Graham's in Terrible Shape....Just Pass the Damn Thing for God's Sake!

On Monday, Democrats in Harrisburg held up funding for the four state-related universities and The Old Main Government Bribery and Cajoling Unit sprung into action as doctors rushed to the Schreyer House to attend to Graham's skyrocketing blood pressure.  A letter was sent to state lawmakers with the urgent message, "Graham's in terrible shape....just pass the damn thing for God's sake!" Ok,not quite, here is what they wrote, (via)

This has been a most difficult budget season, and it is safe to say that no one is entirely satisfied with the budget bills you will be asked to vote on over the next several days.  It is important, nonetheless, to complete your work this week by making sure that the non-preferred bills are passed in a timely fashion — that is, before the end of the fiscal year.

It did the trick, the Dems folded.  Local Democratic representative Scott Conklin said through his spokesman that he didn't want the guilt of being responsible in someway for Graham's stroke..... if you read between the lines, that is.

State Rep. Scott Conklin, D-Rush Township, had said that he would not
support any state budget unless it included level funding for Penn
State. But the letter from DiEugenio and DiRaimo "has certainly affected
his thinking," Conklin's chief of staff, Tor Michaels, said earlier
Tuesday.

Michaels said Conklin would give the correspondence some weight.

And everyone lived happily ever after....well, at least until the tuition bills go out.

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Only the 109th University in the World, But the Third Party School in the Country

The Times Higher Education World University Rankings were published today. Here is how the the Big Ten schools  finished overall.

• 15. University of Michigan
• 25 Northwestern University
• 33 University of Illinois Urban-Campaign
• 43 University of Wisconsin
  
• 52 University of  Minnesota
• 66 Ohio State University
  
• 106 Purdue
• 109 Penn State
• 122 Michigan State
• 132 University of Iowa
  
• 156 Indiana U

The Big Ten's newest addition, the University of Nebraska, didn't make the top 200 schools.

I will have more to say about this on Friday and I'll also weigh in on the recent WSJ corporate recruiter rankings of universities.

And latter this month the long awaited  NRC graduate program rankings are scheduled to be released. How will Penn State do? Old Main already knows since the data was released to univerisities earlier this week. My guess is that The Old Main Propaganda Shop is working overtime getting ready to brag and spin as needed  once the public gets a look.

For You Oldtimers Out There

From StateCollege.com,

Rustum Roy, the founder of Penn State's Materials Research Lab, has passed away, the university announced Thursday morning.

He was 86, according to Penn State.

Rusty was always a character and a self-promoter, but he sure did a good job of tweaking Old Main's nose over the years and for that he will be missed.

This Will Work Out Well

Earlier this week at Ag Progress Days, Graham announced the formation of a new Penn State research and outreach center^[1] focused on the Marcellus Shale. The purpose of the center, Penn State's Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research (MCOR), according the to The Penn State Propaganda Portal is

....to work with state agencies, elected officials, communities, landowners, industry and environmental groups to protect the Commonwealth’s water resources, forests and transportation infrastructure while advocating for a science-based and responsible approach to handling the state’s natural gas deposits.

A center such as this could be very valuable if it is trusted by all parties involved. One of he factors which will determine whether there will be trust is the funding sources for the center. The press release linked to above notes that initial funding for the center is internal.

Penn State has committed major resources to establish and staff the Marcellus Center (MCOR) with support from the colleges of Agricultural Sciences and Earth and Mineral Sciences, the Penn State Institutes for Energy and the Environment (PSIEE) and Penn State Outreach, Spanier said.

Additional funding from PSIEE and the Social Sciences Research Institute (SSRI) at Penn State is underwriting investigation of human/social impacts and environmental issues related to Marcellus development by teams of cross-disciplinary collaborators ...

But eventually, as noted by The Penn State Propaganda Portal,  Penn State hopes to leverage this investment, "The goal of these research seed grants is to develop proposals for external funding agencies."  This is where things get a bit sticky.

External funding agencies suggest that the center is interested in obtaining government grants which would be a good way of avoiding conflicts of interest, but Graham actually elaborated on this in his remarks at Ag Progress Days.

Spanier said the center does not yet have outside funding, but the university hopes to get financial support from the state and the industry.

Financial support from industry, what could go wrong with that?

Earlier this summer, there was an outcry over an Penn State economic impact study of the Marcellus Shale which was funded by industry and very likely grossly over estimated the economic impact. 

On two separate occasions, the Pennsylvania Budget and Policy Center counseled law makers to disregard the conclusions of these two “Penn State studies” because of their funding and bias. The Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry produced a parallel study on employment, “Marcellus Shale Industry Overview,” which estimated only a small fraction of the touted jobs. Neither Pennsylvania College of Technology’s “Marcellus Shale Workforce Needs Assessment” nor Penn State Cooperative Extension’s “Potential Economic Impacts of Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania” supports the exaggerated claims of these two industry funded papers.

The report  also advocated against the implementation of a severance tax on drillers, which the drilling industry opposes.

If Penn State wants this center to be seen as an honest broker, then it must eschew all industry funding.

But being an honest broker may not be what is on Graham's mind. There's money to made in the Marcellus Shale and where there's money to be made Graham will try to get a little taste. Consider that  the Office of the Vice President for Research at Penn State maintains a database of University research centers, institutes and facilities for industry to find potential research partners which includes the Astrobiology Research Center. If they are dreaming of making  a couple of industry dollars on Astrobiology, imagine the wet dreams they are having in Old Main over the Marcellus Shale.

[1] This link to the CDT article, published on August 19th, 2010, will evaporate in about two weeks. You can access the article after that at NewsBank which is available free online at Schlow Library or the Penn State library.

Technorati Tags: The Penn State's Marcellus Center for Outreach and Research, Penn State, Spanier, Marcellus Shale, conflict of interest

If a Drunk Penn State Student Falls in an Alley and "This American Life" Isn't There to See It, Does Penn State Still Have an Alcohol Abuse Problem?

I am a little late on this, but earlier this month the Princeton Review Party School Ranking came out. Penn State dropped from  first place last year to third place this year. That mean's that the national spotlight will now shift away from Penn State to the University of Georgia, this year's top school.  We'll have to wait and see if  Old Main's will to deal with the alcohol abuse problem around here , which was dialed up last year after the first place showing in the Party School Ranking, the alcohol related death of freshman Joe Dado, and a revealing portrayal of Penn State's party culture on This American Life,  diminishes now that the public relation problem has been solved to some degree.

It's worth noting the Penn Staters are taking the drop in the ranking in stride.  Here's Jake Wiest a junior architectural engineering major in a letter to the Collegian.

The review relies on a survey that states an average of 325 students per school filled it out. First, we must assume everyone filling this out is doing so in an honest manner, not just to talk up the school's party scene. Assuming this, than a poll of less than 0.8 percent of the student population, a horribly inadequate number, determined our ranking.
I'm not saying that we would've stayed at No. 1 had more people filled out the survey -- perhaps quite the opposite. I'm saying who cares. Both the university and student population should put little stock into this overly hyped and insufficient survey.

Jake echos Penn State Bullshit Artist Geoff Rushton reaction,

"How do you scientifically gauge something like this?" Rushton said. "I don't think you do."

[...]

For Rushton, the rankings not only hold no real legitimacy -- they also have zero purpose.

The ranking is not representative of all students, he said, as many students drink responsibly.

"It's kind of insulting to our students, who are very bright, hard-working and dedicated to their studies," he said.

But Jake takes a very different lesson away from this observation about the lack of scientific legitimacy of the ranking,

I say the students should just keep doing your thing; everyone knows we party harder than the University of Georgia and Ohio University anyway.

I've gotta say, I think Jake's got a better grip on the reality here than Geoff does.

I mean it was a couple of those very bright, hard-working and dedicated recent Penn State graduates  that used their talents to come up with this.

During their time here, some Penn State graduates engineered a way to drink liquor without actually tasting anything -- and they say it may become the next social staple for college students across the nation.

Their product is the SLIZ Cup -- a "drinking vessel designed to eliminate the cringe between taking a shot and reaching for the chaser," said Anthony Vella, one of the product's creators.

It's a cup on top, with a straw for the handle.

To get the shot and chaser experience, co-creator Maurio Foire, Class of 2010, said users pour the alcohol into the SLIZ cup, add a non-alcoholic beverage and then drink quickly through the straw before letting the drink mix.

[...]

Inventing, marketing and selling SLIZ has been quite the experience, Vella said. The group got the chance to learn hands-on about entreprenuership, meet some interesting people along the way and "probably had too much fun conducting the necessary 'market research' which came with a lot of vodka," he said.

Hey, I know you're curious about the SLIZ Cup, so  here's their Web site.

Anyway, I'll keep an eye on Graham and Old Main this year to see if they slack off in their efforts to deal with Penn State's alcohol abuse problem.

Technorati Tags: Penn State, Princeton Review Party School ranking, Spanier

State College 2040: A Dystopian Vision

Adam's Monday column at StateCollege.com  is hilarious this week. His vision of the Borough and University thirty years on is dead on. He tweaks his fellow StateCollege.com columnist, Accuweather meteorologist and global warming denialist, Joe Bastardi, but Penn State gets most of the barbs, while Borough Council suffers some collateral damage. It's hard to for me to pick a favorite part, but his comes close.

That revenue has been especially helpful as the Penn State administration pays down the university's construction-related debt, now estimated at $6 billion -- up from the $1 billion range in 2010.

About $75 million of that debt stems from the Fraser Centre project in downtown State College, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this week.

You may recall that the project struggled to get off the ground in 2010, before Penn State took it over. Once the university gained control, however, construction began rapidly in late 2011.

Penn State scrambled the earlier plans for Fraser Centre, which had included condominiums and retail space. In their place, the university has made Fraser Centre into the headquarters of a never-ending capital campaign.

The campaign, known in 2010 as "For the Future," became "For-ever" by 2011. Fraser Centre has become an effective home base for the ever-more-critical fundraising efforts, helping the university to lubricate potential donors in exquisite social lounges and expansive bars and restaurants

Go read the whole thing.
Technorati Tags: Penn State, State College, StateCollege.com, Adam Smeltz

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She's On Fire

With the Penn State Board of Trustees meeting today, I think this video of Eva von Dassow, professor of Classics and Near East Studies at the University of Minnesota and critic of the University of Minnesota's central administration's budget and academic  priorities, speaking at an open forum before that schools Regents is worth a view for a few reasons.

First is her dramatic flare.

Second is the reasoning  behind her on fire presentation. That reasoning can be found in more detail at the second link above. Readers may want to bookmark that link to refer to when Old Main starts making cuts at Penn State.

Third is the novelty, to  Penn Staters, of the idea of an open forum at a Regents meeting. Could you imagine the control freak Graham allowing such a thing at a Board of Trustees meeting? Me neither.

(h/t Bill Gleason, aka Bonzo, a friend of this blog and another critic of UMN's central administration who blogs at Periodic Table and Periodic Table Too.)

Technorati Tags: Penn State, Spanier, Eva von Dassow, University of Minnesota

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Layoffs Anticipated at Penn State Great Valley

There was a Friday night dump about Penn State Great Valley  from the The Penn State Propaganda Portal, which is full of talk of  "respond[ing] to the emerging needs of the region, changes in the way higher education is delivered, and opportunities for greater collaboration with other Penn State campuses in southeastern Pennsylvania." You had to read nearly to the end of the 437 word pile of bullshit to get  to the chase in the penultimate paragraph.

These changes to accommodate demand will result in some future personnel reductions in certain programming areas, particularly in the area of support staff.

BTW, changes are a comin'.

The reorganization of the Great Valley campus is part of Penn State's continuing evaluation of University programs and operations that has been ongoing for more than a decade. To date, the University has identified more than $190 million in cost savings, with plans to identify substantial additional reductions annually in the years ahead.

Technorati Tags: Penn State, Penn State Great Valley, Layoffs

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WTF?

At the end of this piece at StateCollege.com, on the 2% merit raises that Graham, who recently received a 12.9% raise, is promising Penn State's nonunion employees, is this

Now, with the news that state funding will be level for 2010-2011, it's not clear exactly how tuition rates may shake out.

"Right now, the (university) budget office is crunching numbers," [Old Main Bullshit Artist Lisa] Powers said. " ... I can't say for sure where the tuition increase will end up, but they're working diligently to keep it in the (three- to four-percent) range."

Is that true, is the budget office still crunching numbers on this years budget?  Penn State's appropriations for this year are exactly what the Governor originally proposed way back in January. There were no last minute surprises. Old Main should have had the numbers crunched on this scenario months ago. Consider that Old Main didn't even wait for its appropriations to pass the General Assembly when it announced back in early June that it was cutting Ag extension jobs based on Rendell's proposed budget. Something's odd here. What gives?

Well, it's possible that the options are all so bad that Graham's paralyzed and  can't decide what to do.  But that's not my guess as to what's going on.  I think that Old Main Bullshit Artist Lisa Powers is doing what comes naturally;she's reflexively lying.

What do you guys think?

Technorati Tags: Penn State, tution, Spanier, Rendell,

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Refining the Pitch on Ag Extension Job Cuts

Last week I wrote about Old Main's strategy of placing blame for the cuts in Ag Extension jobs at Rendell's feet, although Rendell had given Old Main  the flexibility to shift money around in the budget which could have been used to prevent these cuts.

On Monday, Adam at StateCollege.com devoted his column to this  topic. He got the following pushback from Penn State Bullshit Artist Lisa Power.

This all begged the question: Can't Penn State just move some state money around to prevent the job cuts in agricultural research and Cooperative Extension, at least this year?

I asked Lisa Powers, the university's chief spokeswoman.

Simple answer: No, it won't happen, she said.

Powers explained it this way:

Overall state funding for Penn State isn't climbing. So if the university were to move some extra state dollars into agricultural research and Cooperative Extension, it would have to take those dollars away from general-education uses -- that is, undergraduate education.

And that, Powers said, would force an even heavier tuition expense onto students' shoulders. Penn Staters already pay among the highest -- if not the highest -- tuition rates among public universities in the U.S.

Powers said the situation presents "a direct trade-off."

"It's a decision that we decided a long time ago that we're not going to make," she said. Plowing more state money into agricultural research and Cooperative Extension, and taking it away from undergraduates, would be "like having students pay a tuition increase to pay for mushroom research in Chester County.

"Our greater obligation is to the students," Powers said.

Beyond that, she explained, "it's been a longstanding, obvious agreement that we rely on state, federal and county-partnership resources" to finance agricultural research and Cooperative Extension in Pennsylvania.

Lisa has effectively said, "Our spin about it being the governor's fault is bullshit. We are the ones who have decided not to save those jobs."  Good, for Lisa.

She also said the the choice for Old Main is between undergraduate education and extension. This is a false choice. There aren't just two categories in the internal Penn State budget: Ag Extension and Undergraduate Education. There are other areas in the budget where money might be taken for Ag Extension. My guess is that Old Main presents this false dichotomy because it knows that the constituency for Undergraduate Education is much larger than the Ag Extension constituency.  The framing of this as a choice between undergrads and farmers allows Old Main to appear to stand up for one large constituency while pissing off a much smaller constituency. Bad for Lisa.

But there is something even more disingenuous about this loud proclamation,"Plowing more state money into agricultural research and Cooperative Extension, and taking it away from undergraduates, would be "like having students pay a tuition increase to pay for mushroom research in Chester County."  It's not as if Old Main would shift money from the General Funds Budget, which is made up primarily of tuition money and state appropriations, to anything other than Undergraduate Education. Yeah, right.

For example, Old Main has been using General Funds money to support Outreach. This is from the Penn State Strategic Plan for the next five years. (PDF page 57).

Penn State, as the Commonwealth’s land-grant university, has long fulfilled a role as the major provider of outreach services to the people of Pennsylvania. This  long-standing commitment has continued despite decades of falling state support  as a share of the University’s General Funds budget. As state and federal funding  for Cooperative Extension has largely stagnated over the past decade and more, reductions in programming have had to occur in order to cover the increased costs of faculty and staff compensation including fringe benefits. Increasing  contributions from county governments have not been able to offset these declines. University funds have also had to cover more of the increasing overhead costs.

Similarly, the wide range of other University-sponsored outreach programs have grown over the past decades to the point at which, overall, Penn State operates the  largest unified outreach program in the nation, reaching one out of every two  households in the Commonwealth. This has meant growing costs for faculty and  staff salaries and benefits of those employed in Outreach, and for growing costs of  University overhead on operations, despite the considerable successes that  Outreach has had in securing extramural funding for many of its programs.

Given the increasing costs of tuition and living expenses for Penn State students and the associated difficulties of funding their education, along with the declining  share of state funding for outreach programming, the University can no longer rely  on student tuition to support the internally funded Outreach programs to the extent  it has previously. Accordingly, all other Outreach programs centrally supported by  E&G funds will be placed on the same financial model as Cooperative Extension,  with the University’s contribution to programming capped at the 2009-10 level  going forward from that date. That is, increased Outreach salaries and fringe  benefits must come from extramural sources, or be taken from the base funding the University will continue to provide, until such time as public funding for the University increases beyond inflationary levels in higher education.

Now the new strategic plan calls for Old Main to cap the amount of tuition dollars going to Outreach , but still Old Main has been using and will continue to use tuition dollars to support Outreach.

So Lisa is bullshiting  people when she ask them  to believe that  Old Main would never divert undergrad tuition dollars away from undergrad education. It has been doing exactly that and it will continue to do exactly that.  Worse for Lisa.

Why does Old Main think it can get away with this bullshit? It might be because the information needed to get at the truth,when it is available at all,  is  fragmented and I'm the only one paying close enough attention to piece things together.


Technorati Tags: Penn State, job cuts, Pennsylvania Proposed Budget 2010-2011, Rendell, Agricultural extension

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On the Big Ten Expansion and a Toothless Faculty Senate

I'm sure by now you know that the Big Ten is expanding and Nebraska is the new kid on the block. All of the schools involved insist that the expansion isn't just about big sports money. No, they say academics were considered too when Nebraska was extended the offer to join. Michael Sanseriono at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette takes closer look at the claim that academics was part of the decision. He cites a couple of academic rankings which puts Nebraska at the bottom of the Big Ten, but that isn't really what caught my eye, you really have to take rankings with a grain of salt. The more damning thing is that there was no evidence of a consultation with the academic side when the decision was made.

I found this quote from the current chairwoman of the Penn State  University Faculty Senate particular informative, not only with respect to the decision making process in the expansion of the Big Ten, but also in the way decisions are made at Penn State in general.

Jean Landa Pytel, chairwoman of Penn State's University Faculty Senate, said the school's faculty has not been consulted about conference expansion.
"This is an athletic issue," Dr. Pytel said. "We're the academic arm. That is purely a business decision. ... We haven't been involved in the conversation, so I guess I have to have faith in the president that he knows what he's doing."

Let's see. Shortly after Graham arrived he merged Hershey Medical Centre with Gessinger Health Care. That merger had to be dissolved in about a year. At the same time, he merged with Dickinson School of Law and praised the strength of DSL. Five years latter he decided that the DSL was in terrible shape and he had to abrogate the merger agreement and move the law school from Carlisle to University Park to fix the problem. A big fight ensued. Then there is the Village at Penn State. A retirement community that Graham decided to build. It recently defaulted on it bonds.

Faith is an amazing thing isn't it? But who exactly is it that provides a check on Graham?

Technorati Tags: Penn State, Nebraska, Big Ten expansion, Spanier

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Penn State Right-To-Know Report 2010:Revised

Old Main posted its revised Right-To-Know Report this morning. The two family members whose compensation had been left of of the original report are Sandra Spanier, Professor of English and Graham's wife, Michele Kirsch, Director of Operations for the Schreyer Honors Colleges and wife of Senior VP of Development Rod Kirsch.

Sandra Spanier's salary  the 2008 tax  year was $126,813 which placed her in the middle of the pack of full professors in the College of Liberal Arts.

Michele Kirsch's salary for the 2008 tax year was $83,171. The Stairs Report does not have the average salary of administrators in the Honors College because there are only three and the in categories with three or less employees no data is given. However,  in the other academic support units the average salaries in the Executive/Administrative/Managerial category range from a low of $79,245 in Outreach to a high of $96,708 in the Libraries. In that context, Kirsch's salary does not appear out of line.

While there's no story here, the question of whether Old Main made a reasonable effort to ascertain if any family member of trustees  should have been reported is still open, but  I doubt that we'll ever get answers to that. So this is likely the end of line on this story for this year.

Also see StateCollege.com and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for more on this story.
[Updated: 6/11/10 9:30 pm]

Technorati Tags: Penn State, Penn State Right-To-Know Report 2010 , Revised Penn State Right-To-Know Report 2010, Spanier

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Revised Penn State Right-To-Know Report 2010: Background Information Part II

I thought that while we are waiting for today's document dump , as I said below, I'd provide some context and background information  to help people analyze whatever Old Main decides to give us. (Part I is here.)

As of Wednesday, we know that Old Main will acknowledge in its revised RTK report that there are two family members of influential people at the Penn State who either received payment from the University in  a business transaction or who are employed by and received compensation from the  University in fiscal year 2007-2008. Is this list of two individuals exhaustive? This question is almost certainly unanswerable with information in the public domain, but here's some context for those who may want to ask questions of those who know the answer.

The number of family members of influential people with business income or compensation listed by Pitt and Temple are six and one, respectively.  These numbers are in line with Old Main's claim of only two family members. No red flags here.

Did Old Main make an honest effort to determine all family members of influential individuals with business income or compensation? The IRS only require an annual survey to determine if such relationships exist. From the instructions for Schedule L, page 4.

The organization is not required to provide information about a business transaction with an interested person if it is unable to secure the information regarding interested person status after making a reasonable effort to obtain it. An example of a reasonable effort for Part IV is for the organization to distribute a questionnaire annually to each current or former officer, director,trustee, and key employee listed on Form 990, Part VII, Section A, that includes the name, title, date, and signature of each person reporting information and contains the pertinent instructions and definitions for Schedule L, Part IV. The organization is not required to distribute such a questionnaire to organizations or individuals with which it does business, but who are not current or former officers, directors, trustees, or key employees of the organization, in order to have made a reasonable effort or this purpose.

It would be worth asking about the reasonable efforts Old Main made in  its attempt to fill-out Schedule L, Part IV.

If the answer is that they used a questionnaire as described above, then the follow-up should be may we see a blank copy of it.

If the answer is  that as part of their conflict-of-interest policy the Board of Trustees must report the business transactions of family members, then you should be aware that the Bylaws  of the Board of Trustees has a narrower definition of family member than does the IRS and the reporting thresholds for business relations are different and no provision is made for reporting relatives employed by the University.  You can find the IRS guidelines in the instructions for schedule L and the appendix of the  instructions for the Form 990. The Bylaws are here. The relevant part is Article 6. So if this is their answer, it is an admission of their failure to make the reasonable effort demanded by the IRS.

Technorati Tags: Penn State, Penn State Right-To-Know Report 2010, Spanier

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Revised Penn State Right-To-Know Report 2010: Background Information Part I

I thought that while we are waiting for Friday's document dump I'd provide some context and background information to help people analyze whatever Old Main decides to give us.

As of yesterday, we know that Penn State will acknowledge in its revised RTK report that there are two family members of influential people at the Penn State who either received payment from the University for a business transaction or who are employed by and received compensation from the  University in fiscal year 2007-2008.Graham's wife Sandra, an English prof, as I've already reported, will certainly be one of these individuals. Whatever amount she is payed, the question will arise, is it too much or too little? Here's your context for answering that question.

According to the 2009 Stairs Reports,  during the 2007-2008 fiscal year  there were 155 full professors in the College of Liberal Arts and the average salary of the full professors was $124,316. Unfortunately, the Stairs reports don't give anymore information on the salary distribution. Hence, it will difficult based on this to determine if Sandra's salary is extremely small or large unless it is way out of line. Fortunately for us, each year the University Faculty Senate issues a report on faculty salaries which does contain some additional information on  salary distributions.  Here's data for the full professors in the College of Liberal Arts for the Fall of 2008.(PDF page 16)

• Number=158
• First Quartile=101,373
• Median=121,860
• Third Quartile=150,120
• Average years in rank=9.8

There's about a $50k spread in the middle of the distribution. If Sandra's  salary is substantial more than $50k above  the third quartile or below the first quartile  that would be a pretty good indication of an extreme salary and a reason to start looking for answers from Old Main.

There is a complication because these numbers are  college-wide.  The distribution  within the English department will be different. But this should only matter if her salary is on the boarder between extreme or not.

Technorati Tags: Penn State, Penn State Right-To-Know Report 2010, Spanier

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Placing the Blame

On Monday, The Penn State Propaganda Portal announced that

Ten people are losing their jobs and dozens of additional positions are being eliminated through attrition as a result of budget shortfalls in Penn State's College of Agricultural Sciences caused by state appropriations that have not kept pace with rising costs.

[...]

In the current fiscal year, the college's state appropriation for agricultural research and extension was flat at 2008-2009 levels.

The governor's proposed budget for 2010-2011 again includes flat funding for the college. However, college administrators say without greater state support, rising operating and pension-related costs will create a budget shortfall of $11 million as of July 1, 2011, requiring a 20 percent reduction in agricultural research and extension programs in the 2011-2012 fiscal year. This would equate to more than 160 positions in the college.

"Unlike Penn State's undergraduate education programs, these programs do not receive tuition dollars," McPheron said

The take-away is that that the workforce reduction is caused by flat appropriations for the college which are expected to remain so this year and that the shortfall caused by rising costs cannot be made up for by hiking tuition.  Hence it is the governor's fault that these people are losing their jobs.

Historically, it has been true that the Commonwealth's budget for the University has line item appropriations and that the appropriations for for agricultural research and extension line item has been flat recently. But this year, the governor has eliminate line items from the proposed appropriations for Penn State (Proposed Budget PDF page 521) in order to give Old Main more flexibility to deal with its flat funding.  Therefore it is not true that, "The governor's proposed budget for 2010-2011 again includes flat funding for the college;" it simply  includes flat funding for the University as a whole.

This means is that Old Main could have shifted money into the College of Agriculture budget  from elsewhere in the budget to support agricultural research and extension, but has chosen not to do it. This may or may not have been a smart thing to do, but this year it was Old Main's call not Rendell's.

Technorati Tags: Penn State, job cuts, Pennsylvania Proposed budget 2010-2011, Rendell, Agricultural extension

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Old Main to Come Clean: Penn State Right-To-Know Report 2010 Will Be Revised.

Via the invaluable Adam Smeltz at StateCollege.com

Penn State on Friday will file an amended and expanded version of its annual Right-to-Know report, spokesman Geoff Rushton said Tuesday.
Rushton said the amended report, to be filed in Harrisburg, will disclose the salaries of two university workers who are family members of key leaders at the institution. The report also will be posted on the Penn State website, he said.

...more once the report is available.
[Update: 06/08/10, 10:50pm. Bill Schackner at the Post-Gazette also has the story.]

Technorati Tags: Penn State, Right-To-Know

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The Outside Legal Counsel That Aided the Trustees in Determining Graham's Compensation is....

Like I said below, Adam Smeltz's StateCollege.com piece on Graham's contract extension is full of nice little tidbits. For example, the Trustees used

...the services of outside legal counsel, [Penn State Bullshit Artist Lisa]Powers said, to help them gauge fair-market value and demand as they set presidential compensation.

The truth is I don't know who the outside legal counsel is. But shortly after I put up the post, Who Decided to Give Graham More Time?,  the blog had a visit from the Cleveland office of the law firm Baker and Hostetler. Here's a screen capture.
It just so happens that one of Baker and Hostetler's areas of practice is executive compensation.


That doesn't mean that Baker and Hostetler is the outside legal counsel used by the Trustees. Heck, someone  over in the Cleveland office may have been trying to check up on the competition. But if they were the outfit  used by the BOT that would go along way in explaining the Trustees' decision.

You see, some of the lawyers over a Baker and Hostetler might have trouble spotting a con artist.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Most people don't fall for the African inheritance scam where a huge sum of money sits in a foreign bank account waiting to be claimed -- but at a price.
But some do.
Nine people, including several from the Cleveland area, sued a Solon woman and two lawyers this week claiming they duped the plaintiffs into helping the woman recover $14.5 million left behind in the African nation of Burkina Faso.
The lawsuit, filed in Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court, claims Willia Burton and two attorneys from Baker Hostetler in Cleveland persuaded the plaintiffs to give her more than $1 million. The money was for legal fees and other payments necessary to recover the inheritance left to Burton by her father. Each contributor was promised "a huge return," the lawsuit states.
It's been five years and none of the nine has seen a dime.

Food for thought, anyway.

Technorati Tags: Penn State, Spanier, Compensation, Penn State Board of Trustees, legal counsel

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Spanier Has 'Overwhelming Support' For Contract Extension, Aide Says; Or Does He?

Is the BOT "overwhelmingly"  behind Graham as Penn State Bullshit Artist Lisa Powers insisted to Adam Smeltz yesterday? Maybe. Maybe not. Here's why it's unknowable. 

According to the BOT Standing Order IX (1)(f)(5),

Expectations of Membership. In exercising the responsibilities of trusteeship, the Board of Trustees is guided by the expectations of membership, each of which is equally important:...Speak openly within the Board and publicly support decisions reached by the Board.

I believe in legal circles that's called the toe-the-line rule. Since the BOT Standing Order VII(13)(a) allows the Board to meet in secret when considering employment matters, those "within the Board" discussions about Graham will never be heard outside the Board. Any dissent  "within the Board" gets channeled into high blood pressure.

So the next time you're talking to a Trustee and they start telling you what a super guy Graham is and how they never tire of him pulling a nickle out of their ear and how lucky the University is to have his services and what a great racquetball player he is and on and on and on, shake your head knowingly and smile, because you know Penn State  puts the bot in BOT.

Technorati Tags: Penn State, Spanier, Board of Trustees

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Who Decided to Give Graham More Time?

In my rush to snark the other day, I failed to note some interesting tidbits in Adam Smeltz's  StateCollege.com story on Graham's lifetime presidential appointment. Here's one: Who exactly is charged with deciding  Graham's future?

[Penn State Bullshit Artist Lisa] Powers said a small committee of trustees considers presidential contract extensions in consultation with other board members. The committee includes the board chairman or chairwoman, the vice chair, the immediate past chair and the chair of the board's Committee on Finance and Physical Plant.

Who holds these position at this time?

• Steve A. Garban, Chairman
• John P. Surma, Vice Chairman
  
• Linda B. Strumpf, Chairwoman Committee on Finance and Physical Plant
• James S. Broadhurst, Immediate Past Chairman

These are the people to blame.

With the exception of Garban who is an alumni trustee, all of these people are business and industry trustees and Garban, as Senior Vice President of Finance and Operations/Treasurer Emeritus of The Pennsylvania State University, is an Old Main insider. There is no one representing the interests of the working people of the Commonwealth who it is the University is supposed to serve ....and it shows.

And why might Graham sellout the interests of the working class? Well, here's an interesting fact. John P. Surma is CEO/Chairman of Board/President/Director US Steel and Graham is a Director of US Steel. ...and drumroll please...In 2009, the compensation for a  director of US Steel was $171,000.00 and the previous year it was $270,980.00. That didn't show up on this years RTK report. You see it is so much more lucrative to serve the interests of the fat cats than it is to serve the interests of working people. And by show'in Graham a little lov'in, Surma might get a little lov'in back from Graham.

Technorati Tags: Penn State, conflict of interest, John Surma, US Steel, Spanier

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Update:Fraud: Penn State Right-To-Know Report 2010

As I originally reported last Friday, Penn State failed  this year to report the compensation of family members of trustees, officers and key employees in its Commonwealth mandated Right-To-Know Report . And I argued that Old Main's rationale for doing so didn't pass the smell test. The failure was clearly done in bad faith.

Today Adam Smeltz at StateCollege.com reports that Old Main is still studying the matter.

Penn State's legal counsel is reviewing whether the university needs to report more specific information in its annual Right-to-Know report, spokesman Geoff Rushton confirmed Wednesday.

This is a no-brainier. The language in the instructions for IRS Schedule L, a component of the Right-to-Know Report,  is very plain. Old Main's excuse is in direct contradiction with it. Why the delay in correcting this thing?

My guess is that Old Main's plan, now that they've been  caught cheating, is to drag their feet  and hope that it goes away.

Keep the fire to their feet Adam.

Technorati Tags: Penn State, Penn State Right-To-Know Report 2010, Penn State salaries

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