Millersville University

Meet the incoming class for the fall 2026 semester! See anyone you know?

It's another Millersville move in day - welcome home, Marauders!

CHANGE TO MOVE IN SCHEDULE FOR AUG 20 DUE TO INCLEMENT WEATHER - YOU CAN ARRIVE 1 (ONE) HOUR BEFORE SCHEDULED MOVE IN TIME

Current forecasts for tomorrow indicate the potential for scattered showers and thunderstorms between approximately 12 and 8 p.m. Some storms may produce heavy rainfall, lightning, and wind gusts of 40-50 mph. While it is impossible to predict exactly when or where storms may occur, weather conditions are expected to be active throughout the region.

To provide additional flexibility, students and families are welcome to arrive up to one hour before their scheduled move-in appointment time. If you are unaware of your specific move in appointment times, please refer to the schedule online.

To prepare for the possibility of inclement weather, we encourage all students to:

🦜 Have your Mobile ID readily available. You will need this to check into your residence hall. If you have not already done so, download and install the GET Mobile app from the App Store and 🦜 Monitor local weather forecasts before traveling to campus and allow extra travel time.
🦜 Sign up for MUAlert, to receive updates on emergencies, weather-related cancellations or delays at Millersville University.
🦜 Follow all instructions provided by university personnel upon arrival to campus and throughout the move in process.

The University will closely monitor weather conditions throughout the day. In the event that lightning is detected within 12 miles of campus, a lightening advisory will be issued. If lightning is detected within 8 miles of campus, all move-in activities will stop immediately, without exception. Students, families, volunteers, and staff will be directed to seek shelter in a personal vehicle or nearby campus building. Move-in activities will not resume until 30 minutes have passed since the last observed lightning strike within the monitored area and university officials have determined that conditions are safe.

We understand that everyone is eager to get settled and begin their Millersville experience. However, the arrival of severe weather can create unsafe conditions for students, families, volunteers, and staff so we ask for your patience, understanding, and flexibility should weather conditions require a temporary pause in move-in operations. These precautions are taken to protect everyone and ensure a safe start to the academic year.

A limited number of student Movers & Shakers (volunteers) will be available during move-in to help welcome students and families to campus. Volunteer availability may vary throughout the day, particularly during peak arrival times or weather-related pauses. Students and families should plan to move belongings independently, with potential assistance provided by Movers & Shakers offered as availability permits.

Thank you for your cooperation and understanding. We look forward to welcoming you to campus and helping you begin a successful and safe year at the Ville.

Calling all Millersville University Alumni & Friends Page! You're invited to attend the annual candle lighting ceremony this Friday, August 21 from 7:30 to 9 p.m.

This beloved tradition brings alumni and new students together around the pond to symbolize the passing of the torch from one generation to the next by lighting candles - something we Marauders have done since the early 2000s. Want to join us? Sign up here: https://bit.ly/4ifkT98

Get a sneak peek at the newly renovated Samuel N. and Dena M. Lombardo Hall (formerly Brooks Hall) which is now home to the Lombardo College of Business. More to come soon!

A ribbon-cutting ceremony honoring donors Dr. Samuel and Dena Lombardo marked the grand opening of Millersville University’s Samuel N. and Dena M. Lombardo Hall. The longtime supporters of the University made a historic $5 million gift to transform Brooks Hall, the former athletic venue for the campus, into a new home for the Lombardo College of Business. Established in 2020 thanks to another gift by the Lombardos, Lombardo is the University’s first named college.

Hosted by President Dr. Daniel Wubah and First Lady Dr. Judith Wubah, the event featured remarks by President Wubah; Dr. Marc Tomljanovich, dean of the Lombardo College of Business; Michael Warfel ’84, chair of the Millersville University Council of Trustees; and Samuel Lombardo.

“Within these walls, our students will develop the knowledge and confidence to become principled leaders, creative problem-solvers and responsible professionals,” said President Wubah. “They will analyze difficult questions, test new ideas, work across disciplines and form relationships that may shape the rest of their lives.

“They will also learn that business at its best is about more than financial success. It is about creating opportunity, serving communities, acting with integrity and using one’s talents to make a meaningful difference in the lives of others.”

The ceremony was held in Innovations Court, the original location of the basketball court, which is now an open, flexible space to host events like job and career fairs and community presentations. After remarks, faculty and staff from the Lombardo College of Business conducted tours of the facility, which includes flexible classroom and instructional spaces, faculty and staff offices, conference rooms and student study areas. The building will also include a business lab, incubator space, student lounge and a Brooks Hall Museum.

Brooks Hall was constructed in 1938 and named for Edward Brooks, a math professor and principal at Millersville from 1855 until 1883. Even after the construction of Pucillo Gymnasium in 1971, the building continued to support athletic teams and intramural programs. It then sat dormant until 2017, when the decision was made to tear it down. The campus, at the time, was undergoing major revitalization projects including space optimization to better serve students.

“And then - we reconsidered,” said Dr. Marc Tomljanovich, dean of the Lombardo College of Business, during his remarks at the reception. “The location is central, overlooking Brooks Field, McNairy Library, and of course, the pond. The bones are striking, including the curved windows and parquet floor, and the memories of the generations of students, staff and faculty who have spent their youth and their careers here are irreplaceable.

“So, we brought together people who shared our vision for what this space could be. Sam and Dena Lombardo understood what Brooks Hall means to our campus and the broader community; together with President Daniel Wubah, they laid out a plan to launch the Lombardo College of Business and center it within this storied structure.”

Samuel Lombardo offered a few words, saying the event was “a humbling experience. I remember myself as not a very good student,” he said. “I was kind of restless and experimental in everything I did. It was not until I was drafted into the military that I learned some discipline.

“I was a disrupter, a positive disruptor,” said Samuel Lombardo. “I wanted to make things better in the industry I was in. Lombardo College will represent that for our students. We are going to create positive disruptors for this college and the world we live in.”

Warfel concluded the remarks by thanking the Lombardos and the “more than 100 individuals who made contributions to this project. To all of you, thank you for your investment. I couldn’t be more pleased. The opening of this building is a punctuation to our commitment to this county and region.”

More to come on the Lombardo College of Business soon.

FROM THE REVIEW - Drew Folmar’s 26 Year Journey Home

By Ethan Hulsey

Even today, three months after accepting the job, five months since first realizing that this opportunity was even a possibility, and on the eve of his first spring practice as head coach of his alma mater, the emotions are still raw.

“Oh, man,” he says with a throat full of feeling, opening a desk drawer and grabbing a tissue to dab at watery eyes. There is no hiding it or holding it back. This place – Millersville – is where this walk-on turned hall-of-fame quarterback turned college coach always wanted to be.

The drabness of his office in Lehigh Hall is a telltale sign that he’s been far more consumed with recruiting, hiring a coaching staff, meeting with players, engaging alumni and building an offseason schedule than with interior design. A couple of painted Millersville footballs sit on a bookshelf, alongside a Marauder figurine hand-carved by the late Bob Lehr ’57. Folmar admits he’s not sure how it ended up in his office. The walls are white and bare. The only picture, propped on the top level of his desk, is a framed 5×7 of his wife, Heather, and five children – the six individuals who serve as a daily motivation and the driving force behind his efforts as head coach of the Millersville University football program.

To be the spouse or child of a college football coach is to live a life that is ever-changing and rarely consistent. Even as a successful coach with frequent promotion, Folmar worked for five different universities in five different towns and three different states in the previous 17 years. Livelihoods for coaches and their families change because of one injury, one turnover or one missed tackle. Folmar shouldered the pressure of providing for his family with every play call made on 11 autumn Saturdays each year. From play to play, game to game, season to season, coaches never know when home may no longer be home.

That’s why the last five months have provided the Folmars every possible emotion: excitement, disappointment, optimism, anxiety, nostalgia, nervousness and joy. That’s why he understandably chokes up thinking about the roller-coaster ride that started with his departure from from Elon University in North Carolina after eight years with a brief detour through Bucknell and continues as he winds his way through the day-to-day head coaching tasks while living in Lancaster with his cousin. Heather and the kids are finishing the school year near Lewisburg and wrapping up sale on the house.

Folmar has been too busy. He has had precious little time to process it all. But even as he climbed the ladder as a bright, young offensive mind into the Division I ranks, home was always Millersville University. After graduating in 2000, Folmar spent seven seasons as an assistant coach at Millersville before leaving to be the offensive coordinator at the University of New Haven, and then Kutztown University, where he helped Raymond Monica resurrect a program with record-setting offensive numbers.

In 2014, he joined Lehigh University and sparked the offense to a Patriot League title two years later. That success helped his star continue to rise, and he landed the offensive coordinator position at Elon. One year after packing up his family and moving to North Carolina, the Millersville head coach job opened. Folmar had just helped Elon to a six-win turnaround and a berth in the FCS Playoffs.

Yes, he wanted to be a head coach. Yes, he’d love to be the head coach at Millersville. Yes, Millersville would love to have its legendary quarterback who became an offensive guru lead the program. But sometimes no one gets what they want.

“The last time around, it was not the right time or right place,” says Folmar. “I interviewed on Friday, April 20, and was offered the job on the 23rd. We just moved from Pennsylvania to North Carolina, and it cost us a good chunk of money. You are weighing all the factors. There’s no spring practice, no recruiting class, you are inheriting whoever is on the staff. Heather has always said, ‘We’ll figure it out.’ But that call was the hardest phone call I’ve ever made. I didn’t think I would ever say no to here.”

Wrong time, wrong place, but Folmar soon felt the pain of second-guessing and missed opportunities. “I don’t have a lot of regrets in my life, and I don’t regret that decision because I believe it was the right decision at the time, but within two years, our kids were getting older, we were away from family and I was getting to a different point in my life, and I thought, ‘If that job ever opens, that’s where we are going.’”

Rarely does life afford second chances. On Oct. 6, 2025, the news broke that Millersville was looking for a new head football coach. Folmar heard it from Monica while game-planning at Bucknell University for Lafayette. Bucknell started 4-1 against FCS competition, and star quarterback Ralph Rucker IV was rolling, having just completed 71% of his passes for 284 yards in a win over Richmond. But Rucker suffered an injury and missed nearly every snap of the remaining seven games, in which Bucknell went 1-6.

This time, Folmar found himself on the coaching carousel at just the right time. Millersville opened its search at the conclusion of the 2025 season – the first winless season in 93 years. But with his reputation as a player and offensive coach, and his history of recruiting in Pennsylvania, Folmar was not without options.

In fact, the day before his first interview at Millersville, he was offered a head coaching job. “My two older brothers – the two people I lean on the most – and another coach who I respect very much; they all said, ‘Take the job,’” says Folmar. “But that’s not where I wanted to be. Heather said, ‘Don’t take it. If it doesn’t work out, we’ll figure it out. If you take it, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life. You said last time around that never again would you let it go if it came open.’ ‘But we have five kids,’ I said. Heather said, ‘Doesn’t matter, we’ll figure it out.’”

How do you turn down a job offer for a job that you haven’t yet interviewed for? Not easily, but Folmar couldn’t bear to let Millersville slip through his grasp a second time. It was worth the risk. The ensuing month of interviews – three to be exact – dragged painfully through the holidays. “I would wake up some mornings, saying, ‘Everything is going to be good,’” says Folmar. “But the process took so long. These things wear you out. I’ve been a part of searches that took nine days, start to finish. I would go back and forth and say, ‘what if?’ It wasn’t just me. It was tough for Heather, but she was great. I knew there was anxiety there. It was a roller coaster of emotions.”

At 8 a.m. on Jan. 14, 60 days after the end of the season, Folmar was officially announced as the head coach of the program for which he set single-season records for passing yards, completions, touchdowns, passing attempts and total offense; the program for which he still owns career records for passing yards, completions and touchdowns; the program that he led to a 1998 PSAC East title and a 1999 NCAA playoff appearance; the program with which he earned four All-PSAC East honors.

When the news hit social media, Folmar’s phone erupted in a nonstop barrage of texts, emails and DMs from alumni and friends. It was four hours before Folmar decided to put his phone aside. “I kid you not. It was 12:30 when I decided to stop getting back to guys and get to work,” says Folmar. “When you played for Coach Carpenter, you knew the guys from the ’70s, even if you had never met them. Guys who I have never met face-to-face reached out to me. I wanted to get back to everyone, but I had a list of 40 things to do. It was unbelievable the outpouring, and I’ll never be able to thank them enough.”

The buzz of excitement among the Marauder faithful generated more than 75,000 interactions on X and thousands of likes and engagements on Facebook and Instagram. During February’s Marauders Day of Giving, the football program received 547% more gifts and raised more than $104,000 in 24 hours. Folmar has been swamped with hurriedly building a recruiting class, meeting with players, hiring staff and readying his team for spring ball, but the support has not gone unnoticed. “I do believe this. It’s our program,” says Folmar. “I’m the head coach of the Millersville University football program, but every guy who came through here, it’s all ours. We all shaped it. We all had a part of laying the foundation.”

Now, after setting up his new running backs coach with the team’s social media accounts and before another staff meeting to discuss spring practice, Folmar allows himself a rare moment to reminisce about why Millersville is home and why getting this job meant so much.

Folmar arrived at Millersville in 1997 as an undersized, scrawny walk-on from Chambersburg High School. Both of his older brothers were star collegiate baseball players, but Folmar, whose father was a longtime high school coach, fell in love with the practice field, locker rooms and late-Friday night sessions with his dad, Don, grading the film while adjusting the tracking on the VCR.

At the prodding of his father, Folmar took four visits before his high school graduation: Indiana University of Pennsylvania, California University of Pennsylvania, Kutztown and Millersville. After back-toback mediocre seasons with Chambersburg University, Folmar just wanted a chance to be a part of a winning team. IUP, under Frank Cignetti, had won six of the previous seven PSAC West titles.

When Folmar visited Millersville, the already legendary Dr. Gene Carpenter wasn’t even on campus. Offensive coordinator Brad Mangle taught in the Lancaster city school system during the day, so he wasn’t around either. Folmar met with receivers coach Kyle Hockman. Millersville signed three other freshmen quarterbacks in that recruiting class, so Folmar was hardly a priority. The offer was more or less “show up in August if you want.”

The visit came and went with Folmar intent on walking on at IUP. But Folmar’s father reminded him that Millersville was winning plenty, too, and the elementary education program was top-notch. “I knew he wasn’t going to steer me in the wrong direction,” says Folmar.

Three years later, Folmar looked across the line of scrimmage at IUP defenders in the second round of the NCAA Playoffs, and 18 years later, accepted a job offer from Frank’s son, Curt, as the offensive coordinator at Elon. Folmar came to Millersville naïve with zero expectations. He hoped to graduate, become an elementary school teacher and eventually nudge his father out as the head coach for Chambersburg.

On the drive to campus, the family stopped in Carlisle for lunch, and he famously told his parents, “I just hope I can make the bus.” “Look at me,” says Folmar. “I didn’t think I was going to get to play. We walked into Bard Hall, and Coach Mangle hands me a playbook that was so thick. If you knew my father, he had about five plays. Three runs and two play-action passes. I’m thinking, ‘What did I get myself into?’”

For years, the first team meeting of the season was held in the McComsey Hall auditorium. That’s when Folmar laid eyes on Carpenter for the first time. Carpenter wouldn’t even know Folmar’s name for at least another week. “We didn’t have the internet then; you couldn’t look people up,” says Folmar. “I was carrying my bags in, and my dad says, ‘That’s the head coach right there.’ I shook his hand, and I’m sure Coach was thinking, ‘Whose little brother is this?’”

Folmar’s career started in anonymity, and his first days on the practice field were uneventful. After three long two-a-days of standing on the sidelines, Folmar heard a shout from the hill of the practice field above Biemesderfer Stadium. It was Carpenter. “No. 11, get up here. Go tell Coach Mangle you want two plays.” Folmar ran down to the huddle where Mangle was leading a 7-on-7 session. “I’m supposed to tell you that I want two plays,” he reported. “OK, what do you know?” asked Mangle. Folmar scanned the massive playbook in his mind. He knew one. He took the field, took the snap, looked for his tight end and spiked the ball five yards in front of him.

The next day, Folmar stepped into the huddle. The play call was Right Astro 0809 Check. When Folmar tried to share the string of code with his teammates, the words wouldn’t come out. “Right Astro … Right Astro.…” he stumbled. It was an inauspicious beginning.

Millersville’s big question mark heading into the 1997 season was finding a replacement for Greg Moylan, who set 12 school records and threw 50 touchdown passes. Then sports information director Greg Wright, a Millersville Athletics Hall of Fame inductee himself, mentioned Ryan Swailes and John Vandevere in his preseason outlook, but there is no mention of Drew Folmar … or Andrew Folmar, as he is listed with 25 other freshmen in the “Marauder Recruits” section of the 1997 preseason media guide.

But Mangle and Carpenter saw something in him. “I just knew I didn’t want to go back to the scout team,” says Folmar. “Coach Mangle gave me the script every day. I went back to the dorm, drew up every play and worked on my footwork while the guys were sleeping.” That first season, Folmar completed 58.8% of his passes, threw for 2,152 yards and 19 touchdowns, winning the PSAC East Rookie of the Year award.

It was those first four months as a Marauder that changed everything about Folmar’s future. “I grew up in a football family, running around on the practice field,” says Folmar. “You naturally start to learn football. I thought I knew a lot, and I learned a ton of football from my father. But I learned more football from August to November than I had learned in the 18 years prior. It was such a different level. I was used to doing half the practice on offense and half on defense. Now I am setting protections and throwing hot. It was enlightening. That’s when I started to realize that this is what I wanted to do, as well as be a college football coach. It was such a deeper dive. It’s still what I love.”

No one, not Folmar, and certainly not Carpenter, expected what would unfold. Not just over four years as the starting quarterback, but over the 26 years between his final snaps in Black and Gold and his introductory press conference as the program’s head football coach.

During that press conference, Folmar thanked his coach. “The main reason I’m here today … (Carpenter) modeled Marauder Pride and what it looked like on a daily basis,” said Folmar from behind the podium. Now Folmar looks to do what no other coach has been able to since Carpenter’s retirement in 2000: fill the College Football Hall of Famesized shoes of his mentor and build a new era of Marauder Pride. He knows that it may take some time. Fans tend to forget that it took Carpenter eight years to win his first PSAC East title. Folmar feels the pressure and weight of expectations, but he reminds himself that pressure is a great motivator.

The trip down memory lane to the late ’90s provided a respite from the grind, but Folmar quickly turns his attention back to the here and now. The start of spring practice is imminent: an all-important first chance to share team standards, install plays and build a culture. “We are putting together a team that will compete this year,” says Folmar. “What the heck that will look like in terms of win totals, you don’t know. But we are building it to compete this fall and recruiting for what it will look like in two, three and four years.… We want to push each other, hold each other accountable and have some fun. You prepare 365 days a year for 11 opportunities to compete. When you look back, there are moments when you say, what am I doing? Is this worth it? But it was fun.”

When Folmar says he is home, he means it. That sentiment is heartfelt. It is real. The journey back to the ’Ville was only the first step. There’s still so far to go. But it’s at a place he loves, doing it for the six people in that 5×7 who have helped him every step of the way.

FROM THE REVIEW - MILLERSVILLE MADE: A Lifelong Lancaster Learner

As a junior in high school in the School District of Lancaster, a young Jassinya Alvarado-Padilla ’14 met an associate professor in Millersville University’s Educational Foundations department at a cafeteria tabling event. Dr. Miriam Marguerita Gomez Witmer was there recruiting mentees for the Color of Teaching, an organization she leads that supports high school and college students of color considering careers in education through mentorship.

“In my schooling journey, I had limited teachers who looked and sounded like me,” shares Alvarado-Padilla. “Dr. Witmer offered to be my mentor.” For Alvarado-Padilla and many others, school was what she described as a “. . . safe haven. I loved school. It was a consistent place, a place where I could be free,” she explains. “Life wasn’t always easy at home. I had great parents that worked a lot. Sometimes when I came home from school, the electricity and water weren’t on, and we always figured it out, but it was unpredictable. But when I got to school, I forgot about the ‘adult’ worries I had.”

With support from that mentorship program and a scholarship from the Lancaster Partnership Program, Alvarado-Padilla went on to attend Millersville University, majoring in early childhood education. Her first full-time gig was teaching high school English at a charter school in Reading, Pennsylvania, which has a high population of non-English-speaking students who migrated to the U.S. during Hurricane Maria.

Fast-forward to today, Alvarado-Padilla is now back at Millersville as a student in the University’s Doctor of Education in educational leadership, a joint program with Shippensburg University, and on the precipice of becoming a two-time graduate of Millersville. “As a first-generation student, I never imagined I would get my doctorate,” explains Alvarado-Padilla. “The first doctoral graduation I attended was Dr. Witmer’s, and it was impactful to me. I saw that she did it her own way, and I knew I could, too. In many ways, the experiences I was exposed to, as a result to saying yes to mentorship, saved my life and changed the trajectory of my life.”

In a full-circle moment, Witmer is now serving as a member of Alvarado-Padilla’s doctoral committee. The investment that Witmer made in Alvarado’s personal and professional life has translated into her work as an educator.

Outside of her doctoral work, she serves as the School District of Lancaster’s Director of Educational Access and Opportunity, having risen through the ranks at the district since 2019. She also serves on multiple nonprofit boards and recently joined Governor Shapiro’s Commission on Latino Affairs as a Lancaster County Commissioner. She brings with her 11 years of experience as a teacher, leader and administrator in education now to ensure, as her motto says, “that kids feel seen, heard and valued as their authentic selves.” Alvarado-Padilla says that as someone who came from a stressful home life, “I want to be able to pass on the sense of peace in school that I had as a child. I want students to feel safe, free and able to be their authentic self at school. The complexities and challenges we have to overcome as adults in leadership to create those systems are totally worth it.”

Her message and advice for all alumni, educators, mentors and community members is this: “Be great with purpose, trust your ‘dopeness’ and remember our future generation is watching and relying on us to make the world a better place so they, too, can thrive and live up to their highest potential.”

FROM THE REVIEW - MILLERSVILLE MADE: Celebrations are in order! As the United States celebrates is 250th anniversary, Millersville University alumnus G. Robert Wagner ’75 is leaving his artistic mark on history.

Wagner was selected to design and create original artwork for one of the over 100 commemorative bells for Bells Across PA, a statewide public art initiative sponsored by America250PA. The initiative grants professional artists of any medium the opportunity to create a piece representative of their home county as part of the celebration.

“I found out about the opportunity to showcase my artwork from reading about the upcoming America’s 250th Anniversary on the Discover Lancaster website,” Wagner explains. “I created a mock-up of the bell with my artwork, submitted it to the Bells Across PA design committee and was selected.”

For Wagner, a Lancaster native, the opportunity is a full-circle experience. After earning his bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Millersville, Wagner began his artistic career with the Lancaster County Planning Commission in 1979, the year that marked Lancaster County’s 250th anniversary celebration. He was chosen to illustrate the Lancaster County Seal for official county use, which was used for a special 250th anniversary proclamation. The seal he created more than four decades ago is still used today and is designed front and center on the bell.

“Over the years, I have created a lot of artwork focused on Lancaster County,” Wagner says. “As a Lancaster native, I am very proud of our county and found a niche showcasing Lancaster’s heritage.”

The artwork featured on the bell blends Lancaster’s history and charm, showcasing architecture, nature and scenes of daily life. All the bells for Bells Across PA aim to illustrate both local heritage and America’s broader story.

Among the featured imagery are rolling Amish farmland, the historic Thaddeus Stevens House, Historic Rock Ford, Amish village scenes, the Visitors Center and Central Market, and a covered bridge with cyclists, a nod to the annual popular Covered Bridge Metric Century Ride to which Wagner has contributed art.

The bell is displayed at the Edward Hand Mansion at Historic Rock Ford, where visitors can experience both the site’s history and Wagner’s work. “It is a privilege and honor to be part of this event that brings all of us together to celebrate America,” Wagner says. “It gives us a chance to take time to smile at each other, shake hands and come together.”

Wagner, a proud Vietnam War-era veteran, also teaches art classes with WriteFace. According to the organization’s website, “WriteFace helps veterans generate a healthier spirit within themselves, for their families, at work, and in our communities through guided writing exercises and interaction with instructors and fellow participants.” More information is available at writeface.org.

“I have come to think more about my art and how it can relate to others in a class. The healing and help it provides is a wonderful thing to be part of,” shares Wagner. View more of Wagner’s work at grobertwagner.com. Read more here: https://bit.ly/45Oag5I