Penn State Mont Alto welcomed community members, students, alumni and faculty this weekend for a time of reminiscing, reconnecting and fun during its homecoming celebration. It is likely the last homecoming before the campus closes next year.
Attendees enjoyed giveaways, including T-shirts, stickers, Penn State Creamery ice cream and cake. Activities included a caricature artist, a photo booth, balloon art, pumpkin painting, lawn games and memory tables.
Regional Chancellor Marilyn J. Wells, who oversees Mont Alto along with Penn State Brandywine and Penn State York, encouraged the crowd to remember Mont Alto fondly and to smile and enjoy the day. Former chancellor Francis Achampong, known on campus as “Dr. A,” who led Mont Alto from 2013 until his retirement in 2024 and earlier served as its director of academic affairs, said, “People recognized more and more over the years what a gem Mt. Alto is. Let’s enjoy the day with cheer and good will.”
The celebration marked 123 years of higher education on the Franklin County campus. Gov. Samuel W. Pennypacker established the Pennsylvania State Forest Academy at Mont Alto in 1903, with forester and physician Joseph Rothrock as its founder. It was one of the first forestry schools in the nation and trained men for Pennsylvania’s new state forest service. Ralph E. Brock, a member of the academy’s first graduating class in 1906, became the nation’s first academically trained African American forester.
In 1929 the state merged the Forest Academy into the forestry program at what was then Pennsylvania State College. The decision was unpopular with students, some of whom hung state officials in effigy and transferred to North Carolina State. Starting in 1930, Mont Alto taught the first year of Penn State’s forestry program, and students finished their degrees at State College. The campus closed during World War II, from 1943 to 1946. In 1963 it became a Penn State Commonwealth Campus, offering the first years of most Penn State majors and admitting women for the first time. Since 1997 it has also offered four-year degrees.
Today the campus is known for its forest technology program, its nursing, physical therapist assistant and occupational therapist assistant programs, and degrees in business and information technology.
That history is coming to an end. On May 22, 2025, Penn State’s Board of Trustees voted 25–8 to close Mont Alto and six other Commonwealth Campuses (DuBois, Fayette, New Kensington, Shenango, Wilkes-Barre and York) after the spring 2027 semester. The university pointed to falling enrollment, which at Mont Alto had dropped to 587 students by fall 2025, about half its peak. It also cited a $3 million operating loss in fiscal 2024 and more than $32 million in deferred maintenance. Mont Alto was the only one of the seven with on-campus housing.
The decision drew strong opposition. Students and alumni gathered a 37-page collection of testimonials, and campus supporters noted that Penn State had opened the campus’s new Allied Health Building only a few years earlier. This fall’s freshmen are the last class to start at Mont Alto, and most will have to finish their degrees at another campus.
What happens to the campus next is still undecided. In September, trustees approved selling the Shenango and Wilkes-Barre campuses, and Penn State said talks on the other five, including Mont Alto, are continuing. A Franklin County group that includes WellSpan Health, Lackawanna College, the state Department of Conservation and Natural Resources, county government and state Rep. Chad Reichard has been exploring new uses for the campus, with an emphasis on health care education.
Featured image caption: Dr. A addresses attendees [Amy Boyer Thomas]