This letter was written by Taran Samarth, a Penn State fourth-year student, and Nora Van Horn, a recent alumna. Samarth is the policy director and Van Horn is the founder of Penn State Forward — a coalition of students, alumni and employees researching and organizing to create a sustainable, inclusive and fair Penn State — primarily by recruiting and supporting candidates for the Penn State Board of Trustees’ alumni elections.
On Aug. 3, the Penn State Board of Trustees’ Subcommittee on Compensation met publicly for 70 seconds. While any member of the public could have tuned in, they wouldn’t have known what the meeting was about — the board did not publish an agenda ahead of time.
That day, the subcommittee chair announced that “the meeting… is for the sole purpose of considering one personnel matter for which the subcommittee met prior to this meeting in executive session to consider.”
The chair revealed a single agenda item: “to consider a salary adjustment for Sara Thorndike,” senior vice president for finance and business/treasurer at Penn State.
Then, the subcommittee unanimously voted “to recommend the adoption of the salary adjustment as presented in the executive session.”
But was it a pay raise? A pay cut?
How much? Why?
Even though the details of the salary adjustment were eventually uncovered by the Centre Daily Times, the board’s lack of transparency during the August meeting may be illegal.
But the board’s opacity is chronic.
In 2019, the board empaneled a working group to discuss “improving public dialogue,” according to documents obtained via open records requests.
What idea did they consider to enrich the board's involvement with the public? Ending the board’s public comment period altogether to “reduce administrative time and expense.”
The proposal to axe public comment revealed the planned grand finale of a yearslong persecution, involving decisions to move public comment to 8 a.m. and segregate public commenters from trustees — instead livestreaming their comments to the board.
While public comment remains, it is now limited to the few matters the board has on the agenda for the meeting — an agenda the public has just approximately five days to read, formulate thoughts on and submit to the board for advance approval.
History proves the board doesn’t want feedback. And it proves board members don’t want to share information with the public either.
In 2007, then-President Graham Spanier’s lobbying of the Pennsylvania State Senate won Penn State’s exclusion from a state open records law.
Penn State is the only public Big Ten university with such an exemption. As a result, the public cannot perform critical oversight over university budgets, campus police departments and much more.
Spanier’s lobbying hollowed out Penn State’s legal transparency requirements. Earlier this month, the board failed to abide by the weak remains.
Pennsylvania law requires the board and its committees to publish agendas on the official Board of Trustees website — in advance and after meetings. The law enshrines the public’s right “to witness the deliberation, policy formation and decision-making” of the many agencies funded with taxpayer money.
Before the Aug. 3 meeting, the board failed to publish an agenda. Now, any Pennsylvanian can sue, forcing the university to fork over legal costs for a self-made problem.
According to a recent update on the board’s website, the agenda was not posted ahead of time due to an “administrative oversight.”
On Aug. 25, we — with Penn State Forward — joined Penn State’s Association of American University Professors to send a letter to the Board of Trustees, advising them of this legal liability.
We also asked them to do more.
We face a substantial deficit, university-wide rescissions, a hiring freeze and degree program cuts. It seems that the board mismanaged the budget.
At the September meeting, the board will consider approving a budget for the coming fiscal year: one is expected to include 3% rescissions to all expenditures — yielding unknown impacts to employment, degree programs and resources. Already this spring, Penn State Altoona axed its mathematics, political science and integrative arts degree programs.
We might not know what’s on the chopping block until the knives are stowed away. Without a proposed budget in hand in advance, affected faculty, staff and students may not even be able to voice their concerns in time.
We must leverage the wonderful expertise of those within the Penn State community to get our university back on track.
Institutional leaders should host legitimate town halls, coordinate deliberations and lead genuine outreach efforts to inform the difficult decisions that lie ahead. The Board of Trustees must proactively and honestly share information about the budget and potential financial proposals — it seems the board needs our help, given the state of university finances.
To ensure we fulfill our key research, teaching and education missions, board members must commit to a new vision for transparent decision-making and create participatory structures for institutional governance. Too much is at stake: academic programs and support for students, job security for faculty and staff, and Penn State’s future as a respected academic institution.
If current board members won’t, we as a community need to support new ones who will.