By Greg Woodman
At Connect HappyValley, we said last week that what is happening here felt like a social experiment. This week, it feels like a live broadcast from America’s future, though in Happy Valley it is closer to a Spruce Creek Lager paired with a tray of Spruce Creek Tavern fries than to anything you see on cable news.
Drive by the Penn State athletic fields right now, and you might think we are prepping to host the Olympics.
New press box for the soccer teams, new practice fields, dining facilities and weight rooms. Stadium overhauls and upgrades. Heavy machinery everywhere. It is not just athletic infrastructure. It is a metaphor. Happy Valley is building like it knows something big is coming. And it is.
This fall, it is all happening at once.
AI is rewriting the job market. Students are declaring majors that may be obsolete before they even graduate. WPSU, once a beacon of thoughtful journalism, is shutting down after decades of service. Seven Penn State campuses will close after the 2026–27 academic year. And yet, in the very same breath, we are opening a casino, launching new hotels, preparing for Ironman Championships, volleyball nationals, state playoffs, and the Big Ten wrestling tournament, while welcoming millions in visitor spending over the next 24 months.
State College has never felt more like a paradox, or more alive.
Urgency is the New Normal
For decades, Penn State operated on deliberation. Task forces, committees, town halls, studies that stretched for years. That era is over.
Look at the decision to shutter WPSU. On September 11, 2025, the Board of Trustees Finance and Investment Committee voted unanimously to reject a deal to transfer WPSU to Philadelphia-based NPR affiliate WHYY. Why? Because Penn State would have paid WHYY 17 million dollars over five years with no guarantees about staff or community commitment. In short, a bad deal.
So instead, WPSU will shut down completely by June 30, 2026. Eight months from first vote to final silence. Half a century of broadcasting erased with the stroke of a pen.
Compare that with campus closures. After years of study, 12 campuses were on the chopping block, but trustees cut it to seven. Years to debate. WPSU? Months.
That is the shift. The quick or the dead. No more dragging out decisions, no more fear of backlash, no more pretend listening sessions. Even Rockview Prison, where community town halls have dragged on for months, still has no decision.
It is happening nationally. And now it is happening locally. Speed is the new rulebook.
The AI Tension Is Real
At the same time, technology is moving even faster. A recent Forbes report warned that up to 60 percent of current jobs will be reshaped or eliminated by AI by 2030, with many of those impacts hitting within the next five years. Dario Amodei, CEO of AI company Anthropic, put it more bluntly:
“Half of all entry-level jobs could disappear in the next one to five years. We are not speculating. We are watching it happen.”
Have you seen the unemployment numbers for recent graduates?
That is the backdrop for the Class of 2028.
You can feel the shift on campus. Students are not just uneasy. They are anxious. They are not just learning accounting or journalism. They are learning how not to be replaced, or at least how to use the tools that might replace their friends.
The good news? Faculty have stopped fighting it.
This fall, professors are leaning in. AI is no longer “cheating.” It is just a calculator with better syntax. Assignments are changing. So are syllabi. Professors are asking students to collaborate with AI tools, not hide them. It is no longer a battle. It is a pivot.
And Then There Is the White Out
If there is one moment that captures the paradox of urgency and joy, it is this fall’s White Out Game against Oregon.
It does not just feel like a big game. It feels like the Super Bowl is being hosted in State College.
National TV. Helicopter flyovers. A full day of tailgating will bring over 200,000 people to our valley. Airbnb listings that used to go for 4,000 dollars are being scooped up for nearly twice that amount or more. Entire neighborhoods will transform into block parties.
The first three games? Casual affairs marked by modest excitement and early departures. Students know what is coming. They are saving their energy for the moment.
Because for one night, under the lights, the entire country will be fixated on a single zip code: 16802.
Salvage or Save?
WPSU’s closure raises another question. Is silence the only possibility?
What if instead of letting the archive scatter into storage, the community bought it back? Platforms like WeFunder allow collective ownership. Alumni, listeners, and students could pool resources to preserve decades of programming in a public digital library.
We have done stranger things. I once bought the red London double-decker bus that provided tours for decades at Lion Surplus for 4,500 dollars. Not exactly an impulse buy, but how do you walk away from that deal? If I can rescue a bus, why can’t our community rescue the soul of central Pennsylvania broadcasting?
Maybe that is the real middle ground. Instead of liquidation, preservation through community.
Where You Go to Escape — Even While the World Is Being Rewritten
Here is the paradox that makes Happy Valley unlike anywhere else in America right now.
It is where people come to escape. To refresh. To find joy. To reconnect.
And the numbers back it up. Happy Valley is on a record pace for overnight stays in 2025 and bullish for 2026. A new casino is on the way. As many as 25 new eateries are opening this year. Six hotels are already under construction. Outdoor recreation, sports tourism, and ag-based adventures are booming. Currently, Happy Valley has 28 hotels and nearly 2,900 rooms. Fourteen more projects are coming, adding over 1,100 rooms in the next five years.
It is Happy Valley, man. Everyone wants to come here.
Even as students face an AI-driven future that feels like a moving target, and institutions like WPSU vanish in months, the local skyline is exploding upward. A dozen new hotels. A new casino. Hundreds of millions in athletic infrastructure.
It is like we are getting ready to host the world while also trying to slow it down.
State College is becoming a full-service sanctuary. For alumni. For retirees. For visitors. For athletes. For people trying to turn the volume down on the headlines. You can rent a luxury Airbnb in Lemont or grab a beer at Pine Grove Hall, listen to old Beatles songs, and forget for a while that there is a global technological mutation happening a few blocks over at a university investing 1.3 billion dollars in world-class research, with faculty and students pushing the boundaries of artificial intelligence.
And outside Happy Valley? The headlines scream: tariffs, AI, assassinations on college campuses, political chaos, climate extremes and wars. Step back inside, and you will find a beer, a Beatles cover band, and 200,000 people tailgating like the Super Bowl.
That is the paradox. The world’s instability is real. But here, you can breathe.
Maybe it is a periscope. Maybe it is a lighthouse. Or maybe it is just a place where, even as the news crashes in from every direction, you still get to choose how to live.
So shut off the alerts. Drive out toward your favorite locally owned restaurant, music venue and place to connect and breathe. Step into a venue. Talk to a stranger. Put your phone on airplane mode.
And realize: You did not just escape the storm. You found the eye.
Happy Valley might not be immune to change. But it still might be the best place in America to watch it happen together.
