The Penn State Board of Trustees met Thursday and Friday, November 7-8th, 2026 at the Penn Stater Hotel, State College, Pennsylvania. My report below contains information available to the public, including quotes from public discussions. I strongly urge you to click on the links provided to find further information you might find interesting.
According to the Board Secretary, all trustees except Russell Redding were in attendance, but I question that: of the nine Alumni-Elected trustees, only four were in attendance over the two days of meetings; Trustees Anthony Lubrano, Jay Paterno, Greg Pilewicz, and Kelly Lynch. Trustees Ali Krieger, Brandon Short, Matt McGloin, Carl Nassib, and Uma Moriarity were not in attendance, although Moriarity and Nassib appeared via Zoom.
It is difficult to represent the alumni constituents whose votes you begged for when you are not present. In all likelihood this will be the last time Trustee Krieger does not show up, as her tenure on the Board will end on June 30 (see the Alumni Trustee election results below).
In addition, trustees Carrie Row, Cindy Dunn, Abe Hoffman, and Matt Schuyler were also not in attendance, although Trustee Schuyler appeared via Zoom.
On Thursday there were meetings of the committees on Student Success; Audit and Risk; Governance; Equity and Human Resources; and Finance. You can find the agendas, supporting materials, and meeting recordings here.
Read the full published agenda here , links to supporting materials here, and video here , which I urge you to watch it in its entirety.
Action Item: Proposed Project Approval, Physical Education Building Renovation, Penn State Abington
The project renovates the Physical Education Building at Penn State Abington. Constructed in 1973, the building serves as the campus’ indoor facility for athletic programs, physical education courses, intramural programs, general recreational activities and special events. The project will renovate the facility’s primary and auxiliary gymnasiums, weight training and fitness spaces, offices, and locker rooms. Additionally, the facility will undergo window and door replacements, introduce air conditioning, and vastly improve accessibility.
This $25,000,000 project was passed unanimously.
Action Item: Proposed Reappointment of Directors for the Penn State Health Board of Directors
Penn State Health is the non-profit corporation established by the Board of Trustees for the purpose of holding and managing components of the health care enterprise controlled by the University, including the Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.
This item was to re-appoint the following to the Penn State Health Board:
Neeli Bendapudi
Timothy P. Brown
Mark H. Dambly
David M. Kleppinger
Keith E. Masser
Dr. Gregory J. Moore
Barry K. Robinson
Sara F. Thorndike
Steven B. Wagman
Given the horrific sterilization lapses at Penn State Hershey Med, recently exposed by SpotlightPA in their excellent article Workers in Penn State Health operating rooms raised alarms about safety, sterilization (Wyatt Massey, SpotlightPA May 14, 2026) and other significant issues like Penn State Cancer Institute Failed Leadership Exposed, that have arisen in recent years at Penn State Heath, it would be reasonable to question the strength of Penn State’s oversight of this organization.
Trustee Anthony Lubrano was the only trustee who voted against the re-appointments (technically, he abstained from approving them). His comments can be found here (26:50 minute mark):
“Mr Chairman: …. Given that we have a health system that requires a great deal of “outside counsel” if you will, I would prefer to have seen a few changes. So I am going to abstain from this vote.”
Penn State Trustee Anthony Lubrano
Over the last two years, I had voted against the re-appointments of the members of this Board. To the best of my knowledge, no other trustee had ever objected or voted NO when these Board members were re-appointed.
As I stated publicly, I did so because of the numerous disconcerting results and actions coming from Penn State Health and the failure of the Penn State administration to provide information I requested regarding some of Penn State Health’s operations. This included information related to the departments that would, a short time later, be the focus of inquiries and investigations, including those outlined here: Fear and disorder plagued Penn State’s $410 million pursuit of an elite cancer center, internal reviews found .
I’m not sure why Trustee Lubrano chose to abstain from this vote, but I do agree with him that Penn State Health cries out for greater oversight and governance.
Action Item: Reappointment of Director to the Milton S. Hershey Medical Center Board of Directors
The Penn State Board of Directors is responsible for the approval of appointments to the Board of Directors of The Milton S. Hershey Medical Center.
This item was to approve of the appointment of the following members of the Penn State Medical Center Board:
Dennis P. Brenckle
Thomas E. Lenkevich
Dr. Kenneth E. Wood
The proposal was approved unanimously.
The Board discussed various closures/mergers of certain academic programs. These measures, which reportedly will effect 50 or so current degree programs, have been discussed in multiple media reports. This undertaking has included the controversial hiring of McKinsey & Co, see Penn State defends hiring of McKinsey & Company as consultant | WPSU
Dr Bendapudi announced the hiring of additional high-level administrators to fill newly-created positions, along with the new hires of academic leaders to fill existing but vacant positions (including the Deans of Bellasario College of Communications, and the Dean of the Engineering College).
Several budgetary items were discussed:
Educational revenues (tuition revenue) was below targeted budget. It appears that Penn State fell short of their targeted enrollment goals, and there was a reported drop in enrollment from 73,400 in Fall 2024 to 72,400 in Fall 2025
Spending for auxiliary operations, largely athletics, was above budget (see Penn State Athletics: The fuse on the timebomb is lit)
Financials surrounding the Beaver Stadium project: net cost (costs less contributions) are running above budget
Once again, the long-term investment pool (primarily the Endowment) performed at well below market expectations
The statements from the Dean of the Penn State Law School that recently grabbed national headlines (see Penn State law school plans to focus on ‘antiracism’ over next 5 years) were not, to the best of my knowledge, discussed. Whether or not these actions on the part of the Law School Dean will place Penn State in the crosshairs of the federal government remains to be seen.
The meetings concluded with an announcement of the result of the 2026 Alumni Election voting results. There were four candidates on the ballot for three available positions, and 17,720 ballots were cast out of a pool of 767,909 eligible voters (2.3%, the lowest turnout in seven years).
The winners of the election were:
Jay Paterno (Incumbent trustee, who was seated for his fourth and final term) – 12,066 votes
Karen Keller – 11,641 votes
Dr Joseph DeRenzo – 11,458 votes
Incumbent trustee Ali Krieger finished last with 9,436 votes, and her term will expire on June 30th.
Clearly, the many recent efforts on the part of Board leadership, all designed to further disenfranchise alumni, is not a good strategy to enhance alumni engagement (see Penn State Board of Trustees to Alumni: Drop Dead.)
It does seem to be an excellent strategy to ensure more ‘rubber stamp’ trustees, and I will be watching to see how the new trustees represent their constituents.
Trustee Anthony Lubrano will be completing his fourth term after reaching the term limit of 12 years of service. He will be missed. Please read some of Anthony’s comments from his final Board meeting here.
Trustees Black and Dietrich were re-appointed by the agriculture caucus, and five non-elected members of the Board were all re-appointed for an additional term:
Trustees Beard and Quintos were re-appointed as Business and Industry trustees (although those seats are no longer authorized by Business and Industry interests)
Matthew Schuyler was re-appointed as an At-Large trustee
Trustees Davis and Delligatti will have their appointments renewed by the Governor
Aside from one vote against the bylaws changes in 2017, and one vote against selling Beaver Stadium naming rights to West Shore Homes, all five of those trustees have voted for every agenda item proposed to them during their time on the Board.
No other candidates were even considered for these five positions. This, despite the fact that the Board’s much discussed creation of screening committees for Board membership was supposed to result in the delivery of ‘large and robust pools of qualified candidates’ for each Board seat.
This pretense would appear to be a smokescreen.
The only re-appointment candidate to not register unanimous approval was Matthew Schuyler. It was under Matthew Schuyler’s tenure as Board Chairman that Penn State’s board was the defendant in numerous lawsuits regarding the conduct of the Board, particularly with regard to openness and transparency and conformity to State statutes.
Trustee Lubrano voted against the re-appointment of Schuyler, and had this to say:
“Mr. Chairman, my fellow Trustees: Integrity is the quality of being honest, having strong moral principles, and maintaining consistency in actions, values, and methods.
During my time on this Board, openness and transparency continues to be evasive, in my opinion.
I have observed a sitting member attack other members verbally, physically and in writing without consequence.
I have observed the unilateral approval of an estimated $250 million in future expenditures on football WITHOUT any input from the full Board.
I have observed the misrepresentation to this body of the fact pattern surrounding the Paterno field-naming resolution put forward in February, 2024.
Finally, I have observed, in direct circumvention of the Bylaws, the undertaking of a covert investigation into the alleged conduct of a member, at a cost to the University of more than $1 million in legal fees.
Based on my observations, I cannot support this nomination. Thank you.”
Penn State Trustee Anthony Lubrano
As a former Penn State alumni-elected trustee, I enjoy sharing my personal observations, concerns, and ideas about Penn State. I invite you to contact me with your opinions so that we can engage in meaningful conversations on those topics: barry@barryfenchak.com.
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