Ribbon-cutting ceremony celebrates opening of Susan Welch Liberal Arts Building

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. — Nearly 200 Liberal Arts alumni and distinguished guests gathered for a ribbon-cutting ceremony on May 2 to celebrate the opening of the Susan Welch Liberal Arts Building — the first new liberal arts building at Penn State's University Park campus in almost 50 years.

Inclement weather prompted the remarks and ribbon cutting portions of the ceremony to be moved indoors to the Nittany Lion Inn Ballroom. Afterward, attendees walked to the Welch Building for a reception in the Gene and Roz Chaiken Lobby and tours of the new facility.

The six-story, 143,000-square-foot Susan Welch Liberal Arts Building now serves as the administrative home for several academic units in the College of the Liberal Arts — the School of Public Policy and the departments of Anthropology, Political Science, and Sociology and Criminology — and the University’s Social Science Research Institute. General-purpose classrooms and other state-of-the art learning spaces, along with the relocation of the Matson Museum of Anthropology, the Population Research Institute, the McCourtney Institute for Democracy, the Criminal Justice Research Center, and a host of other labs, centers and institutes to the new facility have enabled the Welch Building to quickly become an innovative hub of teaching, research and outreach activity in the heart of campus.

The building is named in honor of Susan Welch, who served as dean of the Penn State College of the Liberal Arts from 1991 until 2019 and passed away in March 2022.

“In the four or so months since faculty, staff and students first walked through its doors for the first time, the Welch Building has quickly become everything we had hoped it would,” noted Clarence Lang, Susan Welch Dean of the College of the Liberal Arts, in his opening remarks. “This building demonstrates collective support for the seminal work we do equipping students with the skills and knowledge they need to pursue whatever personal and professional paths they choose following graduation, and represents a significant investment in the research and outreach contributions of liberal arts scholars who are examining and shaping policy, promoting individual and collective well-being, and driving societal change.”

“This celebration has been a long time coming,” added David Kleppinger, chair of the Penn State Board of Trustees. “The Susan Welch Building is a magnificent facility that affords us greater opportunities to connect with our neighbors — and thanks to the thoughtful and collaborative work of our Office of Physical Plant, project architects Bohlin Cywinski Jackson and Turner Construction who built the facility, we can do so in a way that respects and maintains the character of the neighborhood in which it sits.”

Additional speakers included Alyssa Wilcox, Penn State’s vice president for development and alumni relations; Rob Welch, Susan’s brother, who spoke on behalf of the family; and Gene and Roz Chaiken, who spoke about their longtime friendship with Susan Welch and whose transformational gift allowed the building to be named in her honor. Members of the Penn State Glee Club, under the direction of Chris Kiver, professor of music and director of choral activities at Penn State, sang before the ceremony and led the audience in the singing of the Penn State alma mater at its conclusion.