PSU plans new capital campaign

Hey Penn Staters, feeling generous?

The university soon will hit up its alumni and other donors as it prepares to launch a major capital campaign next summer – just two years after ending its previous fundraising push.

Penn State President Eric Barron told the board of trustees at its meeting in University Park on Friday that money for student scholarships will be a major focus of the new campaign, which does not yet have a stated dollar goal.

"That one was on the top of the list of every single dean and chancellor in the university," Barron said.

The university's last campaign, ending in July 2014, brought in $2.2 billion over eight years.

But Barron said eight years is too long for students to wait. The new one will last six years, and while the university eventually will release its target dollar amount, it's not clear whether it will be larger or much larger than the previous campaign, given the shorter time frame, he said.

"We don't want to take a decade to focus on access and affordability for students," Barron said, citing a major push to increase the university's graduation rate. "Frankly, we'd like to see every student graduate more quickly. It will save them a fortune."

Also at the meeting, the majority of trustees voted to award emeritus status to three former board members, Marianne Alexander, Linda Strumpf and Carl Shaffer, all whom served on the board when it fired Joe Paterno as head football coach in 2011 in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child sex abuse scandal.

The vote brought questions and objections from some trustees, including Anthony Lubrano, an alumni-elected trustee, who has been critical of the board's actions in the aftermath of the Sandusky scandal, including its acceptance of football sanctions by the NCAA, most of which have since been rolled back.

"The irony is not lost on the Penn State community that it's almost four years since Joe Paterno was fired and yet we have not honored him," Lubrano said.

Sandusky, a former assistant football coach, is serving a minimum 30-year prison sentence for abusing boys and former Penn State President Graham Spanier and two other former administrators are awaiting trial on charges that they covered up Sandusky's abuse. Paterno was never charged. He died in January 2012.

Trustee Ted Brown, also an alumni-elected member, questioned why one of the three members was denied reappointment to the board and yet now is receiving emeritus status. He did not name which of the three members he was referring.

But both Mark Dambly and Keith Eckel, long-time board members, said they supported the move, which was recommended by a committee that reviewed their service.

Five of the 30-plus trustees including Brown and Lubrano voted no on the proposal, while several others abstained.

Strumpf is the former chief investment officer for the Helmsley Charitable Trust and the former vice president and chief investment officer for the Ford Foundation. Shaffer runs a farm in Columbia County, and Alexander is the president emerita of the Public Leadership Education Network.