“‘We Are,’ but why am I not?”

DUBOIS, Pa. – Leah Aldous first heard the news last May, soon after her Penn State DuBois softball team had gotten knocked out of the Small College World Series.

Not only had the outfielder and first baseman just played her last game of the season, now there was an email with even worse news. Her campus was closing. She was still in her uniform, sitting in the dugout.

“I just sat there, and I’m just crying to my dad,” said Aldous, now a second-year student, studying human development and family studies.

DuBois was one of seven campuses the Penn State Board of Trustees voted in May to close. Administrators said at the time that about 3.6% of the university’s total enrollment would be affected. The other campuses are: Fayette; Mont Alto; New Kensington; Shenango; Wilkes Barre; and York.

Penn State’s primary campus at University Park serves about 49,000 students, so the closures could look to some more like an inconvenience than anything else.

But that’s not the way it has felt to students, faculty and residents in DuBois, a small town losing an important employer and big piece of the community. Many people are voting on the decision with their feet — leaving to attend school elsewhere.

“To get that email,” Aldous said. “It just felt like I sank. Like, this weight just hit me, and it hit me so hard.”

College plans interrupted

Originally from Lancaster, Aldous was pulled to the DuBois campus not only for its athletics, but for the “small campus feeling.” She said DuBois, about 100 miles northeast of Pittsburgh, seems tiny at first, but it’s a big community and many new faces to meet.

Her first year, the softball team had a great season, winning the PSUAC, the league of Penn State commonwealth campuses, as Aldous hit .297 with 11 RBIs.

Now Aldous plans to play softball at the Altoona campus closer to State College after the 2026 spring semester, mainly because staff and faculty are leaving and there is a growing lack of in-person classes.

“You’re paying for real campus, but you’re getting World Campus,” Aldous said, referring to Penn State’s online program.

Instead of having all 18 credits of classes in person, Aldous attends three of her courses on Zoom and two in person, but the balance isn’t easy. Aldous spends the majority of her Tuesdays and Thursdays rushing from on campus to online at her apartment.

“I’m going back and forth and back and forth just to attend the meetings and the classes,” she said. “It can definitely be a little bit of a struggle.”

Aldous said she was lucky enough to live close enough to campus to make it all work, but for some, the instability of classes proved to be too much.

Jessica D'Amore knew she would have to leave DuBois when faculty started to depart and students transferred.

“It’s a lesser quality of education,” said D’Amore, a third-year student now studying human development and family studies at University Park. “I had no plans of transferring before the news of the closure, but we had two professors in my department, and one of them had left to come (to University Park), and the majority of my classes were going to be online or Zoom classes. I decided, if I'm paying the money, I might as well get the best education that I can.”

D’Amore first saw the notification of the closure when she was with her siblings and immediately knew DuBois — close to her hometown of St. Marys — would suffer.

“DuBois was the only college campus we had,” D’Amore said. “It’s such a core part of the town.”

Aldous agreed, adding that the closure doesn’t “feel real.”

“I'm dragging my feet, looking for another place (to live in Altoona),” she said. “I just want to stay here.”

Empty buildings, dark windows

Nestled between a high school and a row of quaint houses, the Penn State DuBois campus is currently home to just under 400 students. Many are the first in their family to go to college, some are middle-aged or veterans looking to finish another degree, but all want the same thing: an education.

That won’t be possible here after the 2026-27 academic year, when the closures are set to happen statewide. And that deadline feels much closer in person.

On a dreary day this autumn at DuBois, only about 20 students sat in the cafeteria at any given time and only one to three classrooms were filled in each building. Want an analogy? Think failing shopping mall in its everything-must-go phase.

“You can feel the atmosphere kind of shift from last year to this year, just because people do know that we're closing,” Aldous said. “They know that they're gonna have to find new places to go to. It just kind of pulls people away from the campus.

“There's a constant feeling of running out of time.”

Tough times for instructors

Working and teaching at the campus for more than 20 years, Keely Roen, DuBois’ wildlife technology program coordinator and faculty advisor, said the closure was done in a “really poor way.”

When it was first announced DuBois would close, Roen said many faculty and staff started to leave. Penn State officials said they may offer incentives for them to stay the two years until it closed, but they didn’t materialize, she said.

“People are quitting left and right, duties are changing, students are crying in the halls — it's emotionally difficult,” Roen said. “We wanted promises. If there were fewer students and we had fewer classes to teach, that they would still keep us employed. And none of that's happened. There was no more talk of it.”

Roen said it’s been a heartbreaking decision for faculty to either choose to stay the last two years and risk missing out on job opportunities or leave their lives and career behind. She and her husband, the campus registrar, have been among those facing the tough choices.

“We honestly assumed we were going to retire here,” Roen said, leaning on her desk cluttered with papers and lesson plans. The walls of her office are covered in diplomas and wildlife objects. “We were stunned. Our enrollment was up. We're very integrated in the community. We did not expect it.”

Fortunately, Roen could keep her position if the wildlife technology program — something DuBois has been known for — moved to the Altoona campus. But her husband and many others would have to find a new job. And students would have to transfer or end their college careers.

Frustrated

Jackie Atkins, former DuBois assistant teaching professor, found out about the closure from an article with a news leak. First, she felt disbelief, then a mix of sadness and being “really, really, really pissed off.”

“I don’t think they really took into consideration the impact it would have on the community,” Atkins said. “A lot of students here wouldn't be able to go to college if there wasn’t a Penn State campus nearby. Most of them come from rural backgrounds. They can’t afford it.”

Several people interviewed for this article expressed frustration that, five months after the closures were announced, Penn State President Neeli Bendapudi received a 47% raise from the Board of Trustees to $1.4 million a year, making her the second highest-paid public university president in the country.

“It’s kind of a slap in the face to hear we're shutting down campuses due to budget reasons, but her personal budget just got raised 47%,” Aldous said. “Is the rest of our staff getting a 47% raise for doing their job? I don’t think so.”

In the city, meanwhile, businesses face two problems. The loss of customers from Penn State DuBois — students, faculty and staff — and the loss of part-time employees.

Working at Meadow Frozen Custard, Connor Siple, a second-year studying information science and technology, said small businesses in DuBois are going to take a hit.

“We get a lot of business from college students,” Siple said. “But I know there are a lot of businesses around town that will be hit a lot harder.”

Manager of the Valley Dairy Restaurant for over a year, April Osborn says without a doubt the closure will devastate DuBois, especially her restaurant’s student workforce.

“They can’t work if they’re not going to be going to school,” Osborn said.

Jodi August, executive director of the DuBois Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development, said the chamber “fought hard” to keep the campus open.

“We’re disheartened by the decision to close,” August said. “We spent months writing support letters, having meetings and discussing how we could keep our campus open and operational.”

August said some businesses are already closing.

“It’s sad,” August said. “We, our Chamber Board, and organization feel for those employees as they seek new opportunities.”

Unhappy Ending

Whether or not cutting back the commonwealth campus system turns out to be a wise fiscal move, it has certainly been disruptive, at best, to thousands of students at campuses across the commonwealth.

“I loved DuBois,” D’Amore said. “Everybody was very close. Everybody was always willing to help you out.”

Aldous said she loves the warm feeling DuBois provides, it’s been a close-knit and warm place. She said it's been hard for her to continue on amid the impending closure.

“I’m glad not every student has to go through this,” Aldous said. “But it just feels like, when we say ‘We Are,’ it’s like, ‘But why am I not?’ Why am I not a part of this culture that gets to feel protected and safe in my community, in my college?”