate all Joe Paterno has done for Penn State. I understood what Penn State meant to so many people. I understood the magnitude of the decisions we would make the next day. No matter what we decided, we would forever change people’s lives, Penn State, and history. This decision was left in the hands of 32 people. I was one of them.

“On Wednesday Coach Paterno announced his retirement without consulting with the university.   

“By Wednesday evening none of the trustees thought that the football season could go on “business as usual” with Coach Paterno on the sidelines and in front of the press. As such, we made the decision to remove him as head coach for the remainder of the season. We did honor his contract. Yes, I have seen the letter that Cynthia Baldwin sent to him. It should not have been sent to him.

“It seems so clear now that the university and Coach Paterno should have been speaking to each other and working with each other during those five days. Looking back it seems unbelievable that neither side communicated with one another. I often think of how things might have been different if any small changes were made that week. Posnanski recently wrote that after reading the presentment, Coach Paterno’s own family told him that he might have to face the possibility of never coaching another game. Under such circumstances it saddens me that we didn’t find a way to handle this better. We both should have been working together. When we made out decision, it was around 9 p.m. at night. It has also been widely reported why we made the decision to call his home. First, there were news vans and students surrounding his home. We did not think it was appropriate to have such a message be delivered so publicly. It surely would have been caught on camera. No one would have liked that either. Second, we did not think we could wait until the morning as many details of our meetings that week were reaching the press. The last thing we wanted was for Coach Paterno to hear the news from the press. Let me be clear – we got this wrong.

“I agree 100 percent with Sue Paterno’s statement – Joe Paterno did deserve more.”  (sorry, Stephanie, too little too late–where have you been for the past year and a half?  Why were you and Paul Suhey not out there with McCombie and Lubrano asking the important questions?)

“Every board member has a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for all that Joe Paterno and his family did, and continue to do, for our university. He influenced and molded countless men. He and Sue were generous with their time, money, and talent. You may wonder how we could all feel this way and still remove him as head coach but as fiduciaries we had to make the decisions in the best interests of the University.”

editor note:  it is my opinion that the Board of Trustees (John Surma) had a vendetta against Joe Paterno to not only fire him but to destroy his reputation, and that was the goal (not necessarily known by the general board membership).

Jul 13 2012

What Tom Paine has to Say about Freeh Report


“Believed to be”? A $6 million dollar investigation into what was the biggest story in the country for weeks, and an attack on a man’s credibility, grand jury testimony and public statements is based on “believed to be”? Why doesn’t he know. Why didn’t he find out. Why wasn’t he able to say in a report that uses this email to accuse Paterno of lying about what he knew back in 1998 and, by extension, lying to the grand jury, without confirming it? Is it possible since Sandusky was still a coach at Penn State that the reference is to him and that Curley was keeping him abreast of the investigation? Am I saying that is the case? No. Am I saying its possible? Yes. And with no other corroboration by Freeh, just this vague email, that asks “anything new in this department” ask yourself if any jury in the country would convict a man of anything based solely on this.

Notice the rank dishonesty of this. The words “after Curley’s initial updates..” Updates is plural. Where are they? Where is the evidence, not Freeh’s biased and dishonest conclusion, but proof, there were initial updates? How many? Where are they? All he talks about in the report is the one vague May 13 email.

He also states in that one sentence, ” the available record is not clear as to how the conclusion of the Sandusky investigation was conveyed to Paterno”. But where is Freehs proof that it was conveyed at all?

But not constrained by a court or a judge or the rules of evidence, Freeh unethically and like a prosecutor trying to make a case, he says what he wants facts or not.

There is no fact in Freeh’s written reportthat shows that the conclusion of the Sandusky investigation was ever conveyed to Paterno. He just says it. He just wants you to take his word for it. But he has no proof. Which may be why Freeh says, darn, he cant find any evidence of how it was done.

And Dan Vannata at ESPN magazine did report a few days ago that a source, probably in Freeh’s own group who had seen all the emails told him that this email from Curley was “definitely taken out of context” and chosen to put everyone in the worst possible light. Any honest person without an agenda has to ask why did Freeh use the words ” consulted with” when the email said “after talking with”? Why did Freeh say “they” when the email said “I”? Where is the proof that this wasnt  referencing the initial meeting Paterno had with Curley where he relayed what McQueary said he saw and where they agreed to report it to “everyone” and that subsequently Curley, on his own changed his mind?

Nowhere in Curley’s email does he say he consulted with Paterno. That is Freeh’s word and he offers not a shred of proof to back it up even though it in itself convicts Paterno of being implicated in Curley’s decision not to report it without one shred of corroborating evidence to support it.
 In truth, the implication in Curley’s email is the opposite because Curley constantly uses the word “I” and not “we” in his email to Spanier. Freeh on the other hand,using the same email constantly uses the word ” they” as in Paterno and Curley. And again he does it without one shred of evidence to back it up. Only the supposition he wants you to swallow.
The two emails cited can certainly raise questions in the minds of reasonable people. And though all the available facts, to use Freeh’s term, say otherwise about Paterno being involved in any cover up or lying to the grand jury, or knowing what Freeh tries to claim Paterno knew, they would have been worth investigating to find the facts behind the emails and clarify them for the record, instead of using speculation and distortion to make a dishonest case.

They would have been worth investigating. If there had been an ethical and honest investigator doing the job.

 

 

Mar 19 2012

Voting Directions for Trustee–If not alumni assoc member or contributor, you can STILL vote


Eighty-six are seeking election to membership positions for three-year terms beginning July 1, 2012. Only three candidates are elected annually, and YOUR VOTE WILL COUNT.  Myke Atwater Triebold is #60–sixty–on the ballot, and I would appreciate your support!!

 Voting begins on April 10, 2012 and the voting web site will open at that time; voting will close on May 3, 2012, at 9:00 a.m (DST).

 An email containing voting credentials will be provided automatically to alumni who are members of the Penn State Alumni Association, or alumni who have been members or contributed to the Penn State Fund within the past two years. However, all alumni are encouraged to participate—to receive a voting link and credentials, contact the Board of Trustees Office at BOT@psu.edu and provide your full name (at time of graduation), year of graduation, college/major, current mailing address and current e-mail address.

Mar 11 2012

Penn State alum’s baseball status at issue in trustee bid


March 09, 2012|By Susan Snyder, INQUIRER STAFF WRITER
Anthony Lubrano, who has been waging a high-profile campaign for an alumni seat on the Pennsylvania State University board of trustees, has been featured for years in the school’s baseball media guide as a four-time letter-winner from 1979 to 1982. And his application for trustee describes him as a “varsity baseball player at his alma mater.”

The problem is that Lubrano, 51, a major donor whose name is on Penn State’s baseball complex, acknowledges that he neither lettered nor played in an official game. He said in an interview Friday that he was only on the equivalent of the “practice squad.”

Feb 23 2012

Penn State Funding Hearings


Corbett has proposed slashing funding for Penn State and the other three state-relateds by 30 percent in the upcoming fiscal year. He also formed a commission to study higher education and how it can prepare students for the economy. University of Pittsburgh Chancellor Mark Nordenberg questioned the consistency of Corbett’s proposed budget and his goal for the state to have a job-ready workforce. “There was a fundamental disconnect between the governor’s expressed desire to ensure that there was a strong workforce for the innovation economy of the 21st century and the action items embedded in his budget,” Nordenberg said. “In certain respects, what we’re seeing is the dismantling of a long, long commitment by the commonwealth of Pennsylvania to public higher education, and particularly to public research universities,” Nordenberg said. Erickson pointed out that Penn State is one of the top producers of engineering graduates in the country. It also graduates students in science, earth and mineral sciences and has the only public agricultural college in the state. “We need to understand they’re very often the higher cost programs,” Erickson said. As part of the budget planning process, Penn State asked the state for a 5 percent increase in funding in 2012-13. Under that scenario, tuition increases would be kept below 4 percent. Erickson said if Corbett’s proposed budget passes it would mean bigger tuition increases than the university had planned, staff vacancies left unfilled and program cuts. “We will continue to cut costs wherever we can, because we don’t want to lay the impact of any further cuts any more heavily upon our students and their families than we have to,” Erickson said. “We need to know where this is heading,” he said. Last year, Corbett proposed cutting state funding for Penn State and the other state-relateds in half. The final budget ended up slashing support 20 percent. Tuition for in-state students at University Park is $15,000 a year versus $27,000 for out-of state students. Erickson warned that the impact of state funding cuts would hit lower-income students and those at regional campuses particularly hard. At regional campuses, students come from families with median incomes 10 percent lower than the state median and 60 percent of students work at least 22 hours. “These are the students we’re going to lose as the costs inevitably increase regardless of what we do and as the appropriation goes down,” Erickson said. “And these are people who are absolutely critical to the future of the commonwealth.” “We can’t continue to offer that kind of a tuition break for Pennsylvania residents as the appropriations continue to fall,” he said. The university has had pay freezes for two of the past three years, and Erickson said he will do everything he can “to see if we can find ways to appropriately reward our faculty and staff.” “We’ve got to balance all of these factors,” he said after the hearing. State Rep. Scott Conklin, who sits on the Appropriations Committee, said Corbett’s proposed cuts would be “devastating.” “If you’re going to create jobs in Pennsylvania, there’s two ways you do it,” Conklin, D-Rush Township, said after the hearing. “First off, you invest in infrastructure, new roads and bridges. We’re not doing that. And the second way is to educate young people at an affordable price, and we’re not going to do that.”

Read more here: http://www.centredaily.com/2012/02/23/3100716/psu-lobbies-for-support.html#storylink=cpy