Letters: Save WPSU; PSU should stand strong for free speech

Save WPSU

The Penn State University Board of Trustees and administration are making a monumentally bad decision. At a time when our very democracy is under attack, public broadcasting is essential. Shutting down WPSU is unreasonable and unnecessary. Penn State is a land-grant university. As such it is required to support and promote education for the citizens of the commonwealth, not abandon local communities and voices. Public broadcasting was crafted at a conference at Penn State in the early 1950s. Ever since WPSU has been an active community, educational partner for the entirety of central Pennsylvania. No broadcast network is more trusted or more dedicated to bringing unbiased, educational programming and news to the commonwealth’s citizens. It is time to save WPSU from the ridiculous decisions of a deluded board and administrators.

Jackie Esposito, State College

PSU should stand strong for free speech

Some universities showed support for free speech after free speech advocate Charlie Kirk’s recent murder, which saw bipartisan, international condemnation. Standing against this historic attack on free speech is not outside the scope of statements that could be made by higher education, rather, it is core to what we do and need to stand for. There are countless students around the world now wondering what speakers they should book, what topics to focus on, and whether they should attend events. We do not need to agree with anything speakers say to stand for free speech. One intent of violence is to silence debate and free speech, thoughts and feelings, and to promote self-censorship. There was pressure on universities to adopt Institutional Neutrality regarding not making statements on public matters unless directly involved in university affairs. The global response shows this indeed directly pertains to all education, and is very appropriate to make a statement about, as this was a historic attack on everyone’s free speech, specifically in higher education, on a campus, in the middle of a normal debate, to one of the most internationally recognized free speech advocates and practitioners in higher education. This tragedy could’ve been on any one of myriad campuses where TPUSA and countless other speaking events happen, including PSU, and no one knows where another might tragically occur. Without broad, strong, and immediate support from university leadership, self-censorship will prevail and continue to undermine the mission of universities.

Matt Marsden, Alexandria

Undeserved pay increase for Penn State president

The PSU board should be ashamed. Why has the board chosen to reward a president that is in charge of a university with declining enrollment, declining test scores, declining ratings compared to other universities and the closing of branch campuses to save money? The pay of university presidents has been out of control for far too long. Anyone at a university who makes more than $500,000 should not be eligible for any kind of pension — the students they are training have little to no chance of a job with a pension. The board should have demanded a reduction in pay, not an increase. This shows that the board has no fiscal responsibility and the members should be removed and replaced with people who have at least a moderate amount of common sense and fiscal discipline.

Robert Buechele, Lewistown

Penn State abandons one of its key missions

Penn State University board members have characterized their actions to close WPSU as “a winding down” of 60 years of public broadcast service. I call it an abandonment of one of Penn State’s key missions.

PSU has apparently decided to no longer follow its mission statement to serve as a vibrant community partner who “engages in collaborative activities with private sector, educational, and governmental partners worldwide to generate, integrate, apply, and disseminate knowledge that is valuable to society.”

An article in the Business Horizons Volume 58, Issue 1, “Flawed by Design: Why Penn State’s recent governance reforms won’t work and what should be done instead,” states that “Penn State University is plagued by an ineffective board of trustees. As a complement to past work that has documented this board’s unwise and costly decisions, we examine how five design issues — board size, board composition, fiduciary responsibility, term limits, and transparency — helped create a culture in which poor choices were more likely to occur.”

The decision to end WPSU and the public information services provided by Penn State is an indication of continued failure of the board of trustees to make good decisions. Penn State University is heading into failure as a public service institution.

The Penn State board actions have trampled the mission objectives that made the university of value to central Pennsylvania as a disseminator of information, news, alerts, and family entertainment for the past 60 years.

David Roberts, Bellefonte

This story was originally published September 17, 2025 at 5:41 AM.