WeStillAre

WeStillAre was a student-created project launched in November 2011 in response to the Jerry Sandusky scandal at Penn State. During a time of intense media scrutiny and institutional pessimism, Penn State students created WeStillAre as a way to gather community remembrances and spotlight historical memories that captured the best aspects of the Penn State spirit as a means to guide the community through the scandal with a confident “sense of self.”

WeStillAre’s original website was shut down in 2017, but its archives (including approximately 400 posts) was gifted to the Mount Nittany Conservancy as a cultural/digital artifact.

WeStillAre

Capturing Our Spirit, For Our Future

Mission
The Penn State Honor Code states, “A good name is earned by fair play, square dealing and good sportsmanship in the classroom, on the athletic field and in all other college relations. We earnestly desire that this spirit may become a tradition at Penn State.”
So many of us have spent so much of our lives holding these values deeply in our hearts. Now, leaders who have been entrusted with Penn State’s honor and glory have failed in their obligations to uphold these shared ideals. As a result of this betrayal, the pride of many in the Penn State community has been severely fractured and the current mood is grim. Many are calling for answers and explanations, while others are demanding radical change. It is important to remember in this time of uncertainty that it is not within the legacies of our leaders where our strength resides; rather, it burns inside the core of each of us, and manifests itself in the pride, worldview, and actions of our fellow Penn State students, faculty and alumni.
We still are Penn State. We still are dedicated to consistently enriching the world with our degrees. We still are believers in the principles on which this University was founded in 1855.
Our strength, honor and integrity will provide us with the determination to weather this crisis, and in turn the spirit and ideals of Penn State will endure. But they will not endure without our help. We are now, more than ever, the guardians of Penn State. We have lived and learned here, our lives forever enriched by our experiences as students, faculty and alumni. We must acknowledge the wrong doings, seek justice and rebuild the integrity and tradition that have defined our University for 156 years. If we refuse to accept the challenge of rebuilding the standard of integrity and honor we believe in, then we have failed all past, present and future Penn Staters.
No misrepresentation of the University by a select few can take our spirit away from us. These actions will not outweigh the spirit and impact that Penn State has, and will continue to have, on the world. So long as we continually strive to live by the traditions and principles to which we have assigned our unending commitment, no acts of ours shall ever bring shame to Penn State.

WeStillAre

WeStillAre

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