When James Broadhurst, chief executive officer of Eat'n Park Hospitality Group, was named the new chairman of Penn State's Board of Trustees at Friday's meeting, he cracked a smile -- an expression captured permanently in the smiley face cookies he made famous.

"Those cookies are something I've always been fond of," Broadhurst said. "I grew up in Titusville, and they had smiley face cookies at this bakery I went to. Many years later, I suggested we put those cookies in the bakeries in our restaurants."

Broadhurst replaced Cynthia Baldwin, beginning his three-year term on the board. Baldwin said she is excited about Broadhurst's election.

"I am looking forward to working with him," she said.

"We have a lot of talent on this board, and I think that it's wonderful to give other people the opportunity to serve."

Penn State President Graham Spanier said he thinks Broadhurst will do an "outstanding job."

"He is an articulate, successful and talented individual who is really the perfect person to be leading our board right now," Spanier said.

Broadhurst, a 1965 graduate of Penn State who majored in economics, played basketball his freshman year and said he has a special place in his heart for the school.

"I met my wife on campus at a frat party," Broadhurst, an alumnus of Phi Kappa Sigma, said. "She was a Delta Gamma."

He said a primary issue he would like to attack is a lack of scholarships and financial aid for Penn State students -- an issue that affected many of his friends during his college days.

"With tuition going up to the degree it has over the years, it's difficult for people to afford the cost of education," he said.

"It was a lot less expensive when I went to school here, and the cost of education has gone up at all of the public and private schools in the country. The offset from scholarships is not where we would like it to be."

He said 80 percent of undergraduates at Penn State receive financial assistance, but only one in five undergraduates receives any scholarship support, either privately or university-funded.

"We'd start with kicking off a new capital campaign that would have a major focus on student support," he said. "Most of the money will go for endowment purposes."

Broadhurst also said he would like to see Penn State develop a better relationship with the state government.

"I want to keep tuition down as low as we possibly can," he said. "That happening depends on the appropriations from the state of Pennsylvania."

Interested in the future of tuition, Broadhurst said he will attend at least one of Spanier's upcoming hearings to appeal for government funds.

With many commitments ranging from his career at Eat'n Park to his former chairman duties of the Pittsburgh Committee Foundation, Broadhurst said serving as chairman will be a challenge of time management.

"This is the most important priority for me right now," he said. "I've been careful in the past couple of years to not take on too many responsibilities."

He said he hopes to still have time to engage in his favorite hobbies of traveling, playing golf, reading and eating in different food establishments, including Eat'n Park, where he said he eats at least one meal per day.

"My absolute favorite item on our menu is baked scrod," he said. "It's a seafood item. It's very good. For dinner, because I am trying to be healthy, I have the soup and salad bar."

Broadhurst said he will further outline his goals at the March Board of Trustees meeting, which is scheduled to be held March 22 and 23 in Hershey.