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<p>I have. The point is that the e-mails don’t tell the whole story and cosmic has already pulled along that argument long after I went to sleep last night so I won’t continue belaboring it.</p>
<p>You have read it yet you ask if there was a chain of emails???</p>
<p>mini, my interpretation of that article about Sandusky’s retirement package was that PSU revoked all the parts that it could, but not the parts that were part of the state compensation program. The Emeritus status wasn’t mentioned explicitly one way or the another. Do you have any reason for thinking that PSU would have any motive at this point to decline to revoke Sandusky’s Emeritus status? I can’t imagine what it would be–I’ve got to think the plan would be to load as much of the blame and punishment onto Sandusky as possible.</p>
<p>I would imagine that academic titles, once conferred, become a matter for the Faculty Senate. I know for sure they are at my alma mater (there was resume falsification issue that had to be dealt with there.)</p>
<p>And I would have thought that if they took it away, they would have made a big deal of it, rather than stressing taking away the basketball tickets of a guy who will spend up to 442 years in prison. Wouldn’t you think the same?</p>
<p>In other words, it was all press pablum. (The article is really a press release.) They revoked only those things that couldn’t and didn’t make any difference.</p>
<p>Another reason why they wouldn’t revoke his Professor Emeritus status (if they had the power) is that the next logical question is what they have to do with Paterno’s status, and that of their Professor in the so-called College of Health and Human Development.</p>
<p>So they would have multiple grounds for not revoking his academic title.</p>
<p>This news only came out yesterday, so I’m not sure what the whole story is. Some of the articles seem to emphasize the revocation of his tickets to sporting events–so maybe the emphasis was on keeping him off campus.</p>
<p>You may be right that the faculty Senate would have to revoke his emeritus status. Do you have any reason to believe they’d decline to do so?</p>
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<p>So then why did you speculate or hypothesize that the “after talking to Joe, we’re uncomfortable with the plan” might have referred to something innocuous and unrelated like installing new turf, when it was clear from the Freeh Report that that particular email was absolutely in reference to knowing Sandusky had done something wrong and then changing an initial plan that included contacting authorities?</p>
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<p>In the Freeh report I downloaded there are several e-mails together, but they are not in a typical e-mail chain in the e-mail referenced before my post The first couple e-mail documents in the Appendix are formatted in the traditional chain manner as they would appear printed from someone’s computer e-mail. The particular one referenced is not.</p>
<p>It’s possible it was pulled directly from a server (hence the html non breaking space stuff) and is a chain but I don’t know. (Pg. 219 of my copy of the Freeh report). Again, the point of my post is that a lawyer will pick at it…not what do I think about the content of the e-mail, not any analysis of the content of the e-mail. Simply a post to say that lawyers will pick at this stuff (because that is what happens.) </p>
<p>I’m tired of being badgered so I’ll take a break and catch up when there is some actual news…</p>
<p>It is inconceivable to me that IF the Faculty Senate had this power to revoke Sandusky’s title, that they would not have revoked it. It appears that the President had the authority to give or not give Emeritus status, if it did not meet “normal” rules. It may be that there was no specific provision allowing the President to revoke the title. Wouldn’t bother me if I were President, I would revoke title, and tell him to sue me personally if he didnt like it.</p>
<p>The emeritus status was certainly part of the retirement “package” that Sandusky negotiated. That’s why I think PSU may have revoked it with the whole package. The news reports about this don’t give many details.</p>
<p>3togo, thank you for the links to the article on the BOT inaction in 2004 and the Clery Act situation.</p>
<p>The behavior of the adults in positions of authority and responsibility at PSU is incomprehensible. The president of the university tells the football coach to reitre and he just says no. The BOT tries to inact additional over sight and the president just says no. There are no checks and balances. Power is concentrated in the hands of a few men, who at best have very bad judgement. </p>
<p>I am so sorry for the children who suffered at the hands of an institution run wild. This is not just a problem with the football program–this is university wide failure.</p>
<p>With apologies, I am afraid I do not have much time to spend today debating all this, but I did want to note something: I looked up the PSU policies on emeritus ranks, and while they confirm that the President has the authority to grant emeritus by exception to just about anyone, there appear to be no regulations whatsoever on revoking said rank. If that is really the case, then it will take a little while to devise and approve a reasonable policy that will let them do so without compromising the status of other faculty emeritii.</p>
<p>We know what happened. We know Sandusky was allowed to continue abusing children u der the noses of those in power who knew. </p>
<p>If paterno wanted it reported it would have been. Cnsidering freeh, his staff, and the vast majority of people have studied the emails in depth that is is obvious paterno nixed reporting Sandusky to try and twist and turn and do backbends to re interpret the emails, and the actual subsequent actions as something they were not. They supported privately and publicly a child rapist. Year after yeR after year…and they did it deliberately.</p>
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<p>They make it very clear that it wasn’t astroturf that was being discussed. For the life of me, I cannot think of ANY innocent interpretation of the email conversations. Can you?</p>
<p>“The emeritus status was certainly part of the retirement “package” that Sandusky negotiated. That’s why I think PSU may have revoked it with the whole package. The news reports about this don’t give many details.”</p>
<p>Sorry - but I quoted the university spokesman. The “package” statement was the press overlay. There are multiple articles - all specifying, in bullet points, what they revoked. They include neither his academic title nor the $168,000 payment. I think if they revoked his academic title, it would have been at the top of the press release.</p>
<p>“It is inconceivable to me that IF the Faculty Senate had this power to revoke Sandusky’s title, that they would not have revoked it.”</p>
<p>As far as I am aware, not a single tenured faculty member at Penn State, and not a single coach, and not a single member of the Board of Trustees, and not a single member of the Administration, has stated publicly that they think the Professor Emeritus should have his academic title revoked.</p>
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This may be so, but I agree with the poster above that in this case, the president of PSU should just declare that it’s revoked. What other faculty member, emeritus or otherwise, would dare to complain? They might take their own vote later, but it would certainly be to revoke.</p>
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Out of curiosity, do you feel that the conclusions of the Freeh report are 100% definite, that the only events that could have possibly produced that evidence provided must be the events hypothesized by Freeh?</p>
<p>Mini, those articles, as I read, them, don’t quote the spokesman as listing specifically what was revoked. That list is a list of elements of the package. I think you’re reading to much (or too little) into the article. I know you like to keep saying that nobody at PSU has stated that the emeritus status should be revoked, but I’m not convinced that it hasn’t been. Perhaps a reporter will ask the question.</p>
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Now is not the time to do things by fiat. Penn State needs to be operating under rules of law and order, not simply nodding their heads to whatever the President says even if it is something over which he has no specific authority.</p>
<p>I believe that Schultz, Spanier, and Curley declined to be interviewed for the Freeh report. (I’m not sure that’s true for all three, but I think so.) This might have been prudent for them from a legal point of view, and it does create some possibility that they have a different story to tell–but if they don’t tell it pretty soon, in court or elsewhere, the Freeh report may end up being more or less the final word.</p>
<p>And cosmicfish–do you think there’s one person on the planet other than Sandusky himself who thinks that he should continue to be a professor emeritus of PSU? I just can’t imagine who that might be–which is why I tend to think that PSU has probably already revoked it.</p>
<p>cosmicfish, regarding your 5 alternate explanations of the meaning of Curley’s email: Ever heard of Occam’s Razor?</p>