Typically about six to nine candidates run. The slate has included as many as 15.
Interest is up this year because of the board's actions after Jerry Sandusky was arrested in November, including the firing of late head coach Joe Paterno.
Other critics have called for more transparency on the 32-member board and see election as a way to enact change.
The trustees' office Wednesday announced the names of candidates and drew for ballot positions. Any of the school's more than 557,000 alumni can vote. The ballots are due back in May.
The candidates come from diverse backgrounds and range from Sam Zamrik, a retired engineering mechanics professor who had a graduate degree in 1961 from Penn State; to Jeff Krisciunas, the owner of a management consultant company who earned a master's in business administration in 2011.
Nine seats on the board are elected by alumni, with three seats up every year.
One incumbent, retired school teacher Anne Riley, is running for re-election.
Of the other two incumbents, David Jones, a former newspaper editor, has said he decided two years ago to limit his board tenure to 15 years, which would be in June. David Joyner is leaving the board because he is now the school's acting athletic director.
Among the more notable names on the ballot is lawyer Adam Taliaferro, a former defensive back for Paterno who recovered from a severe spinal cord injury in 2000 while making a tackle at Ohio State. Doctors had feared he would never walk again.
Taliaferro in November also won a seat on the Board of Electors in Gloucester County, N.J.
Also on the ballot are three candidates endorsed by one of the more outspoken groups critical of university leadership, Penn Staters for Responsible Stewardship, including prominent donor Anthony Lubrano, whose name is on the campus baseball stadium.
Another candidate, 1998 graduate Scott Munroe, said he had been thinking of running for a seat for more than a year before deciding to move forward in November after the school was engulfed in scandal.
"This is the right thing to do to get younger blood on the board, get people who have a really good understanding of campus needs and what it's all about, and understands how a campus really should run," said Munroe, campus landscape architect at the University of Maryland.
Candidates including Munroe and Lubrano attended the drawing at the campus conference center. When asked, the half-dozen candidates interviewed by The Associated Press each voiced a need for some change on board structure, such as having more seats elected by alumni or having fewer board members.
Others candidates relied on stand-ins.
"We must elect candidates with fresh perspectives and new ideas who are ready to repair the mistakes of the past," candidate Ryan Bagwell, a 2002 graduate now living in Middleton, Wis., said in a statement. "I urge my fellow alumni to vote for those with a record of fighting for transparency and holding the powerful accountable."
Leaders of the current board have said they are reviewing options about the board's operating structure, and are open to suggestions.
A link to the election voting site containing the ballot and candidate statements is scheduled to be emailed to alumni by April 10. Ballots are due by May 3. The winners are typically announced at the board meeting in mid-May.