Penn State AAUP calls on administration to keep commonwealth campuses open
The Penn State chapter of the American Association of University Professors is urging the university’s administration to keep all of the commonwealth campuses open and fully funded, weeks before the decision on which campuses will close is expected to be finalized.
In a letter sent to the board of trustees this week, the Penn State AAUP chapter cited the university’s financial strength, commitment to serving underrepresented students and the administration’s violation of AAUP’s principles on campus closures and shared governance as reasons why they urged the administration to reverse its decision on campus closures.
“Penn State AAUP finds the administration derelict in its duty to the students, faculty, staff, and community members of the Commonwealth when it announced statewide campus closures,” the letter, signed by Michelle Rodino-Colocino, president of Penn State AAUP, and reflective of the chapter’s views, states. “Penn State is strong financially now and in light of future projections, net assets, and years of running the university at a profit going back decades.”
Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi said in February that 12 of the university’s 19 campuses would be under consideration for closure, citing declining enrollments, demographic shifts and financial pressures. The campuses under consideration for closure are the smaller of the 19 campuses: Beaver, DuBois, Fayette, Greater Allegheny, Hazleton, Mont Alto, New Kensington, Schuylkill, Scranton, Shenango, Wilkes-Barre and York. The decision on which will close is expected to come in mid-May when the board of trustees take action on it.
Penn State AAUP’s letter states the plan “threatens to rollback recent improvements” in serving students from underrepresented backgrounds, including Black/African American, Hispanic/Latino, American Indian/Native Alaskan, or Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander. The commonwealth campus system is more racially diverse compared to University Park, according to reporting by Spotlight PA.
“The administration credited such gains in diversity to the accessible ‘flexible’ Commonwealth Campus model and recruitment in diverse cities such as Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, also home to campuses under threat of closure,” the letter says.
Bendapudi charged Margo DelliCarpini, vice president for commonwealth campuses and executive chancellor, Tracy Langkilde, interim executive vice president and provost, and Michael Wade Smith, senior vice president and chief of staff, to co-lead a group that will give her a final recommendation of which campuses should close. That recommendation should include Penn State’s “continued presence” in the northeast and Pittsburgh regions, per Bendapudi’s request.
The letter goes on to say that AAUP’s principles only call for a campus closure when there’s a “‘demonstrably bona fide’ condition of financial exigency that ‘threatens the academic integrity of the institution as a whole.’” Penn State is far from experiencing a crisis, the letter says.
“Penn State is financially strong, with net liquid reserve assets topping $5 billion (not donor-restricted and not in buildings and equipment) last year, with net asset growth over the past three decades, annual operating profits in hundreds of millions, steady and increasing enrollment, and stellar credit ratings from Moody’s and S&P reflecting such strong liquidity, and net growth in enrollment,” the letter reads.
On the same note, AAUP Penn State said the administration has violated the “basic principles” of shared governance by not including faculty in the campus closure decision. Faculty should play a primary role, the letter states.
“Faculty were not consulted in the mass closure decision. Additionally, by threatening the research and instruction being done across Penn State campuses, the academic freedom, academic integrity of existing programs, quality, equity, and access have been compromised by the administration’s closure plan.”
The faculty senate has also questioned shared governance and taken issue with the decision making. The same day Bendapudi announced the plan to close campuses, there was a scheduled faculty senate meeting. Josh Wede, chair of the faculty senate, said during the meeting he was aware of the announcement the day before but did not get a heads up from university leadership that it would be announced publicly before the faculty senate meeting.
They touched on shared governance — or what the faculty senate said was a lack of shared governance — a lot during that meeting. But nearly a year before that, the faculty senate asked the administration to sign onto an “Agreement of Shared Governance Cooperation” after the university announced $94 million in planned cuts for the 2025-26 fiscal year, including significant cuts to the commonwealth campuses.
Bendapudi previously said the decision on which campuses to close would be hers but that faculty, staff and shared governance bodies would be engaged in the planning and transition. It was unclear until recently if the Penn State board of trustees would even have a say in the matter. But last week, Bendapudi said no decision on the campuses would be final until the board took action on it.
Penn State AAUP asked the administration to reverse the decision and, moving forward, to involve the faculty as primary decision makers in academic budgeting. The letter also calls on faculty, staff, students, alumni and community members to come together and organize in ways other colleges and universities have done to keep the campuses and academic programs intact.
Some current and former trustees have publicly questioned the decision to close campuses. In an April 18 op-ed in StateCollege.com, Trustees Jay Paterno and Ted Brown, Trustee Emeritus Alice Pope, former Trustee and President of the Penn State Alumni Association Randy Houston and trustee candidate Jeff Ballou said closing campuses wasn’t the only answer. They asked Penn State to explore other options. In response, more than 260 people have signed onto an open letter and petition to the trustees, asking them to “stand with your colleagues who see campus closures as a last resort that we should not yet be facing.”
