Your Penn State AAUP chapter unites faculty across the Commonwealth to re-envision our university as an institution that serves the common good and general welfare of our citizenry. Our mission is to promote a supportive, equitable and just climate for all.
Your chapter promotes equity and economic security for all faculty and graduate students. Together, we help the higher education community organize to make your goals a reality. Faculty, graduate students, and academic professionals of all ranks, at all of Penn State’s campuses, amplify your collective voice by joining your AAUP chapter, yellow join tab.
Current initiatives
Keep Campuses Open
4/23/25 Penn State AAUP sent this letter to the President and Board of Trustees, calling for all of our Commonwealth Campuses to remain open because closing the campuses violates our land grant mission and our responsibility to provide access to education across the state. In addition, Penn State has not made a demonstrably bona fide case for financial exigency nor did it involve faculty in the decision.
5/21/25
Following last week's statewide meeting with PSFA members and 2 action hours w AAUP members, keep the momentum up across PA to #KeepCampusesOpen & #SavePenn State. Learn about the issue here, clashing with land grant mission here, reactions from Republican lawmakers threatening to pull funding in response to closures here and here.
Nationwide momentum is building: The National AAUP issued a statement opposing the admin’s decision to close the seven campuses bc it would harm students, faculty, and staff; it violates key principles of financial exigency & shared governance, and “threatens the academic integrity of existing programs as well as quality, equity, and access.
Opinions on closure plans: by Angela Lambo of Uniontown, Observer-Reporter here; by Ben Novak, Onward State/StateCollege.com here; by Jay Paterno, StateCollege.Com here;
by Jay Paterno, Ted Brown, Alice Pope, Randy Houston and Jeff Balou, StatCollege.com here
Now is the time for you to act-->
Build your own action hour:
1. Make a Public Comment for the Board of Trustees by 9:00 a.m. EST on Wednesday, May 21, 2025 via the Public Comment Form on the Board’s website. 500 words maximum. See these guidelines for further info on BOT public comments.If you miss the public comment deadline, or wish to remain anonymous, use the anonymous comment form here.
2. Email a Board Member and share your story or your students' stories about why they should vote no on the Penn State campus closure plan. Board members I've spoken with have appreciated the information I shared as a faculty member about what the campuses have meant to my students -- including that 2 of our 5 College Marshals started their PSU studies at campuses slated for closure. Offer them your cell number so they can follow up with a phone call.
3. Email or Call your legislator in the PA legislature or Congress and tell them why they should support Keeping Campuses Open and oppose the PSU administration's plan.
4. If you haven’t yet signed, please read and sign the PSFA petition calling for an immediate halt to the closure process and a renewed commitment to shared governance, transparency, and dignity for all.
Attend the live streamed BOT meeting this Thursday, May 22 at 5:00pm
Extra Credit: Attend an Organize Every Campus town hall, first one is tonight May 19 at 7pm, register herewith SEIU labor educator Puya Gerami and KB Brower, organizing director for Bargaining for the Common Good at the Action Center on Race and the Economy. Another Org for Every campus will be June 9, register here.
Tuesday May 20, Mutual Defense for Higher Ed: Organizing Across Campuses for Collective Power
C'mon now, don't sit back and make it easy for us to lose our precious Penn State campuses. Other colleges and universities have fought to keep their doors and programs open and positions filled AND WON-- YOU can too!
Ok, triple last thing combo: follow Penn State AAUP socials: your AAUP chapter Instagram, on Bluesky here, see latest videos of student testimony to #KeepCampusesOpen here and if you haven't updated your membership, now's a great time to do so.
Please fill out this contact form if you can spend 30 minutes on communications of this message: #KeepCampusesOpen, #SavePennState
SUMMER INSTITUTE = Power & Fun
Register today
2025 AAUP/AFT Summer Institute
Thursday, July 17–Sunday, July 20
The 2025 Summer Institute presents a crucial opportunity for AFT and AAUP members to learn how to fight back while continuing to advance our shared vision for higher education that serves our students and our communities, drives our regional and national economies, and is truly affordable and accessible to all. We are bringing the Summer Institute to Morehouse College, a historically Black institution, in order to emphasize our continued commitments to racial equity, highlight the ongoing and meaningful role that HBIs play in the realization of our national democratic ideals, and recognize the organizing being done by scholars of color.
All AAUP and AFT members are welcome at the Summer Institute—no experience necessary! Together, we will organize, fight, and win.
Registration and full itineraries are available here.
In the news:
Community Voices Rise As Penn State Targets Campuses for Closures (Centre Daily Times, May 19, 2025)
Penn State Board Should Reject Closure Plans (AAUP National, May 16, 2025)
Professors fight PSU campus closures (Altoona Mirror, April 25, 2025)
Penn State’s plan to close some Commonwealth campuses gets pushback from faculty and two trustees (The Philadelphia Inquirer, April 25, 2025)
Penn State AAUP calls on administration to keep commonwealth campuses open (Center Daily Times, April 24, 2025)
The issue:
The Penn State Chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) sent letters to Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi and members of the Board of Trustees on April 23, 2025 calling on the university administration to fully fund all Commonwealth Campuses, keeping all campuses with enrolled students open to serve all members of Pennsylvania, as directed by our Land Grant mission. Penn State AAUP finds the administration derelict in its duty to the students, faculty, staff, and community members of the Commonwealth when it announced statewide campus closures on February 25, 2025. Penn State is strong financially now and in light of future projections, net assets, and years of running the university at a profit going back decades.
Therefore, the Penn State AAUP chapter calls on the administration to reverse its decision, and, from today forward, to involve faculty as primary decision makers in academic budgeting. In addition, the Penn State AAUP chapter calls on all faculty, staff, students, alumni, and community members to come together to organize collectively the way that Hamspshire (and Hampshire post-COVID), Guildford, and Rutgers University have done to keep campuses open and programs staffed. Using our own creative ways that work for our beautiful statewide quilt of campuses, you can keep your campuses and academic programs whole, and to uphold our Land Grant charge.
Defending Higher Ed & Healthcare
Kill the Cuts April 8: Delivered letter to 15th District Rep Glenn Thompson asking to support fully funding higher ed, NIH and science, and to "publicly oppose cuts to federal funding for research, healthcare, and education." Organized with members of the Penn State AAUP chapter as well as CGE/UAW, endorsed by Centre County DSA, Penn State AAUP, and Teamsters.
Please fill out this contact form if you can spend 30 minutes on communications of this message.
Take action to stop the national cuts announced that include dismantling the Department of Education. If you can spend 30 minutes per week for the next 3 weeks please sign up here.
Policing Higher Education: The Antidemocratic Attack on Scholars and Why It Matters
May 13, 2025
Register here for a virtual discussion on Eve Darian-Smith’s new book Policing Higher Education: The
Defending Higher Ed & Workers across US
Amid Right-Wing Attacks on Education, the American Association of University Professors Organizes for Academic Freedom (March 14, 2025, Ms. Magazine)
"Look, this is going to be a long fight. We need everyone on board. This is why we’re developing a multi-pronged approach and building alliances with students, other unions and the public. This is the only way to stop the anti-worker and anti-union policies that are being promoted by Trump and his administration." - AAUP Vice-President Rotua Lumbantobing.
Solidarity for the Rutgers Strike: We, the Penn State chapter of the AAUP, support our colleagues at Rutgers AAUP-AFT, Rutgers Adjunct Faculty Union and AAUP-BHSNJ (Biomedical and Health Sciences) in your strike for fair pay, job security, and access to affordable health care. We stand in solidarity with the 9,000 striking Rutgers faculty, staff, graduate student employees, and postdoctoral scholars who seek respect for the contributions you make to your university and the state of NJ. Read the full statement.
Following up on "Dark Money and Free Speech" with Ralph Wilson, hosted by your Penn State AAUP, join the Organizing and Work Together event to collaborate w each other and Ralph on zoom Friday April 14, 12-1pm ET. Register in advance here. To amplify your voice above the billionaires, join your AAUP.
Chapter hosts Ralph Wilson's talk, "Dark Money and Free Speech: How Billionaires and Bigots are Using Campuses to Roll Back Civil Rights and Subvert Democracy,"
March 31, noon on zoom, register in advance here.
What financial crisis? Penn State is even stronger in 2023 than it was in the beginning of the pandemic April 2020, when accounting professor Howard Bunsis analyzed our finances (and even stronger than the full first year of the pandemic, fiscal year ending 2020). Review these documents and learn how to read Penn State's independently audited financial statements that show you where the money is. See this memo by Bunsis from April 2020 on PSU finances; view this YouTube video of Bunsis from May 2021 on PSU finances. To understand Penn State's financial outlook and situation, we need to read financial statements not budgets. Budgets only tell part of the story and deceptively so. Budgets are proposals and forecasts and only show part of the funds that a university has. Budgets often underestimate the cost savings of a year, such as when faculty leave/retire/are not renewed/pass away. Financial statements give you the full picture and come after the fiscal year. You can see the dates on these documents.
Independently audited financial statements by accounting firm Deloitte in 2022 show that Penn State made $100 million more than we cost to run in 2022, see pp. 2-3 (this report is dated November 21, 2022). We are $2.6 billion in net assets wealthier than we were in 2020 (p.9). Independently audited financial statements by accounting firm Deloitte in 2021 show that operating revenue in 2021 was $500 billion greater than operating expenses (p. 2-3), and in 2022 it was $!00 million greater. These documents show that in 2022, our liquid net assets without donor restrictions is over $5 billion (see p. 9, net assets without donor restrictions). For fun, look at how much more in reserves we have now than we did in 2013 when Howard Bunsis and Rudy Fichtenbaum were last on campus just after this AAUP chapter was formed, to support organizing.
BUT WHAT ABOUT THE BUDGET? Alright, you really want to hear about it? The $166 million Proposed Operating Budget for 2021-2022 deficit PSU President mentions as justification for cuts and layoffs was later projected to be $127 million a few months after it was first proposed and could be easily absorbed by the surplus Penn State annually generates with revenues greater than expenses by $600 million in the last two fiscal year combined. The story remains the same going back in time, each year: Penn State runs at a profit, which is why Moody's and S&P give us such high credit ratings. Moody's details Penn State's massive and growing liquidity and forecasts "continued revenue gains" and praises our "outsized unrestricted monthly liquidity of $7.8 billion provided a very strong 462 days cash on hand in fiscal 2021, which is about double the peer median" (Moody's Credit Opinion, Penn State, April 22, 2022, p. 4).
Penn State also publicizes our excellent credit ratings and reports by Moody's and S&P. See this May 2022 press release and expect another coming soon in April or May, ahead of administration predicted layoffs due to bugetary woes. Don't let this talk of budget crisis lull you into acceptance of these decisions as a fait accompli. The financial statements show the full picture, and so do the Moody's and S&P credit ratings and reports. AND so does Penn State's own PR on itself.
This doesn't mean we need less public funding, far from it. We should be receiving more of our budget from public funds to disincentivize treating Penn State as a primary for-profit organization. With predictable, long term funding, we can stop putting students and their families into crushing debt, and Penn State can truly achieve our mission to provide higher education as a common good.
By believing all of the information we can gather, not just a portion of it, by understanding we have the resources we need to succeed, to thrive, Penn State can even serve as agents of economic development for the state of PA. By keeping folks employed, out of debt, doing what we all are expert at doing in the labs, in the libraries, in the classrooms. And this is for the common good too.
Chapter calls on President Bendapudi to keep Penn State Law School open at University Park (2/23/23)
Chapter endorses The Penn State Chapter of United Students Against Sweatshops (USAS) letter calling on President Bendapudi to cut ties to sweatshops. Sign the petition here. (2/23/23)
Chapter calls on President Bendapudi to uncancel Center for Racial Justice, endorses Concerned Faculty Letter (11/18/22)
Your organizing won victories in the arts by saving the dance minor, voice, and re-inventing performing arts major at Altoona Campus. (07/20/22)
AAUP@PennState Open Letter to Reverse the April 2022 cuts at Altoona Campus (05/20/22)
Sign the Petition to Save the Arts/Stop the Cuts at Altoona!
AAUP@PennState Statement on Suspension and Dismissal Proceeding for Professor Baker (01/13/22)
Rally in support of Professor Baker, 6 pm, Allen Street Gates, Friday, January 14, 2022
Centre Daily Times Article (01/13/22)
