UNIVERSITY LEADERSHIP DR. ERIC J. BARRON
PENN STATE PRESIDENT FLORIDA STATE UNIVERSITY, ’72 (B.S.) UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI, ’76 (M.S.), ’80 (Ph.D.)
Eric J. Barron took the helm of Pennsylvania’s flagship public university on May 12, 2014, arriving from Florida State University, where he had been president for four years. No stranger to Penn State, he had served on the faculty of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences and as dean of the college. Dr. Barron returned to Penn State from his presidency at Florida State, bringing with him nearly 35 years of leadership experience in academic administration, education, research and public service, and a track record as a talented manager of fiscal policy within large and complex institutions. As leader of Penn State, Dr. Barron oversees a research enterprise of more than $836 million and 24 campuses, including two law schools and a College of Medicine in Hershey, Pa., as well as an internationally recognized online educational enterprise known as the World Campus. Penn State’s current enrollment is approximately 99,000 students, and it boasts the world’s largest dues-paying alumni association. During his tenure as president of Penn State, Dr. Barron has made access and affordability; student engagement; economic development; job creation and student career success; technology and diversity and demographics priorities. His Invent Penn State initiative aims at ramping up investment in economic development and student career success. By leveraging the size and broad research strengths of the University, Dr. Barron has made it a goal that Penn State will be a driver for job creation, entrepreneurship, and economic development, and will accelerate the transfer of new ideas into useful products and processes that encompass a broad range. Since its inception, Invent Penn State has partnered with the University’s campuses across the Commonwealth to open 17 innovation hubs available to the surrounding communities. Since opening, the hubs have accelerated more than 50 startups, supported more than 1,000 entrepreneurs, and hosted nearly 100 events and pitch competitions. As part of his fiscal duties, Dr. Barron has pursued various costsaving measures and increased revenue for Penn State; embarked on efficiency initiatives of more than $115.9 million; and implemented budget cuts and recycling of University dollars that have averaged over $23 million per year for more than a decade.
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Dr. Barron earned a bachelor of science degree in geology at Florida State in 1973 before moving on to the University of Miami, where he earned master's and doctoral degrees in oceanography. Dr. Barron spent 20 years of his career at Penn State, serving as dean of the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences from 2002-06, and as founding director of the Earth System Science Center, one of the first major initiatives focused on the total study of Earth as a system. He also had a simultaneous appointment as director of the Earth and Mineral Sciences Environment Institute. In 1999, he was named Distinguished Professor of Geosciences at Penn State. An accomplished scientist with a long background in atmospheric research, Dr. Barron served as director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) and as dean of the Jackson School of Geosciences at the University of Texas at Austin. Early in his career he was a postdoctoral research fellow and scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Co.