Trustees name Penn State Fayette campus to honor Eberly family

New York, N.Y. -- Penn State's Board of Trustees today (March 19) voted to re-name one of the University's campuses to honor a family's longtime unprecedented and tremendous support. Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus, recognizes the philanthropic and leadership contributions of the Eberly family of Uniontown.

Penn State alumnus Robert Eberly and his father, Orville, were instrumental in founding the campus in 1965 and in organizing community support to sustain it. Since that time, members of the Eberly family and the Eberly Foundation have given more than $40 million to various Penn State programs, including about $22.3 million directed to the Fayette campus.

"I can think of no more fitting honor to bestow upon the Eberly family than to link their name to the campus that they have supported so generously and with so much vision over the past four decades," said Cynthia A. Baldwin, chair of Penn State's Board of Trustees. "The success of that campus -- and more importantly, the students whom it has educated -- is due largely to the Eberlys' community-minded support."

It is only the second time in Penn State's history that the trustees have named a campus for benefactors. Penn State Erie, The Behrend College, honors the Behrend family, whose philanthropy helped to establish the college in 1948.

"The array of programs that the Eberlys have established or brought to new levels of excellence is simply incredible," said Penn State President Graham B. Spanier. "Bob Eberly, his parents Orville and Ruth, and his sisters, Carolyn Eberly Blaney and the late Margaret Eberly George, have left an indelible imprint on this University. They also have set an example through their loyalty and leadership that has inspired countless other Penn State alumni and friends to participate as volunteers in shaping the future of the University."

At Penn State Fayette, the Eberlys have endowed scholarships; professorships in nursing, business and information sciences and technology; and programs in science education, among other initiatives. In 2002, the Eberly Foundation committed $6.9 million to help fund construction of a new campus community center housing a 2,000-seat arena. In the late 1990s, the Eberlys made two other significant commitments to the campus: $5.5 million to support a new four-year business program, and $4.3 million to help renovate the Eberly Building, making it the most technologically advanced setting for education in the region. Their total giving for undergraduate scholarships at Fayette stands at $4.5 million.

In 1986, as part of a $10 million gift for science research and instruction, the Eberlys directed $8 million to endow faculty chairs in what is now Penn State's Eberly College of Science. Other areas of the University that have received their support include the Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, the Paterno Library, the Bryce Jordan Center and the Hobby-Eberly telescope, a collaboration with the University of Texas.

Robert Eberly also is the largest single individual donor to the IFC/Panhellenic Dance Marathon, a student-run event that raises funds for childhood cancer research and treatment at the Medical Center.

Robert Eberly graduated from Penn State in 1939 and soon joined his father, first in the family's natural gas exploration business and later in the banking business. Penn State had started an undergraduate center in Uniontown in 1934 in the depths of the Great Depression. but had closed it in 1940 with the approach of World War II. In the early 1960s, as the demand for higher education reached unprecedented levels in Pennsylvania, Robert and Orville Eberly joined Penn State trustee and Fayette County resident J. Lewis Williams in convincing the University to re-establish an undergraduate campus in southwest Pennsylvania. They also led a grassroots effort to provide $1.2 million in community support to open the campus.

Today, Penn State Fayette, The Eberly Campus, is located between Uniontown and Connellsville and consists of about 100 acres and 10 buildings. The campus enrolls approximately 1,100 students, who can complete nine associate degree and five baccalaureate degree programs at the campus or begin their studies in most of the University's other 160-plus baccalaureate programs. The campus also delivers a master's degree program in nursing and numerous training, certification and other non-credit programs.