Penn State president confirms retirement
Eric Barron stepping aside in June 2022
Penn State University President Eric J. Barron, who has guided the state’s land-grant university for six years in the post-Sandusky era, focusing on growth, applied research and curbing tuition increases, confirmed Friday that he plans to retire in 2022.
Mr. Barron, 69, referred to his intentions — long the subject of speculation — during Friday’s board of trustees meeting. During the Zoom call, he delivered an update on strategic planning efforts that began after he arrived in 2014 and touched on areas from research and entrepreneurship to boosting classroom access and beginning to rein in tuition prices.
Mr. Barron, a career academic and scientist, took the helm of the school with 90,000 students and two dozen locations, including University Park, just three years after Jerry Sandusky, a former football assistant coach, was arrested and later convicted of sexually assaulting boys — a scandal that rocked the university.
In the years since, as those wounds began to heal, Mr. Barron oversaw endeavors ranging from a $2.1 billion fundraising campaign, due to finish in 2022, to business and entrepreneurship efforts across the state.
He guided Penn State through continued turbulence from the economy, the fraternity hazing death of sophomore Timothy Piazza in 2017 and, more recently, the huge economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
For Penn State, like many institutions in the commonwealth, the pandemic created unprecedented challenges on top of population loss, affordability issues and tepid state appropriation ssupport.
“Iwould have liked to have skipped COVID,” Mr. Barron quipped Friday in remarks to theboard.
Pennsylvania’s high tuitions drew his attention in recent years, and during his tenure, three tuition freezes were approved by the school’s board of trustees, including one for 2020-21. Base lower-division tuition on the main campus is $17,920 a year.
In 2019, Mr. Barron received total compensation of $1.1 million, including base pay of $845,000, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education.
Mr. Barron, who will have served eight years upon his retirement, effective June 2022, said the presidency has been his greatest career honor.
“In the next 16 months, even as we continue to weather the challenges of the pandemic as a community, we cannot pause in our efforts to provide the highest quality education, contribute knowledge to society, and support Pennsylvania communities, the nation and world,’’ he said.
Mr. Barron said advance notice of his departure would allow for a period of transition to a new leader. Board members praised his contributions and said a national search would be conducted.
The trustees’ meeting also saw the approval of the $48 million Lasch football building renovation and expansion — a 27-6 vote that turned on the importance of football and athletic sto the school’s overall mission, versus worries about the economy and debt being incurred for the project.
“This next phase of those renovations will continue to provide our student-athletes with the resources needed to compete at the highest level on and off the field,” head football coach James Franklin said in a statement. “The addition of the student-athlete development suite for our 5th Quarter Program will provide a world-class facility to prepare our guys as they transition to Penn State and prepare them for life beyond football.”
Trustees voting no cited academic cuts, bond debt and poor timing, given the pandemic that has led to academic program cuts and job losses across the commonwealth.
In March, trustees are expected to begin a phased approach to select a new president. It will kick off with a listening process to engage and solicit input from key stakeholders, including faculty, staff and students, on the qualities and type of future leader needed, officials said ina statement.
“President Barron’s outstanding leadership and support for the ongoing success of our students, faculty and staff have helped make a great public university even greater. I hope the university community will share the Board of Trustees’ commitment to continued success as we work to accomplish President Barron’s priorities for the coming months,” said trustees Chair Matt Schuyler.
“President Barron’s stable guidance, successful management of critical challenges, and drive to innovate will have a lasting impact and have prepared Penn State to lead the future of public higher education. As we look toward the future, the university is well-positioned for our next leader,” he added.
Mr. Schuyler said the process will be led by a Presidential Recruitment and Selection Committee that will be co-chaired by trustees Mark Dambly and Julie Anna Potts.
After a year of reckoning for race relations that included the death of George Floyd, a Black man, at the hands of police in Minneapolis, Mr. Barron reiterated his desire to see Penn State further embrace diversity. Officials Friday noted that students from underrepresented groups now represent 13.6% of the student population, up 3.8% since 2018.
Still, even in recent days, incidents appearing to target minorities have left some unnerved. What is called “Zoombombings,” when suspects hijack an online forum, occurred on the Brandywine and University Park campuses.
They included suspects who depicted themselves as a police officer while displaying what appears to be a firearm. Evidence indicates the incident swere racially motivated, officials said.
Mr. Barron previously was dean of Penn State’s College of Earth and Mineral Sciences. He went on to become president of Florida State University but returned to University Park after trustees named him Penn State’s 18th president in February 2014.