Barron Unveils Final Version of Penn State’s Core Values

After a process that included town hall meetings and a survey of Penn Staters, university president Eric Barron finally unveiled the Penn State Values on Sunday. 

The university community settled on six values that represent Penn State: integrity, respect, responsibility, discovery, excellence, and community.

Through an e-mail sent to the Penn State community and a video announcement, Barron outlined the six values and their meaning. 

‘At the core of any community is its values — the shared ideals about how people should act toward one another, the standards to which we hold ourselves, and those beliefs we find important,’ Barron said. ‘Through the Values and Culture Survey and subsequent town hall meetings, we gathered feedback from around the state to identify the values that our students, faculty, and staff hold dear. … These are the ethical principles identified by you as the values we aspire to as a community.’

Each of the six core values came with a brief description of what it means within the context of the Penn State community:

Integrity: We act with integrity and honesty in accordance with the highest academic, professional, and ethical standards.

Respect: We respect and honor the dignity of each person, embrace civil discourse, and foster a diverse and inclusive community.

Responsibility: We act responsibly, and we are accountable for our decisions, actions, and their consequences.

Discovery: We seek and create new knowledge and understanding, and foster creativity and innovation, for the benefit of our communities, society, and the environment.

Excellence: We strive for excellence in all our endeavors as individuals, an institution, and a leader in higher education.

Community: We work together for the betterment of our University, the communities we serve, and the world.

In conjunction with Barron’s announcement was the launch of the values.psu.edu website, which includes a toolkit of educational materials to aid in promoting the values. You can read more about the official values and the four-year process that culminated with Barron’s unveiling there. 

Here’s the official announcement video released by the university: