What happened at Penn State’s new liberal arts building? University gives update
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Penn State closed the $128M Susan Welch Liberal Arts Building after structural damage.
- Crews found a wall crack spanning floors two to five and a two-inch floor drop.
- University suspended classes there, will relocate sessions and assess cause with experts.
One of the newest buildings on Penn State’s University Park campus is closed until further notice, which may be for the rest of the semester, after a “localized structural issue” damaged the building Wednesday.
Alpha Fire Company was called to the Susan Welch Liberal Arts Building at about 1:35 p.m. Wednesday for a “sound of an explosion,” according to dispatch reports, and the building was evacuated. Tony Berrena, Alpha Fire Company’s fire chief, told the CDT on Wednesday crews found a crack in a wall of the building that stretched from the second floor to the fifth floor. He also noted the floor had dropped about 2 inches. No injuries were reported.
In a news release Thursday, Penn State said no foul play is suspected and Office of Physical Plant engineers and outside experts will conduct a full examination to determine the cause of the damage.
The $128 million building that just opened this spring is closed, and the Penn State Registrar has been in contact with instructors whose classes are impacted by the loss of classroom space, the release states.
“Students who had classes in that building should watch for communication from their instructors regarding the location and format of their classes for the rest of the fall semester,” the university said in a release.
Employees who work in the Welch Building will also receive information on their work arrangements from their unit or department head, or supervisor, the university said.
A university spokesman did not answer questions about how many people or offices are displaced due to the building closure.
Several crews — including Alpha Fire Company, Bellefonte and Penn State EMS, the University Ambulance Service, Centre County’s sheriff’s department and Penn State’s Office of Physical Plant — were at the scene Wednesday afternoon.
What is the Penn State Susan Welch Liberal Arts building?
The building, located on Fischer Road on the University Park campus, was recently built and opened to classes during the spring 2025 semester. When the board of trustees approved the project in 2022, the total cost was estimated to be $127.7 million, with most of the funding coming from the state, borrowing and capital reserves.
The 143,000-square-foot, six-story building brought several academic units, labs, centers, institutes and other learning spaces under one roof, its website states, including anthropology, political science, sociology and criminology, public policy, the criminal justice research center, the Matson Museum of Anthropology, the McCourtney Institute for Democracy, the Social Science Research Institute and general purpose classrooms.
The director of the Matson Museum of Anthropology said the museum staff and collections were not impacted by Wednesday’s incident.
Turner Construction was the general contractor for the building, according to Tradeline, Inc.
