Penn State’s Board of Trustees Governance Committee voted to recommend to the full board to expel alumni-elected trustee Barry Fenchak on Monday morning. The committee’s recommendation was due to a violation of the trustees’ code of conduct.

“Specifically, Trustee Fenchak initiated a verbal interaction with a female staff member — witnessed by two other staff members — that violated the Trustee Code of Conduct provisions on Professionalism (2.03(b)),” read the resolution voted on by the committee, “and Demonstrating and Promoting Ethical Conduct (2.03(d)) and also inconsistent with the expectations of membership and the bylaws in effect prior to July 30, 2024.”

Fenchak was not expelled from the board as a result of Monday’s vote. However, his fate will be decided by a full vote of the board at a time to be determined. According to Penn State’s bylaws, the full board must be given 10 days’ notice before a vote to dismiss a member of the board. The board is next scheduled to meet from November 7-8.

Fenchak has challenged the board frequently during his time as a trustee. Fenchak sued the board in July, saying that information necessary to his duties was withheld from him by the board and university. Since then, the Board of Trustees altered its code of conduct to say the chair of the board has complete control over what documents and information trustees have access to.

Additionally, the code of conduct created stricter rules for how trustees speak about the university and board decisions.

“[Trustees] shall support majority decisions of the Board and work cooperatively with fellow Board members and the Administration to advance the University’s goals,” the bylaws read.

“Negative or critical public statements about the Board, the University or its students, alumni, community, faculty, staff, and other stakeholders do not serve the University’s interests and are inconsistent with a Trustee’s fiduciary obligation to act always in the best interests of the University.”

Fenchak spoke out against the board’s alterations to its code of conduct to Onward State at the end of July.

“The actions today by the board will undoubtedly move us to where Penn State alumni will no longer have a voice in electing their representation to the board. The actions will concentrate the power and authority of the board into the hands of a small number of trustees with little accountability, not only to Penn State stakeholders but to other members of the board themselves,” Fenchak said in July. “It will move to suppress dissenting voices, as well as to impose severe sanctions on any trustees who choose to express viewpoints that may not be congruent to board leadership.” 

A two-thirds majority vote is necessary for the board to expel Fenchak. Should Fenchak be removed from the board, chairman Matthew Schuyler would be able to fill the seat for the time remaining in Fenchak’s term should the governance committee request he do so. Elected in May 2022, Fenchak has the remainder of the 2024-25 academic year left in his term.

Fenchak directed Onward State to his lawyer, Terry Mutchler, for a statement.

“The bottom line is they don’t like this guy. Let’s just be plainspoken here. They don’t like him. They don’t like that he’s asking questions about a $4 billion endowment,” Mutchler said in a message to Onward State.

“In my view, it sounds like they’ve already made a decision. I would prefer that there be a real, robust discussion at the board meeting instead of a cookie-cutter, formulaic, ‘This is where they’re headed’ sort of scenario, which it seems that’s the case.

“They seemingly have piled on everything they can think of to avoid one thing: being transparent about the finances.”

The Board of Trustees offered no further comment on Fenchak’s situation. Spokesperson Lisa Powers said the board would share no other information given the situation was a personnel matter.