Opinion: Attempted ouster of trustee shows misplaced priorities in play at Penn State
"Nero fiddled while Rome burned."
This age-old idiom about misplaced priorities, sadly, is in play at Penn State. This past year our Board of Trustees (Nero) spent considerable time revising the bylaws with a special focus on a new Code of Conduct, which enables the rapid removal of "wayward" members. The board scheduled a special meeting on July 30 with the "sole purpose ... to adopt the new bylaws..." proposed by the Governance Committee and the new bylaws were adopted.
In contrast, our Academic Affairs Committee met three times this year and no action items were recommended, notwithstanding our declining academic standing. With its new authority, our Governance Committee then voted unanimously (12-0) on Sept. 10 to recommend (to the full board) the removal of alumni-elected Trustee Barry Fenchak. His transgression: repeating a joke during a refreshment break that made a board staffer uncomfortable. The joke was a line from the Tom Hanks 1992 PG movie "A League of their Own," well-known for several quotes including "there's no crying in baseball."
The basis for the proposed expulsion is a ruse. Barry's real violation is not repeating a line from the movie, it is his outspoken criticism of board decisions and his temerity for asking for data about projected stadium costs and endowment expenses. The full board then scheduled a special meeting on Oct. 10 with just one agenda item: vote out Barry. Thanks to an emergency appeal to Centre County Court on behalf of Barry, Judge Brian Marshall issued a strong rebuke of the trustees (defendants in the appeal) and the planned meeting was blocked. Judge Marshall said "Allowing his removal would recast a shadow over the financial operations of the defendants to the detriment of every Penn State stakeholder except those at the very top of PSU's hierarchy."
Meanwhile (Rome is burning), this fall U.S. News & World Report again ranked PSU last in the Big Ten for "best value" and, shockingly, 184/206 nationally. Even Rutgers' branch campus at Camden is a better value! We also are ranked last in the Big Ten in the latest Forbes and Wall Street Journal rankings. These rankings, sadly and undeniably, accurately reflect our falling university standing in the higher education marketplace.
Notably, enrollment at our commonwealth campuses has plummeted and has necessitated 400 "buyouts." Our campuses are essentially open enrollment (Altoona accepts 96% of applicants). There is also an emerging concern at University Park. First-year enrollment at University Park has increased slightly over the past five years from 8,400 to 9,000, but this has required an enormous (52%) increase in the number of students offered admission, according to the 2023/2024 Common Data Set .
As such, our "yield" (the ratio of enrolled first year students divided by admitted first year students) has plummeted from 27% to 19%. over this period. The prestige of a university is often gauged by its yield and, not surprisingly, Harvard leads the nation at 84% (i.e., 84% of students offered admission to Harvard enroll at Harvard). Benchmark Michigan's yield leads the Big Ten at 47% (excluding private Northwestern at 55%) while Penn State and Michigan State are at the bottom (19%). Since our University Park yield is less than 20%, it follows that more than 80% (4 out of 5) of students admitted to University Park are rejecting Penn State for alternative pathways!
What should happen next? Our Governance Committee needs to recognize that their actions are being seen as petty and retaliatory. In particular, Judge Marshall wrote "The Court has been presented with credible and, in many instances uncontroverted, evidence that Plaintiff (Barry) has been the subject to ongoing incidents of retaliation by Defendants ... " The Governance Committee should demonstrate the leadership in which they are entrusted and de-escalate the mess they have created by rescinding its recommendation and welcoming Barry back to the team.
It's time to turn the page and focus on what counts.
Al Soyster is a Boalsburg resident who served as head of industrial engineering at Penn State, dean of engineering at Northeastern and director of engineering education at the National Science Foundation. In 2018, he was named a Penn State Outstanding Engineering Alumnus.
