Penn State board of trustees schedule private meeting on campus closure recommendation
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to reflect that the meeting scheduled for May 15 is an executive session meeting and is not open to the public.
The Penn State board of trustees will meet later this week in an executive session to discuss closing some of the university’s commonwealth campuses, according to information posted on the board’s website.
The board will meet in an executive session at 8 a.m. Thursday, May 15 to discuss President Neeli Bendapudi’s recommendation on which campuses should close. More information regarding the timing of a public meeting is expected to be shared after Thursday’s executive session meeting.
A public meeting was originally scheduled for Thursday but was changed to an executive session to give board members more time to review the recommendation, according to university spokesman Wyatt DuBois. Because of a production error, an incorrect legal notice announcing the public meeting was published in Sunday’s CDT.
During the regularly scheduled trustees meetings last week, board Chair David Kleppinger said the board met in executive session Thursday to discuss Bendapudi’s “recommendation on the future configuration of our commonwealth campuses.” They discussed a number of items, Kleppinger said, including potential impacts on personnel and how to mitigate them, how to address collective bargaining issues, the impact of potential closures on the sale or lease of property, legal implications, and academic admission and standing.
Bendapudi announced in February that 12 of the university’s 19 commonwealth campuses are under consideration for closure: Beaver, DuBois, Fayette, Greater Allegheny, Hazleton, Mont Alto, New Kensington, Schuylkill, Shenango, Scranton, Wilkes-Barre and York. She 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.
Citing multiple sources close to the board of trustees, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported Monday that seven campuses are proposed for closure: Dubois, Fayette, Mont Alto, New Kensington, Shenango, Wilkes-Barre and York.
Factors taken into consideration include enrollment, Penn State’s evolving land-grant mission, population shifts, student experience and success, and the higher education landscape in Pennsylvania. Bendapudi previously said their recommendation should include “a continued presence for Penn State in the Northeast and the Pittsburgh regions of the commonwealth.”
No campuses would close before the end of the 2026-27 academic year, Bendapudi previously said, and Penn State will continue to extend offers and admit new students for Fall 2025 at commonwealth campuses.
Since the announcement that some campuses would close, faculty members said employee morale hit a new low, and this past semester was riddled with stress and uncertainty as they waited to hear which campuses would close.
The Penn State faculty senate passed a positional report opposing the closure of commonwealth campuses and asked the university administration to pause the decision until an impact assessment can be conducted. The Penn State chapter of the American Association of University Professors also urged the university’s administration to keep all of the commonwealth campuses open and fully funded.
This story was originally published May 12, 2025 at 12:22 PM.
