Penn State Unveils New Academic Center for Student-Athletes

Penn State’s 800 student-athletes have a new home to focus on academics.

After nine months of extensive renovations to the former Greenberg Sports Complex on east campus, the athletic department has opened up the new Morgan Academic Center consolidating in one state-of-the-art facility services that had previously been spread out over four locations.

The Morgan Academic Center provides Nittany Lion student-athletes with academic counseling, individualized learning support and career counseling. The center includes computer labs, collaborative learning spaces, conference and class rooms, a multimedia interview room, student lounges and a fueling station. 

Academic Center staff, including counselors, learning specialists and a sports psychologist are all located in the new center, which was the result of a $7.2 million renovation largely paid for through donations.

‘This is a physical statement about our commitment to academics,’ said Athletic Director Sandy Barbour, who made a $100,000 donation to the project. ‘Having this project be first speaks to the priority and commitment to the academic and the student welfare and development side of our student-athlete experience here at Penn State. And yes, It’s going to be important that we have that same kind of commitment to the conditions for success for the the athletic part of it, for the medical part, the welfare part. In my mind and my priorities it was very important that we get this part right first.’

The Morgan Center is the first of what is expected to be a long list of athletic facility renovations and construction. Renovations to the Lasch Football Building are ongoing with a planned completion for the first phase in the fall. The university is also in the midst of developing an athletic facilities master plan, which Barbour said she hopes to reveal in the early fall.

That plan will address all athletic facilities, including Beaver Stadium. Barbour said, as she had indicated earlier this year, that she believes the plan will most likely call for renovations, not reconstruction, for the stadium.

For the Morgan Center, director Russ Mushinsky said the new facility has been in planning for the past two years, and that discussions among the center’s staff and leadership about how to best manage space had gone back much further.

‘Bringing our staff together is going to be a real positive and having all of our student-athletes together in one location instead of four different locations is going to be extremely nice,’ Mushinsky said. ‘And just the upgraded space itself… what we have here is student-focused and student-centered on the way students learn today.’

Mushinsky said he thinks the center is among the nation’s best.

‘The planning committee has done an unbelievable job in maximizing the space we had and the budget we had to come up with what we think is one of the top spaces in the country.

Watch the videos below for comments from Barbour and Mushinsky, and check out the photo gallery for images from inside the Morgan Center.