Penn State Wilkes-Barre will close in two years, but the university remains committed to Northeast Pennsylvania, Regional Chancellor Elizabeth Wright said Friday.
On Thursday night, the university’s board of trustees voted to close seven Commonwealth Campuses: DuBois, Fayette, Mont Alto, New Kensington, Shenango, Wilkes-Barre and York.
Wright spent Friday morning meeting with students, faculty, staff and the campus advisory board. Students said they feel grief and disappointment in the board's vote.
“We know that people are hurting right now, and we plan to work with those impacted over the coming months and years to ensure a successful transition,” she said.
With declining enrollment and financial challenges, Penn State embarked on a comprehensive review of its Commonwealth Campuses. The university initially said Hazleton, Schuylkill and Scranton could close, but a report released this month determined they should remain open.
Wilkes-Barre had 329 students as of fall 2024. Over 10 years, the Lehman Twp. campus has experienced a 46% drop in enrollment. The campus lost $2 million in the 2024 fiscal year, according to the report.
Wright and campus Chancellor Lynda Goldstein met with members of the media in the Hayfield House, the former summer home coal baron John Conyngham and his wife, Bertha, built during the Great Depression. The meeting space, once the main living room — includes a marble fireplace, which is several hundred years old, and was taken out of a palace in Europe. The family donated the home and about 50 acres to Penn State.
Two senior leaders from the university will speak to community partners, elected leaders and others to reimagine what will happen to campuses, including Wilkes-Barre, Wright said.
“We know that the entire Northeast Pennsylvania community has been very vocal about its affinity for Penn State and for its desire to remain in the region, and we'll continue to have those conversations in the coming months and years, and to think specifically about what we do with this campus,” she said. “I just want to say how much we empathize, not only with our faculty staff and students, but certainly with the love that this community has for this campus.”
Goldstein started her career at Penn State Wilkes-Barre more than 30 years ago, starting as an instructor in the English department in 1991, and became chancellor in 2022.
“This is the campus that has always been focused on the student experience — students helping students, faculty and staff dedicated to those students,” she said. “One of the benefits of being a small campus is that you really get to know students incredibly well, and you can position students to have opportunities that they wouldn't have on a larger campus, so that they grow and they're successful.”
The campus will close after the spring 2027 semester. Every student will be assigned a navigation coach who can answer questions and help connect students with resources.
Community events on campus, including the Arts at Hayfield summer festival — scheduled for Aug. 24 — and Friday observation nights at the Friedman Observatory, remain as scheduled. Conversations in coming months will include the future of those events, Wright said.
Penn State leadership will also look at academic programs at closing campuses. Wilkes-Barre’s land surveying program is the only four-year degree of its kind in the state. Wright said the program will move to another campus, but Wright is unsure of which one.
“Both Dr Goldstein and I are so proud of how our entire campus community is rallying to support our students and indeed one another throughout the next two years,” Wright said.
Bailey Hayes graduated with her bachelor's degree in criminal justice this month. At Penn State Wilkes-Barre, she found true friends, caring professors and a chance to be highly involved in campus clubs and activities.
"It was everything I ever wanted college to be," the Crestwood School District graduate said. "It wasn't just school. It really became a second home for me."
Hayes helped organize a rally to save the campus in April. She watched an address to students from Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi on Thursday night after the vote. She said it felt cold and impersonal — like students had been the last thought throughout the process.
"Their catch phrase is 'We are,' but it's really 'They are,' because they have never come to the satellite campuses," she said. "They don't know who we are. They don't know our stories."
