This is the fourth in a series profiling one of the 86 candidates for the upcoming Board of Trustees election. Penn State alumni may vote online in the race between April 10 and May 3. The three winning candidates will be announced at the May 4 board meeting, and they will assume their new three-year terms on July 1.
Sam Zamrik’s name has been on the Board of Trustees ballot before.
The retired professor ran in 2009, when barely a dozen candidates campaigned for an open seat, a meager percentage of this year’s 86. Only 11,000 voted, out of the hundreds of thousands of alumni eligible.
‘I’m not new to this,’ Zamrik said. He noticed problems within the Board of Trustee’s infrastructure a long time ago, and it bothers him that it took a tragedy for people to wake up to the serious issues that have long plagued a body charged with making such sweeping decisions.
Zamrik works from his third-floor office in the EES building, where shelves are stocked with former theses of PhD students, textbooks and photos. His Penn State jacket by Polo Ralph Lauren hangs on a hook next to the door. The engineering professor taught for 38 years, and students are still his top priority. Most keep in touch, even 30 years later, who email him just to say, ‘Remember that time when you taught me this…?’ Every May, Zamrik voluntarily teaches courses simply because he still can.
Students must always be the most important part of Penn State, not the administration or the board, Zamrik said. His wife received her Master’s degree from Penn State, his children and two of his nieces attended the university, and now, he has grandchildren that bleed blue and white.
‘Our core product is our students. If we have no students, we have no business. We have to do our best job to educate and send them out into the world.’
Zamrik has wanted an overhaul of the board’s structure for some time now. Grandfather clauses that have granted term limit exemptions to members who have sat for more than 15 years, a lack of diversity and a missing student voice have all contributed to the problems, he said.
‘We had the same embedded board members year in and year out and I want to ask each one what they bring to the table. What innovative, global vision do they have? This is not a lifetime seat. Let new, fresh blood come in to breathe new life into the board,’ Zamrik said.
Zamrik is worried that this year’s race has a too strong undertone of revenge, masked by demands for change by candidates with the most name recognition.
‘They’re coming in with the idea of revenge for what was done to Joe Paterno,’ he said. ‘But we’re all in agreement what they did was incompetent and a rush of judgment. They didn’t realize what the consequences would be. It took a tragedy for some alumni to wake up, but they should have a long time ago.’
An American Society of Mechanical Engineers Past Presidents committee member, Zamrik wants to see more alumni on the board, and at least two full-time students that actually have input, because the annual tuition hikes an excessive expenditure are serious concerns to him. The university’s land grant status is something to maintain – Zamrik said it would be a huge mistake to go private – but there needs to be more legislative support coming from the state.
A few engineers wouldn’t be a bad addition, either, he said – there’s no rushing to judgment in science.
‘We look at the facts, we look at the assessment and we make a decision based on conclusion.’
Zamrik is worried that newly elected members, energetic and popular but inexperienced, will simply be remanded to subcommittees, the change they touted falling to the wayside. Zamrik already knows some of the members, and believes that he could actually have his voice heard, one that would speak for alumni and students alike.
Heavy-hearted at the problems he’s watched his beloved university try to tackle over the past months, even years, No. 27 on the ballot said no matter the outcome, his contributions to the university won’t wane. In addition to teaching voluntarily, Zamrik donates to the women’s golf team and has renewed his Penn State football season tickets every year for 40 years.
When he first arrived for graduate school, years before State College boasted a bustling borough to the time in China when his Penn State jacket prompted a ‘We Are!’ from a passer-by who turned out to be an international student, Zamrik has cared deeply about Penn State and just wants to do the right thing.
‘It’s my university, too. The board should be accountable for every action they take,’ he said.
