Penn State’s headlines show highs, lows in 2015

The year started out with a bang.

Coming down from the high of a Pinstripe Bowl win in the last days of 2014, Penn State followed that up weeks later with its first good news of the new year.

During the board of trustees meeting in January, lawyers were meeting, parties were conferring, and then it happened. The NCAA and Penn State settled the lawsuit with state Senate Majority Leader Jake Corman and then-treasurer Rob McCord, bringing an end to the battle over fine money.

The state leaders were suing over the $60 million fine levied in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal, attempting to keep the funds in Pennsylvania for the benefit of child victims in the commonwealth, rather than have it distributed as the NCAA saw fit.

“The NCAA has surrendered,” Corman said.

The settlement did more than keep the money in state. It brought an end to the consent decree between the college sports oversight organization and the university, dissolving all of the remaining sanctions, including restoration of late former head coach Joe Paterno’s 409 career win total, which set him as the winningest coach in college football.

The rest of the year was a roller coaster of ups and downs in Happy Valley.

The highs were significant.

The brightest might have come in July as President Eric Barron announced on a Thursday that there would be an historically low increase in tuition for in-state students, including freezing it at the Commonwealth Campuses. In the space of 24 hours, that changed, as he announced at a board meeting the next day a freeze for all in-state students, regardless of campus, something that hadn’t happened in decades.

Trustee meetings seemed to be part of most of Penn State’s highlights in 2015. In November, Barron announced plans to push to make Pennsylvania’s land-grant school the nation’s foremost energy university. Coincidentally, or not, the year marked anniversaries for important programs at Penn State with the 60th year for the Breazeale Nuclear Reactor and the 70th for the Applied Research Lab.

There was also a push in May for economic development as the university partnered with the Chamber of Business and Industry of Centre County on a $30 million commitment to build “a nurturing and collaborative environment” for businesses in Penn State’s backyard.

The lows, however, attracted plenty of attention, too.

In March, there was the Kappa Delta Rho scandal, as State College police announced an investigation into possible criminal activity at the fraternity house, after a former brother revealed the existence of a secret Facebook page documenting questionable incidents and sharing pictures of “hazing, drug sales and ‘unsuspecting victims.’ ”

The announcement came just weeks after Barron accepted recommendations from his sexual assault and harassment task force on changes to how those cases were handled at Penn State. Afterward, he announced that a new task force would investigate issues with the fraternity and sorority system.

In May, the university revealed that computers in the engineering department had been hacked twice. One of those intrusions started in September 2012. The other began in July 2014. Both were believed to originate in China.

In June, more attacks were confirmed on the College of the Liberal Arts.

The university’s attorneys were also busy in court. Penn State’s ongoing legal issues from the Sandusky case, including the Paterno estate’s lawsuit, kept moving, although the university was dropped as a party to that case over the summer. However, it continues to be involved in discovery, as its documents are sought and privileges asserted.

Other cases were newly filed in 2015, including a suit by alumni-elected trustees pursuing the original documents in former FBI director Louis Freeh’s investigation of the case, which resulted in an order to turn those documents over. In December, trustees petitioned the court to have the university pay their attorney fees for that case, but an order has not yet been made.

Then there are the things that could be good or bad, depending on your position. Things like the university’s logo.

In August, a new logo was unveiled, replacing the simple shield and date with the prowling lion on top. Instead, a new logo, more stylized and bold, planned to be more unifying and identifiable for social media, was put in play. The outcry was immediate. While university officials expressed their pleasure at the new design, the opposition was vocal in its dislike, even starting a petition demanding the old shield logo’s return.

“Thirty years from now, people will be upset when this one is gone,” Barron said.

This story was originally published December 27, 2015 at 10:59 PM with the headline "Penn State’s headlines show highs, lows in 2015."