Research Cuts at Universities Around the Country Have Happy Valley on High Alert
A national squeeze on federal research funding is forcing America’s universities into difficult choices, and Penn State is squarely in the crosshairs. Across the country, institutions are pausing projects, shrinking graduate cohorts, and merging departments. In Happy Valley, the implications extend well beyond campus, touching everything from local jobs to the innovation economy that has long defined this region.
My Saturday at Beaver Stadium
Maybe it was inevitable that with months of mounting excitement over returning superstars, expensive coaching hires, and transfer portal treasure hunting, a three-game opening slate populated with the likes of FIU and Villanova would prove underwhelming. So much buildup for so little substance, at least early on, left plenty of space to find fault with all the flaws on State’s path to a 3-0 record and 132-17 margin of victory.
Why We Invested in Downtown State College
In downtown State College, the skyline is waking up. Among the cranes rising from the concrete, one stands for more than construction, it stands for momentum. The Nittany Residence Club, a nine-story condominium-hotel, has already sold over one-third of its 70 units—two years before opening. The question is: why so fast?
Happy Valley Becomes America’s Saturday Showcase
This past Saturday, under a more beautiful Blue and White sky than the most emotive artist could paint and with perfectly temperate “football weather” to defy even Grantland Rice’s fertile imagination, Penn State kicked off a season widely expected to evolve into a championship chase, one universally agreed upon as a campaign of consequence for the Nittany Lions and their head coach.
Happy Valley Fall 2025: The Love Boat Semester at the ChatGPT Inflection Point
The curtain is going up this weekend, and the audience has arrived. Fifty thousand students. Parents and alumni. Visitors from every corner of the globe. Sidewalks pulse, cranes stretch the skyline, and Saturday’s kick off bar crawl starts at noon will hum with thousands wearing the same Line Leap t-shirt. This is the kickoff to fall in Happy Valley — our in-season.
Discovering the Living Filter: A Hidden Gem of Sustainability in State College
Just beyond the quiet curve of Cricklewood Drive, behind the familiar trees of Toftrees, there’s a place where water works a little harder—and nature responds in kind. It’s called the Living Filter, and while it’s not marked with signs or paved trails, it’s one of State College’s most quietly remarkable spaces.
The View from Number Two: Promise, Peril, and Joy in the Journey
Penn State football hasn’t seen a number this small next to its name this early for a very long time.
The Nittany Lions open the 2025 season ranked No. 2 in the Associated Press preseason poll, a first for the program, which last reached the two-spot in October of 2017, only to lose it weeks later in Columbus. In terms of the preseason, State has not been rated this highly since the ill-fated 1999 team began the year ranked third. Perhaps even more striking than the ranking itself is the number of first-place votes awarded to the Lions (23), only two shy of No. 1 Texas! This show of faith from the nation’s voters that James Franklin’s squad belongs near the top of college football is both a compliment and a burden.
Fotis Fan Club: Alum on a Mission
Penn State didn’t just hire a new provost. We got one of our own back — and he’s not here to dust off the old playbook. Fotis Sotiropoulos, Class of “Life-Changing Experience,” has lived the Penn State story: first-generation student from Athens, Greece → world-class academic leader → now back to transform the product we’re putting into the world.
True Grit, Real Glory—Penn State’s Adaptive Athletes Redefine What It Means to Compete
Saturday night, in a chandeliered ballroom of the Nittany Lion Inn, something quietly revolutionary happened.
While stories from Joe Paterno’s storied 1966 recruiting class flowed with ease and humor—Hall of Famer Lydell Mitchell, Chuck Burkhart, Moose Koegel, and Grammy Award-winning songwriter Mike Reid shared laughter, legacy, and lessons—the night’s true heartbeat belonged to a new generation of Penn Staters. A generation of athletes whose names you might not know yet, but whose courage and grit are writing the next chapter of Penn State history.
