To:
State Senator Yudichak, Penn State alumni networking
cc:
Penn State Trustees
Keith
Masser’s and Joel Myers’ letters to the Centre Daily Times (and Masser’s letter
to the Times-Tribune) exhibit nothing more than the desperation of cornered
rats with regard to State Senator Yudichak’s legislation to restructure the
Board of Trustees. This is my assessment from an organizational behavior and
organizational psychology perspective.
The
Board’s “leaders” have largely remained silent and unresponsive for the past
years in the mistaken hope, as expressed by ex-Trustee Karen Peetz, that the
Penn State community would exhaust itself through its efforts to defend the University
from the Board’s controlling majority, and “move on.” The fact that Masser and
Myers chose suddenly to break cover is evidence of sheer panic because their
letters give the Penn State community very easy targets with which to discredit
the Board even further, if such is possible. As Winston Churchill said of
nuclear weapons, you can make the rubble bounce only so many times, but Myers’
and Masser’s letters provide opportunities to make the rubble of the
Masser-controlled Board’s credibility bounce particularly high. I encourage
fellow alumni to write responses to these newspapers, and in others,
accordingly.
Let’s
start with Dr. Myers, whose eagerness to ingratiate himself with the Board’s
controlling majority has done little more than to remind everybody that the
alumni fired him for cause in 2014. (See for example http://www.centredaily.com/2014/02/25/4055232/letter-to-the-editor-no-mercy.html)
Even worse, Keith Masser’s and Kenneth Frazier’s depositions in the Corman-NCAA
lawsuit show that Myers, like his colleagues, not only scapegoated Coach
Paterno but then lied about the circumstances. This lie may well have helped
set the stage for the NCAA sanctions, even though Karen Peetz’s violation of
the Board’s Expectations of Membership was the proximate cause. Here is what
Myers says. http://www.centredaily.com/2015/06/11/4790231/letter-to-the-editor-yudichak.html
“State Sen. John Yudichak’s purpose in
introducing legislation to restructure the Penn State board of trustees should
be obvious to everyone.”
“It is intended to give the General
Assembly much more control over the university without supplying any more
money.” [No, Joel, it is intended to take control away from so-called Trustees
who treated the University as their private country club and networking society
rather than as a responsibility.]
“Such a move might harm the university
and ultimately the value and quality of education it provides in many ways by
interjecting politics and legislators onto the board.” [Even if this were true,
which I doubt, it is better than the “Ped State” label Joel Myers and his
buddies helped slap on the University in 2011.]
“Importantly, one might ask why he has
targeted Penn State but not Pitt, Temple and Lincoln, the other state-related
universities, which actually get more dollars per student from the state than
Penn State.” [Let me help you with this, Joel. The Trustees of Pitt, Temple,
and Lincoln were not incompetent (11/09/2011), derelict in their fiduciary duty
to oppose the NCAA sanctions (opinion of the Commonwealth Court, 4/09/2014),
and flat-out dishonest as proven by Masser’s and Frazier’s depositions in the
Corman-NCAA lawsuit.]
The
Board of which both Mr. Masser and Mr. Myers were members in March 2012 issued
an official public statement that the Board unanimously fired Coach Paterno for
“failure of leadership.” Masser and Frazier had to testify when under oath,
however, that the Board fired Paterno for public relations reasons. Masser said
explicitly that he was not fired for anything he had or had not done, which
means he was not fired for “failure of leadership.” This means every Trustee
involved, including Myers and Masser, fell short of the standard of integrity
the U.S. Military Academy demands of its cadets. Even if they did not
personally author the falsehood in question, I direct their attention to the
phrase “tolerate those who do.” If you’re part of a group that tells a lie of
this nature, and you don’t dissociate yourself from it as Al Clemens did, you
are a liar just like the actual spokesperson.
Now
let’s see how Keith Masser yet again reminds the Commonwealth of why Penn State
needs a massive governance overhaul: http://www.centredaily.com/2015/06/11/4790232/letter-to-the-editor-penn-state.html
“The
CDT recently ran an editorial from another newspaper questioning board
governance of PSU. We’d like to set the record straight.”
“The
Penn State board of trustees devoted well over a year on a series of reforms,
working with a nationally recognized governance expert, conducted benchmarking,
and deliberated on various changes to our governance structure. The board
overwhelmingly approved a new structure that will make Penn State better.”
“We
know this because the university recently received an Aa2 rating from Moody’s
Investor Services with a positive outlook, citing Penn State’s strengthened
governance, management practices and risk management procedures. The report
follows a similarly strong AA rating by Standard & Poor’s, and the Middle
States Commission on Higher Education found Penn State met all 10 of its
accreditation requirements.” [The recent tuition increases, which would
probably not have been necessary had not Mr. Masser and his friends not
squandered $6.5 million on Louis Freeh’s “investigation,” $60 million on
illegitimate sanctions, and even more money on payouts to Sandusky victims for
whose injuries Penn State was not responsible, doubtlessly helped Penn State
keep its high rating.]
“Since 2011, the board has expanded its
committees and opened those meetings to the community. We added permanent seats
for the Penn State Alumni Association, a faculty member and a member of the
student body. With a 10th seat on the board devoted to alumni, no university in
Pennsylvania or the Big Ten provides its alumni with more direct input into its
governance.” [The 10th seat belongs to the Penn State Alumni
Association, which has repeatedly proven itself a shill for Mr. Masser and his
associates.]
“We now have a board structure in place
that includes constituencies from business and industry, agriculture, and
government. The creation of additional at-large positions ensures the board can
identify and recruit candidates with skillsets that may not necessarily fit
into traditional constituencies. Perhaps most important, this healthy makeup
ensures no single group can control the agenda and requires real consensus
building to reach a majority.”
Mr.
Masser saved the biggest lie for last, and he did not even have the courtesy to
tell a halfway believable lie. The entire Penn State community knows that
Masser and his cohorts have controlled the agenda for the past 3.5 years, and
to the extent of sabotaging Penn State’s well-being to cover up their own mistakes
and dishonesty. In case Mr. Masser has forgotten, and I will remind my fellow
alumni as well, http://www.senatoryudichak.com/yudichak-offers-statement-at-penn-state-board-of-trustees-meeting/
Regrettably, as a result of Chairman Keith Masser’s
unprecedented move to prevent a quorum from being present, you are not able to
vote on the resolution. Separate from the merits of the resolution, which
I fully support, the
egregious actions of Chairman Masser point to a disturbing trend by the board
majority to contravene the spirit of University bylaws and to stubbornly ignore
long-standing state laws that prescribe membership on the Penn State Board of
Trustees.
As you well know, Senator Corman and I
have worked diligently to forge a compromise on board governance reform through
Senate Bill 1240 and subsequent efforts. The thrust of our reform efforts
center on creating a smaller, more engaged board of trustees that reflects the
vast majority of most major public research universities in the United States. Chairman Masser has rebuffed our
legislative efforts in favor of a reform proposal that suits only the narrow
agenda of his current majority by increasing the size of the board to 38
members.
Ironically, when questioned why the full
Board of Trustees was not informed about the NCAA consent decree former
President Rod Erickson noted, under oath, that the 32 member board was too
large to gather for such a discussion. Mr. Erickson’s admission that he did not inform the full
board about the most significant decision facing Penn State in its history – a
decision that has cost the University over one hundred million dollars and its
hard earned reputation — is an indictment of his weakness as President and an
indictment of the structural deficiencies of the Penn State Board of Trustees.
[So it is a matter of record that Rodney Erickson, as opposed to Graham Spanier
and Joe Paterno as alleged by the likes of Kenneth Frazier, concealed material
information from the Board at a cost of over $60 million to Penn State.]
Furthermore, the lack of disclosure
before the full Board of Trustees is clear evidence that the consent decree
should be legally challenged by the University. The alumni trustees are
justified in calling for the passage of a resolution that compels the
University to join the worthy cause being led by Senator Corman and Treasure
McCord that challenges the validity of the NCAA actions against Penn State
University.
State
Senator Yudichak also said, and quite accurately, that the Board as led by Mr.
Masser was putting personal agendas ahead of a Penn State agenda.
The
takeaway is, however, that Masser’s and Myers’ letters exhibit outright panic on
the part of the Board, especially the Business & Industry and Agriculture
members whose positions Yudichak’s legislation would rightly eliminate. Both
letters are so full of holes, half-truths, and similar vulnerabilities that it
is clear that these factions have reached the end of their rope, and are now
lashing out in pure desperation. I accordingly urge the Penn State community to
exploit this panic in letters to the editor, social media, and all other
available communication channels to help Senator Yudichak pass his legislation,
and put Penn State into the hands of Trustees who understand that “Trustee”
means “responsibility” and not “country club member.”
