The Penn State Board of Trustees met Thursday and Friday, November 6-7th, 2025 at the Nittany Lion Inn, University Park, Pennsylvania. According to the Board Secretary, 35 trustees were in attendance, with Trustee Espenshade absent*. 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.
Prior to Friday’s full Board meeting, on Thursday, November 6th there were meetings of the Finance and Investment Committee, Audit and Risk Committee, Student Success & Research and Technology Joint Committee, Equity and Human Resources Committee, and Governance Committee. Read the full published agendas and find links to supporting materials here.
Friday, November 7, 2025 public meeting of the full Board
Read the full published agenda here , links to supporting materials here, and video here, which I urge you to watch it in its entirety. As a service to alumni and the public who were unable to access the live broadcast of the meeting or the recording, the following are my comments and personal opinions on the topics and the vote results for selected agenda items.
Meetings of the full Board usually begin with prepared remarks from the Board Chair which include a statement about public comments. As a reminder, in 2021 the trustees banned the public from addressing them in person, and instead comments must be submitted to an online portal, due several days before the Board meeting. The comments are then published on the Board website but not addressed by the trustees. The Chair usually has very brief remarks on the number of comments and their nature.
The following comment was submitted by Allen Soyster, who is a former Penn State department head, a recipient of the highest honor bestowed by the Penn State College of Engineering (The 2018 Outstanding Engineering Alumni Award), a former Dean at Northeastern University, and division director of the National Science Foundation.
Chair Kleppinger’s summary of Dr Soyster’s comment was: “The comments received related to … encouragement for the university to continue strengthening its national reputation and academic excellence.” (Please see Chair Kleppinger’s full remarks at 9:26 – 10:08), but I feel it’s important to read Dr Soyster’s full public comment:
This week PSU fired our Head Football Coach. For the first time in years, our team was dropped from the AP Top 25 and resides at the bottom of the Big10. The dismissal will cost Penn State (or some friends) an estimated $50 mil buyout.
It is noteworthy that $50 mil exceeds the total of the annual budgets for the seven Commonwealth Campuses to be closed. Our Penn State leadership, apparently, could not endure our bottom Big10 status, not even for 24 hours.
On the other hand, PSU has languished at the bottom of the USNEWS Best Value ranking for years and currently ranks #185 of 206 universities and at the bottom of the BIG10 (Michigan State #186, Nebraska unranked.) And recently, the 2026 Forbes ranking of 500 universities was released. This ranking features the increasing emphasis on the value of a college education.
The dominant Forbes metrics are cost of attendance, student-debt and alumni salary, key elements of ROI (Return on Investment). Penn State ranks #338, by far and away the lowest in the BIG10. Benchmarks are Michigan #20 and Rutgers branch campus at Camden #249.
Who gets fired here? Certainly not our President. She was just awarded a $1 mil raise. At the November 2025 Board meeting some Trustee must demand that our leadership explain how these rankings are determined, assess the damage to our national reputation and construct a path forward to address priorities other than football.
Allen Soyster
d.3 Proposed Approval Changes to the Bylaws of The Pennsylvania State University
The Board once again revised the bylaws to suppress and allow punishment of trustees for public expression of their opinions, including the right (and fiduciary duty) to publicly question unwise actions. This comes on the heels of the July 2024 bylaw overhaul, which placed control of the Board, trustees, and alumni trustee selection squarely in the hands of the Chair and Vice-Chair of the Board of Trustees. As a side note, I am the plaintiff in a federal case against Penn State for abrogating my First Amendment rights, which is directly related to that set of bylaw amendments.
The new bylaw revisions:
Impose even more draconian punishments to eliminate trustees’ expressions of public opposition to Board actions that they feel are unwise and harmful to the University. (Section 2.04)
Eliminate the ability of alumni to nominate or write-in candidates for Alumni Trustee Board positions. The exact wording is: “SECTION TWO:
REQUIREMENTS FOR ALLCANDIDATESREQUREMENTS Candidates who have not satisfactorily completed all applicable requirements as determined by the Office of the Board are ineligible for nomination or election. As such, write-in candidate or nominations are not permitted.” (Section Two, Elections Appendix)Make legal indemnification of trustees at the sole discretion of the Board Chair. This means that if a trustee feels they have no resort but to sue the Board to compel them to follow the statues of Pennsylvania or the United States, they must be able to privately fund that legal action. This places an incredible financial burden on trustees who demand information necessary to properly discharge of their fiduciary duties. Unless a trustee is independently wealthy, this new bylaw amendment makes it virtually impossible for the university to be held to the rule of law (Section 4.02 v).
In total, these revisions further what I feel is the goal of Board leadership: a self-selected, disengaged, selectively informed, rubberstamp Board.
As of this publication date, Penn State has not posted the new bylaws, but WPSU was able to source a useful red-lined version which you should read here.
Only one trustee, Alumni Trustee Anthony Lubrano, voted against these further draconian gag orders and alumni disenfranchisement. All other trustees, including Alumni Trustees Paterno, Short, Krieger, Lynch, McGloin, Moriarity, Nassib, and Pilewicz voted for the changes.
Vote – Yea: 34 Nay: 1 (Lubrano)
4.a Proposed approval of the Penn State Strategic Plan
Please reference Dr Bendapudi’s new Strategic Plan here. I would summarize it as highly aspirational, with a strong emphasis on alignment, impact, and feelings.
Conspicuously absent is any section that addresses quantitative goal measurement. It is a best practice to include metrics, key performance indicators, or a monitoring and evaluation framework in any strategic plan to ensure accountability. In fact, no instances of ‘account’, ‘accountability’, or ‘accountable’ were found when I searched the plan. Without measureable outcomes, it’s impossible to know if goals were achieved or whether mid-course corrections are needed.
A directional framework lacking operational rigor and accountability mechanisms is called a wish list. And no one should be funding Dr Bendapudi’s wish list.
Vote – Unanimous approval
*I’m confused by this attendance figure, since it was later announced that 36 trustees had voted for the Vice-Chair position, which was Sokolov: 20 votes and Gursahaney: 16 votes.
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.
No posts
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.