This story was produced by the State College regional bureau of Spotlight PA, an independent, nonpartisan newsroom dedicated to investigative and public-service journalism for Pennsylvania. Sign up for Talk of the Town, a daily newsletter of local stories that dig deep, events, and more from north-central PA, at spotlightpa.org/newsletters/talkofthetown.
After years of closed-door meetings between top Penn State administrators and trustees, the university is now required to publicly reveal the nature of those gatherings and who was involved.
The disclosures are mandated by a recent legal settlement between the university and Spotlight PA over alleged violations of the Sunshine Act, the state law that sets the transparency rules for public bodies. Under the agreement, when the board holds a “conference” it must disclose the person leading the session and the topic, information that Penn State previously did not make public.
The Sunshine Act defines a conference as a gathering for “any training program or seminar, or any session arranged by State or Federal agencies for local agencies, organized and conducted for the sole purpose of providing information to agency members on matters directly related to their official responsibilities.” The law allows such meetings to be open to the public, but doesn’t require them to be.
Last Friday was the board’s first regular public meeting since the settlement went into effect in early June. In his opening remarks, board Chair David Kleppinger said trustees had met in conference earlier that day.
“During this session, Senior Vice President for Finance and Business Sara Thorndike provided budget and finance updates,” Kleppinger said. “Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics Pat Kraft briefed us on the [NCAA] House settlement and the developments in the athletic world, in a rapidly changing area. And Interim Vice President for Commonwealth Campuses Renata Engel and Vice President for Government and Community Relations Mike Stefan and trustee Rob Fenza updated us on commonwealth campus transition planning.”
The board also disclosed that its student success committee met in a conference session in late June to hear updates about the university’s relationship with Greek life organizations, as well as risks to students related to hazing and substance use.
Neither Penn State nor board leadership responded to a request for comment for this story.
“Government agencies throughout Pennsylvania are required to follow the state’s public meetings law, and all are required to keep the public clearly informed about why it has been excluded from certain proceedings,” said Paula Knudsen Burke, the Pennsylvania attorney for the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press who represented Spotlight PA in the case. “The recent disclosure by Penn State at a meeting of its Board of Trustees — the direct result of the recent settlement between the university and Spotlight PA — is the type of disclosure that should be the norm.”
For years, the board did not provide information about these kinds of gatherings, a practice allowed by the law. For example, in November 2022, a trustees committee held a conference to hear that the university was considering rolling back some oversight of Greek life, including some provisions it had championed after the hazing death of Timothy Piazza. The university did not acknowledge that this meeting had happened until Spotlight PA reported on it months later.
The newsroom documented other ways the board met privately, including trustees’ review of information about internal misconduct reports and access to the former president’s diversity initiative before it was announced. The board’s executive committee, a special group of top university and board leaders, also met privately for years to set board agendas. Following the newsroom’s reporting, statistics about the misconduct reports are available online and the executive committee meets in public.
The settlement between the university and the newsroom ended a year and a half of legal arguments in local court. In October 2023, Spotlight PA and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press sent the board a letter requesting the trustees “immediately cease holding improper executive sessions and conferences, advertise and record meeting minutes for all public meetings, and halt the practice of deliberating in secret.” The university responded that it was following the law.
During the board’s November 2023 meetings in University Park, Spotlight PA witnessed what it believed were potential violations of the open meetings law, including alleged misuses of the conference provision, and filed a lawsuit in the Centre County Court of Common Pleas. After the board’s February and May 2024 meetings, the lawsuit was amended to include additional allegations.
The board settled the lawsuit last month. Under the agreement, trustees will be offered training on the Sunshine Act in September. When the trustees hold an executive session, another type of nonpublic meeting, the board will publicly say the reason why and cite the legal exemption that allows for the closed-door gathering. The terms of the settlement will last for five years. Read the full agreement here.
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