Convening at around 5 p.m., the Board of Trustees met with President Erickson in a room at the Penn Stater Conference Center — the same place where it met in November when it made the decision to fire Graham Spanier and Joe Paterno.

The meeting was closed to the public, and the media was prevented from being near the room by barricades set up by hotel staff.

It is presumed that the meeting is to address President Erickson’s handling of the NCAA sanctions. Erickson is reported to have left the meeting at around 7 p.m, while the rest of the board continued to meet.

UPDATE (8:24 p.m.) – The board has concluded that President Rodney Erickson had no other option but to accept the sanctions against Penn State. They released the following statement:

The Penn State Board of Trustees met for a discussion tonight.  A vote was not required and none was taken.  The Board finds the punitive sanctions difficult and the process with the NCAA unfortunate.  But as we understand it, the alternatives were worse as confirmed by NCAA President Mark Emmert’s recent statement that Penn State was likely facing a multi-year death sentence.

The University and Board resolve to move forward together to recognize the historical excellence in Penn State’s academic and athletic programs.  We anticipate and look forward to demonstrating our outstanding performance in complying with the sanctions.  We continue to recognize the important role that intercollegiate athletics provides for our student athletes and the wider University community as we strive to appropriately balance academic and athletic accomplishments.

Penn State will remain a world-class educational institution of which our students, faculty, staff and alumni can be justifiably proud.   The commitment demonstrated by our student athletes in recent days embodies all that is good about Penn State and we look forward to unprecedented support by the Nittany nation when we take the field this fall.