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years, Penn State student-athletes have broken or tied numerous school aca- demic records. In November 2018, the NCAA released its annual national grad- uation rates study, which revealed that Penn State student-athletes earned a school record-tying Graduation Success Rate of 90 percent for the second con- secutive year. Eight Nittany Lion teams earned a 100 percent GSR. During the 2018 fall semester, Nittany Lion student-athletes delivered a 3.15 grade-point average, tying the school record set the previous spring semester, and a record-tying 26 teams earned at least a 3.0 GPA. A school-record 360 Nittany Lions earned Academic All-Big Ten honors in 2017-18 for posting at least a 3.0 GPA, and 136 student-athletes earned their degrees during the 2018 calendar year. In competition, Penn State teams have won five NCAA championships during Barbour's tenure, claiming titles in women's soccer, women's volleyball and wrestling. Penn State has won 20 Big Ten titles and five EIVA crowns from 12 different sports for a total of 25 confer- ence championships under Barbour's leadership. Penn State was ranked No. 3 in the Learfield Directors' Cup in the final fall 2018 standings and has earned a pair of top-10 finishes in the final standings under Barbour's direction, including an eighth-place finish in 2016-17. Penn State Athletics also was ranked No. 9 among the nation's 65 Autonomy Five institutions in 2017-18, according to Yahoo! Sports. During Barbour's first year, Penn State launched a wide-ranging strategic planning process and conducted a series of town hall meetings. The project helped determine strategies and priori- ties for the formalized 2017-21 strategic plan. The first facility project completed under Barbour's direction was the con- version of the Greenberg Sports Com- plex to the new Morgan Academic Center. Advising, tutoring, computer labs, group study areas and meeting rooms for student-athletes previously were located in four separate locations throughout campus. The 2016 comple- tion of the MAC provided a central and expanded academic and student wel- fare hub for Penn State's student-ath- letes. Early in her tenure at Penn State, Bar- bour made a gift of $100,000 for the Morgan Academic Center project, with a portion of her donation used to create a One Button production studio where students can record a speech or presen- tation and review it prior to delivering in class. Barbour is overseeing a comprehensive facilities master plan that was informed by the strategic plan and announced in 2017. Penn State partnered with the ar- chitecture firm Populous to collaborate on programming, developing and pro- ducing a comprehensive facilities master plan to provide a 20-year road map for addressing current and long-term needs for all of the Nittany Lions' facilities. ■ Penn State alumnus and philan- thropist John Leone has made a gift of $6.5 million to the university, a portion of which will fund renova- tions to the Lasch Football Building. The largest portion of the gift – $5 million – will endow the John Leone Dean's Chair in the College of Earth and Mineral Sciences and provide the college's dean with flexible resources to advance a range of priorities. The remaining $1.5 million will be used to further the ongoing football up- grades. Leone is president and chief execu- tive officer of Bonney Forge, which manufactures flow-control products and specially engineered products for the energy industries. He gradu- ated in 1956 from Penn State's petro- leum and natural gas engineering program and earned a master's de- gree from Northern Illinois Univer- sity in 1976. "Penn State made an investment in me when I was a student, and I view these gifts as the return on that in- vestment," Leone said. "As someone who is committed to the university, the College of Earth and Mineral Sci- ences and Penn State football, I am happy to make a gift that will advance each of these priorities. My gift, along with gifts from other Penn Staters, can support our alma mater and advance the causes that matter most to us." The portion of Leone's gift directed to Penn State Athletics will advance renovations aimed at bolstering the program's ability to recruit and retain top coaches and student-athletes. The first phase of the project saw renovations to the locker room and equipment room, first-floor lobby and team auditorium and the addi- tion of a nutrition station. The next phase of renovations will include up- grades to the players' lounge and po- sition meeting rooms. In recognition of Leone's gift, the university will name the players' recovery room in his honor. Leone resides in New York and is married to Dr. Annette Rickel, a psy- chotherapist in private practice and a clinical professor of psychology in pediatrics at Weill Cornell Medical College. His gifts will advance the univer- sity's current fundraising campaign, A Greater Penn State for 21st Century Excellence, which seeks to elevate PSU's position as a leading public university in a world defined by rapid change and global connections. ■ P H I L A N T H R O P Y Leone's gift will fund Lasch upgrades

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