How Much is Spanier Worth to You?

Last Friday a $25 million pledge to Penn State from Joan and William Schreyer was announced. The money is earmarked for support of the Schreyer Honors College. This gift, in the light of a recent University Faculty Senate Report on the Access and Affordability at Penn State (The report begins on page 9), raises some questions which I hope to deal with in the near future. However, the first thing which came to my mind when I heard the announcement was, "What is Spanier trying to distract the public from with this announcement?" Today I had my answer.



The Chronicles of Higher Education released its annual survey on pay of chief executive officers in higher education. This years Spanier's base pay was $545,016 which placed him third nationwide amongst public university presidents for base pay. The figure does not include benefits or other compensation because the University did not release this information. That's a pretty hefty sum for a president of a University which barely cracked the top fifty in the US News World Report rankings.



Strictly speaking, the timing of the announcement of the Schreyer gift wasn't so much intended to distract from the Chronicles survey, but rather to blunt its effect. That is the announcement was intended to pre-but any questions raised about whether Spanier was worth the money.



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Not to Offend You My Dearest Liege, But Your Ass Is Hanging Out.

Today an editorial in the CDT takes Penn State to task for the way it controlled the flow of information last weekend following a stand-off and suicide at the on-campus Nittany Apartments. Here is the core of the editorial.

Last week, tragically, a young man visiting his sister at Penn State shot and killed himself in a campus apartment after an eight-hour standoff with police.

The incident raised many, many questions, and it is the job of the fallible men and women who work at this institution to ask them, even the tough ones.

How many students were in danger? Was alcohol involved? Was this just an isolated incident? How safe is the campus? Did the police handle the situation properly?

In matters involving public safety and law enforcement, these questions are usually directed to -- and answered by -- law-enforcement officials and their overseers. But because this incident occurred at Penn State, all information released to the public came from Penn State -- from highly capable professionals, certainly, but from the university, nonetheless. Police directed all questions to Old Main.

Certainly, Penn State officials had insights, perspective and critical information regarding the tragic events of last Saturday night and Sunday morning. But so did police -- those employed by the university and those who work for other government agencies.

The public had a right to hear them, too, especially because the matter involved the public's own safety and fears for it. In this case, however, off-campus authorities were muzzled.

There should be no surprise that I agree completely with the CDT on this issue. Old Main cannot be trusted to give an unvarnished picture of anything which might tarnish the image of Penn State. I am glad that the CDT has come around to this opinion. But there was something very disturbing about the way this editorial was written.

The above passage was buried deep in the editorial, the bulk of which was taken up with defending the papers obligation to express the opinion. It went on and on about how good Penn State is to everyone and how the CDT was only doing its job as a watchdog. Well, the effect was to make the CDT appear not as a watchdog, but rather as a beat dog. (For more on this topic, see these previous post: 1, 2, 3, and 4. ) Nonetheless, this is a good first step for the paper. I hope that in the future the paper will be more confident in its role as watchdog.

Looking for a Good Reason to Drink?

The Collegian is working overtime to rationalize Penn State's drinking problem. This morning's Collegian reports on a study published by the Reason Foundation which attempts to explain the positive correlation between social drinking and income level. The report explains this association as follows. Our business culture is organized around the principle of it's who you know, not what you know. Drinking makes you popular. Therefore drinking helps you in the business world. The report actually dresses this up in serious academic language:"We hypothesize that drinking enhances social capital, which leads to superior market outcomes."

An alternative explanation for this association was given in a 2005 publication.

We conclude that most likely the positive association between drinking and earnings is the result of the fact that ethanol is a normal commodity, the consumption of which increases with income, rather than an elixer that enhances productivity.

Increased income leads to more social drinking not the other way around.

The 2005 study was publish by the National Bureau of Economic Research which according to their web site is a "non-partisan research organization" which disseminates "unbiased economic research among public policymakers, business professionals, and the academic community." The other study was published by the libertarian Reason Foundation which is an anti-tax group. The Reason Foundation uses the study to argue against excise taxes on alcohol. Without making a detailed comparison of the two studies which one has would have more credibility for you? I can tell that for me it is 2005 study.

Now there is a funny thing about the two studies, Bethany L. Peters is an author on both of them. Despite this fact, the Reason Foundation report, which was written after the 2005 paper, does not reference the 2005 paper. This illustrates how scholars can alter their research findings to fit the ideas of their patrons and why the commercialization of academic research is so problematic. However, that is a topic for another post.

In closing, I would like to say to Graham, you reap what you sow. You spin, lie, boast, rationalize, and take anti-intellectual postures, soon enough Penn State students are following along.

The Graham Spanier Award for Most Outrageous Spin Goes to...

The Collegian today has a truly stupid editorial in which they try their hand at turd polishing. Mount Nittany Medical Centre received 353 blood-alcohol emergency room visits during the 2005-2006 school year. How do you put a positive spin on this?

In a twisted sort of way, the numbers at Mount Nittany Medical Center probably represent a good thing. It just might mean that students are learning to err on the side of caution when it comes to possible alcohol poisoning.

The appallingly high number of students treated for alcohol related problems is an indication of more responsible behavior on the part of the students. That is bullshit worthy of Spanier. See what happens Graham when you set a bad example. The Collegian also breaks out this old saw to defend the party hearty crowd.

It is part of our culture. Penn State students study hard during the week and party hard during the weekend. We maintain a balance of work and fun that, overall, contributes to our lives.

Of course, here in Happy Valley the weekend starts on Thursday.

The truth is that most Penn State students are not challenged academically. Remember that in 2002 nearly 40% of all grades awarded at Penn State were A's and the University is ninth this year on the Princeton Review list of schools where you don't have to study. I think Penn State student Joel Gilchrest said it better in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette,"We have a motto here: Party hard, drink hard ... I mean, party hard, study hard. "

Behind the Propaganda Curtain

This is a follow-up of my earlier post about the unintentionally funny RIAA scare video. As I noted in that post, Spanier embarrasses Penn State with his appearance in the video. The propaganda portal Penn State Live recently featured a press release concerning the video. Here is the lede from the release.

In November 2003 Penn State kicked off a nationwide movement among colleges and universities to offer legal music downloading services to students. Now, three years later, the University Park campus is featured in parts of a new Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) video on the subject, available for viewing at http://www.campusdownloading.psu.edu/ online.

Nary a mention of Spanier here or in the entire release. In fact, the only Penn State administrator quoted in the release is Sam Haldeman, the Napster program coordinator for the University's Information Technology Services office, who is at best a mid level bureaucrat. Since as we all know Spanier is a publicity hog, I take this as evidence that Spanier wants to disassociate himself from this debacle.

Now you may say that if this were so, the University would have simply ignored the video. However, since Spanier is in the pocket of the RIAA that is not an option. In addition simply hoping that no one notices is not Penn State's approach to damage control. Here is how Penn State flack Bill Mahon explains it.

A different situation faces such schools as Penn State, so well known nationally and with so many far-flung alumni that what happens -- good or bad -- gets magnified attention.[...]

When it happens, "just communicate as much as possible, as quickly as you can," said Mr. Mahon, assistant vice president for university relations. "For one thing, you're not going to hide it, and there's no reason to hide it.

"You might as well put it out first."

Penn State tries to put it out first and, of course, hopes that their spin will become conventional wisdom.

Spanier Speaks: He Doesn't Like Princeton Review.

Adam Smeltz at CentreSquawker noted on Monday that at last week’s Trustees meeting, Spanier addressed the Princeton Review ranking of Penn State as the number two party school in the nation. I think Adam was too generous to Spanier on his blog. Here is what Spanier said and my analysis of it.

The fall is also a time when college rankings come out. Some of them use meaningful measures to gauge a university's progress and some of them are, frankly, pretty silly.

On the silly side is the Princeton Review party school ranking, in which Penn State placed second.

I mention this only because of all the media attention it got. This particular "review" is little more than a publicity stunt to help them sell their guide, and involves people going to a Web site and voting for the school they want to name the winner. It could actually be more reflective of a school's overall popularity, but it has no legitimate basis for its conclusion.

As I have said to many people, we want students who come to Penn State to enjoy their college experience, and we think this is a fun and engaging environment, with lots for students to do. But the ranking is nothing more than a clever marketing trick to get attention to their guide, and the media naively buy into it every year.

There is just so much crap here it is hard to know where to begin in pulling it apart.

I guess the best place is with the sentence I’ve emphasized. This is a rather weak attempt put a positive spin on a ranking that places Penn State in a light which Spanier clearly thinks is negative. His denial that “it has [..] a legitimate basis for its conclusion,” is at best disingenuous. As I have noted elsewhere, Penn State flack Bill Mahon acknowledged the obvious to the CDT the day after the rankings were released: Penn State has an alcohol problem.

...[W]ith the amount of marketing of alcohol, he [Bill Mahon] is surprised the university isn't number one. He said 353 Penn State students were taken to the emergency room for alcohol overdoses last year.

Mahon follows Spanier’s public relations strategy for dealing with this problem by placing the blame for this problem outside the University. The fact that the ranking focuses the light back on Penn State is what has Spanier upset.

Let’s take the magnifying glass to a bit more of Spanier’s prepared remark.

As I have said to many people, we want students who come to Penn State to enjoy their college experience, and we think this is a fun and engaging environment, with lots for students to do. But the ranking is nothing more than a clever marketing trick to get attention to their guide, and the media naively buy into it every year

The fact is that Spanier’s response to the ranking, the banning of alcohol at tailgates while games are in progress, is nothing more than a clever marketing trick to shift attention away from the ranking and the media has naively bought into it. This ban does little to address the the overall alcohol problem at Penn State but, as I have noted, it has generated misleading and false headlines which give the impression that there is a total alcohol ban at tailgates. Perhaps Spanier is venting some professional jealousy about the success of a rival bullshit artist.

If Penn State were serious about addressing the alcohol problem, which the Princeton Review has brought to national attention, it might consider raising its academic standards. As I have previously discussed, grade inflation is a real problem at Penn State. In 2002, nearly 40% of all grades awarded at the University were A’s. There is time to party when an A is that easy to come-by. This is reflected in the little noted fact that Penn State ranked ninth on Princeton Review’s list of schools where you don’t have to study. Contrast Spanier’s public relations response with the response at the University of Colorado after it ranked number one on the Princeton Review party list in 2004. Dean Todd Gleason of the College of Arts and Sciences wrote in a memo to his faculty,

As we enter the 2004-2005 academic year, I would like to raise a topic for formal discussion in the College and in your unit. The past academic year brought us a number of events that threatened the reputation of the institution that many of us have labored most of our careers to enhance. One of these was Princeton Review¹s evaluation of CU Boulder as a party school.
The Princeton Review ranking is subject to methodological challenge. However, it raised questions and stimulated discussion in many quarters about whether or not our undergraduate population was being sufficiently challenged in their studies.

Recently, Hank Brown the president of the University of Colorado announced he would seek to place class rank on transcripts as a way of combating grade inflation. There is room to debate if this is the appropriate way to raise academic standards, but there is no debating that Colorado is attempting to deal with the core issue. On the other hand, Penn State has only dealt with the marketing problem.

Let’s revisit Spanier’s statement one last time.

. This particular "review" is little more than a publicity stunt to help them sell their guide, and involves people going to a Web site and voting for the school they want to name the winner.

Last year Penn State football was enjoying a resurgence and Penn State fans were competing for the title of Ultimate Tailgate Venue, in a contest run by Sports Illustrated. The Penn State propaganda portal Penn State Live encouraged fans to vote online for the University as the Ultimate Tailgate Venue and celebrated the Penn State victory. I have never heard anyone from Old Main complaining about the methodology involved in this ranking. The difference is that this was thought to be good for Penn State’s image, despite the fact that the role of alcohol at tailgates was emphasized by SI. For Spanier a ranking has bad methodology if he doesn’t like the ranking. Flawed methodology will go unnoticed if the thinks a ranking will help him market Penn State.

This is all part of the Penn State Way.

Florence in the Shadow of Mt. Nittany

During the Summer of 2004 Old Main revoked the power of the USG Supreme Court to approve new student organizations. This aroused suspicion amongst student leaders and former leaders that Old Main was trying to rescind powers that were once delegated to the USG. Vicky Triponey, vice-president for student affairs, responded to these concerns with the following,

The university's administration lacks the resources, domain and interest to micromanage the various social, political or service endeavors of the thousands of students who participate in extracurricular and co-curricular activities at Penn State. Students can learn valuable educational lessons from taking on their own governance of these aspects of campus life. In fact, Penn State's student governance system serves as a national model for peer leadership in student-run endeavors.

That was written in September of 2004. By November of 2004, here is what Triponey had to say about the USG,

Vice President for Student Affairs Vicky Triponey said she thinks the organization's current structure fails to give students an effective voice because internal fighting "jeopardized their credibility" in the eyes of outsiders.

What occurred in that two month period to radically alter Triponey's assessment of the USG? It would seem that the proximate cause was the impeachment of USG president Galen Foulke. Why was he impeached?

Triponey said Foulke's recently established commission to review the USG Constitution is a step in the right direction, but according to the assembly's impeachment charges, the commission is a violation of his oath of office.

He was impeached for establishing a commission to review the USG Constitution and Triponey who, in September, had praised the USG, in November, praises Foulke's efforts to change USG. The resistance to this change then becomes the reason for why the change is needed. Never mind what Triponey wrote way back in September, the spin in November was that this was not a new problem. No, it had always been such. Triponey couldn't risk being caught in a contradiction. Hence it fell to one of her assistants to make the claim.

Internal fighting in USG has plagued the organization for years, said Philip Burlingame, assistant vice president for student affairs. He said the bickering often makes students outside USG disinterested in student government.

What's going on here? I think Taylor Rhodes, former USG Supreme Court Chief Justice, hit the nail on the head in September of 2004.

Let there be no mistake, the administration's actions and policies, especially those of President Spanier and Vice President Triponey, are far from student oriented. They support a bureaucratic junta, creating problems as justification for administrative intervention. Last year they dissolved the Student Organization Appeals Board, which had appellate jurisdiction for organizational disputes. This year the administration stripped students of the ability to be governed by students within the organizational registration process.

The bureaucratic tools they use are pitting students against students and hoping that the rest are too apathetic to ever care.

Today the USG is no longer the officially recognized voice of Penn State undergraduates. The students were no match for the Machiavellian Spanier.

Damage Control

Yesterday the CDT ran a story on Penn State eliminating the free legal consultant for students. Today Penn State begins its damage control over this move.

The recent cut of Penn State's legal consultant position may be replaced by resources from Penn State Dickinson School of Law, which transferred to University Park this semester, Penn State spokesman Tysen Kendig said.

One should not take away from this that the legal consultant was eliminated because there were plans afoot to replace the paid position with resources from Dickinson School of Law. This was clearly a hurried response.

Philip McConnaughay, dean of the Penn State Dickinson School of Law, said the school plans to explore the possibility of establishing a variety of law clinics at University Park, including a clinic to meet student needs. He indicated that he would attempt to discuss the matter with Vicky Triponey, vice president of student affairs. [..]

McConnaughay said though he has minimal knowledge of the cases Texidor handled, he thinks the idea of the law school assuming the responsibility for such a large body of work is "impractical," but did offer enthusiasm about the possibility of the law school operating in a similar capacity.

"There could be a direct connection between what we do and what this service traditionally provided," he said.

Let us review. The DSL has not even explored the possibility yet of replacing the legal consultant. The Dean of the school has not discussed the matter, as of yet, with Student Affairs. Finally, the Dean has very little knowledge about what the legal council did and doubts that the school can actually pick up the work load.

My guess is that McConnaughay was told late yesterday that DSL was about to be used in a pr campaign to counter any bad publicity generated by the elimination of the consultant position. And this is what you get on short notice.

How PSU PR Works.

The Penn State pr counterattack on the Princeton Review ranking is meeting with some success. The partial ban on alcohol at football games is garnering misleading headlines which make it appear that Penn State has put a total ban into place. Here is the headline from MSNBC.

New rule forbids drinking at tailgates during Penn State games

That one is technically accurate, but most people who glance at it will still think that the ban is total. Here is how the San Francisco Gate played the story.

Drinking Banned at Penn State Tailgates.

That one is just false.

For the most part these are reprints of the AP story which does by the second paragraph give the correct information.

Hoping to cut down on underage drinking and create a safer post-game environment, Penn State is banning alcohol at parking lot tailgate parties during football games inside Beaver Stadium.

Imbibing before kickoff and after the final whistle, though is still OK.

Nonetheless, it is the headlines which most people will note and Old Main knows this.

The Punchline

Penn State is on the verge of becoming the butt of a joke as a result of being ranked the number two party school in the nation by Princeton Review. Today the Philadelphia Inquirer published a story not on the ranking, but on Penn State football. Yet, the ranking was obliquely referred to in a joking way in the lede.

The 21,000 student tickets available for each of Penn State's seven home football games sold in June like kegs on homecoming weekend, consumed in a record 13 days, two months quicker than in 2005.

You can be sure that Spanier is not happy with this turn of events. All of his spin which has been carefully crafted to give Penn State the patina of gravitas is being overshadowed by the revelation of the gritty reality of life at University Park. Will Spanier respond in a substantive way or will he try to spin his way out of this problem? My money is on spin.

They're Just Envious!

Today Penn State announced the appointment of Kevin M. Morooney as vice provost for information technology. While I really have nothing to say about the appointment per se, the following comment by Provost Rod Erickson did catch my eye.

"We're delighted that Kevin will be taking on an even greater role in providing leadership for Penn State's vast, complex information systems," said Rodney A. Erickson, executive vice president and provost. "The information technology organization at Penn State is the envy of our peers across the nation, and Kevin's vision and plans for enhancing Penn State's strengths in teaching, research and service through technology will serve the University well."

Frankly, Penn State's boastfulness makes it the laughing stock of its peers across the nation. It also belies a deep rooted insecurity.

For the record, here is the definition of envy.

1 : painful or resentful awareness of an advantage enjoyed by another joined with a desire to possess the same advantage
2 obsolete : MALICE
3 : an object of envious notice or feeling of envy

As you can see, it is not a positive attribute. I wonder if Erickson is even aware that this comment is an insult to Penn State's peers.

The crassness of Erickson's remark is best seen by comparison to this one: My Ferragamo purse is the envy of all the girls in my sorority. Get the picture?

Party hard, drink hard ... I mean, party hard, study hard

Yesterday, in response to the Princeton Review's ranking of Penn State as the number two party school in the nation, PSU flack Bill Mahon took the "yeah, it's true, we've gotta problem, but it ain't our fault" approach with the CDT. Clearly denying that Penn State is a big party school wasn't going to work with the local paper; most reader have observed first hand either student drinking or its consequences , such as barf on the streets of State College on a Saturday or a Sunday mornings. Shifting the blame to bar owners was really Mahon's only recourse with this audience.

Today the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette tackled the story. They spoke with Penn State's second string flack Tyson Kendig. Most readers of the Post-Gazette are not intimately familiar with life in Happy Valley, hence he didn't admit that Penn State's ranking as the #2 party school had even a kernel of truth to it. Rather, Kendig took the, "sure colleges and universities in general have alcohol problems, without addressing whether Penn State was any worse than average" approach. I guess he didn't think it was his job to needlessly confirm the truth to readers who are in the dark? He then took the offensive with a two prong attack. First he attacked the methodology used in the Princeton Review ranking and he then tried to shift attention to a ranking he considers more scientific-read more favorable.

"I don't know that being regarded as a top party school is flattering," said Tysen Kendig, university spokesman. "Certainly, we want our students to have a great experience at the university, both academically and socially. But I think we need to be careful at all colleges and universities because we are dealing with a climate of alcohol abuse. And that's definitely not something that any college or university would be proud of."

Mr. Kendig also questioned the legitimacy of the survey.

"It's really an insignificant ranking," he said, "and it discredits itself by not being scientifically based. It's essentially an online poll.

"I will give credit to the Princeton Review. They do a terrific job of marketing these surveys. There are a lot of other rankings out there that quantify other aspects of the college experience. Last week, Washington Monthly had a poll of the best universities in terms of service to the nation, and it was more scientific. Penn State ranked No. 3 in that poll.

"Personally, I think that's a much more significant poll, yet they've gotten relatively little attention compared to the party school ranking.

"It's unfortunate."

Kendig also echoed the comments of Mahon from yesterday. But where as Mahon acknowledged a problem and shifted the blame to bar owners, Kendig gives the impression that Penn State is winning the battle against excessive drink despite the efforts of bar owners.

Mr. Kendig said the university is doing what it can to keep partying under control.

"It's a constant battle, especially in an area where the alcohol climate is significant," he said, "where there are ads in the daily newspapers promoting drink specials at bars every day of the week."

Mr. Kendig said there are marketing campaigns aimed at raising students' awareness of the dangers of irresponsible drinking. There's also a partnership of university officials, government leaders, police and representatives from various bars and beer distributors "looking at this problem and trying to promote responsible drinking and get us away from situations where we end up with students in the hospital."

According to university officials, more than 350 Penn State students were taken to the emergency room for alcohol overdoses last year.

Since that last sentence is not attributed to Kendig, it likely came from the Penn State Live story to which I linked yesterday.
The Post-Gazette realized that Kendig was spinning them.

While the students who voted Penn State so high embrace the vibrant social life, university officials do their best to play it down.

And they had the common sense to talk with some students about the reality. First there was Kathryn Stetz a waitress from Sports Cafe & Grill whose observation accurately reflect my own.

"There's a lot of alcohol at Penn State campus," she said, "but it's more of a social thing you do with your friends.

"If you want to drink on a Monday night, you can find someone who will drink with you on a Monday night. But most people stick to Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. It's crazy here on the weekends."

Ms. Stetz acknowledged "underage drinking is common."

"Freshmen, they come here, it's their first time away from home, and a lot of them have never drunk before," she said. "They know they can go to a fraternity and get a beer if they want to get a beer."

Fittingly, the paper gives a frat boy the last word.

Joel Gilchrist, 22, a fifth-year senior at Penn State, lives at the Zeta Psi fraternity house on East Foster Avenue just off campus. His reaction to the university's ranking is the opposite of that from the administration.

"I think it's awesome," he said. "It may be a little high, but we're definitely a Top 10 school.

"This is a good party house. We always have a lot of people. We have a motto here: Party hard, drink hard ... I mean, party hard, study hard. The week is for school work. But you can always find a good time here on the weekends."

Still, he said, it doesn't get out of control. Zeta Psi is part of the university's Interfraternity Council, which monitors the Greek organizations. They aren't allowed to have kegs on the premises and, yes, they do check IDs of people coming in, he said.

"Everyone in the house has a responsibility to keep things under control," he said.

Football weekends, Mr. Gilchrist said, are the best -- or the worst, depending on your perspective.

"Some of the older alumni come to town, we don't tend to be as wild, I guess," he said, "but the younger alumni who graduated maybe two, three, four years ago, they still have the frat guy in them."

As far as the ranking is concerned, he doesn't doubt its legitimacy.

"If you have that many people saying it, there must be something to it," he said. "They must be having a good time."

Thank you Gilchrist for making my point about football culture and drinking culture going hand -in-hand.

Update: The Philadelphia Inquire and most of the other Pennsylvania papers that I checked only carried the AP wire story on the Princeton Review Ranking. The exception was the Harrisburg Patriot-News. As can be seen from the lede,"Penn State University students have proved they don't need more reasons to party, but here's another one anyway," their story took the position that the ranking was obvious. Penn State flack Bill Mahon provided the Patriot-News with Penn State's take on the ranking. He wasn't as forthright as he had been with the CDT.

PSU spokesman Bill Mahon said that the study, because it relies on online voters, discredits itself as statistically irrelevant.

"If you conducted research that way in a class at Penn State, you'd fail the class," he said.[...]

"All the education we can do, it's still difficult to compete with 5-cent-beer ads," Mahon said

That sounds more like Kendig. So far, we see two different versions of Penn State's response to the ranking, one for the home audience and a second one for everyone else.

Making Something of Nothing

My last two posts ( here and here ) reminded me how the CDT sometimes functions as part of the Penn State PR department and brought back a memory from two summers ago. Penn State had been named the school hottest for entrepreneurs by The Newsweek Kaplan College Guide. The CDT wrote an article about the ranking and about Penn State's entrepreneurship program. The success of the program was illustrated with the story of a Penn State student who was minoring in entrepreneurship.

The rating didn't surprise David Shelton, who is majoring in aerospace engineering and minoring in entrepreneurship. He and another Penn State student have started a business, SB Aircraft Works, to design and sell kit airplanes for pilots who fly as a sport.

"I didn't start the project through the entrepreneurship program, but a lot of the classes I took helped me do my market research and come up with a good business plan," said Shelton. [...]

Financing is where Shelton and his business partner, Andrew Balk, are now. If funding comes through, Shelton said, they'll have a prototype plane flying in the spring.

Let's review. Penn State is the hottest school for entrepreneurship and the only person they could find to demonstrate the success of their program is a student who didn't start his business through the program and who has no financing for his business. I don't know about entrepreneurship but Penn State does excel at marketing.

The Rest of the Story

I'd like to follow up on George Jason (He is idenified as Jason George in the CDT.) one of the recent graduates mentioned in the puff piece in Saturday's CDT which I critiqued at the time. The CDT used Jason along with two other graduates as examples of people who might not think that Penn State tuition is too high. As I pointed out, one of them, Tambi Hali, was a scholarship athlete, hence the cost of a Penn State education was not an issue for him. The Miami Herald has a story today which gives us some background on Jason.

George Jason started college in 1949 on the GI Bill.

Earlier this month, Jason, wearing a cap and gown, walked across the stage at Pennsylvania State University and received his diploma.

''It felt so strange to be the class of '06,'' said 78-year-old Jason.

The Dania Beach resident completed four years of college with a passing grade point average, falling just short of graduation requirements when he failed his last semester of French 53 years ago.

So this guy took all of his classes 53 years ago on the GI bill. How then can his experience be relevant to the question of whether Penn States tuition is too high? Quite simply it can't be. This leads to another question, how dumb or how intimidated by Spanier is the guy who wrote the CDT editorial?

Spanier's spinners likely fed the story of Jason to the CDT. You see Spanier was in on the story from the beginning.

He wants to run for a spot on the Dania Beach City Commission next year and didn't want to have to tell people he never graduated.

So he wrote a letter to the university president.

''I explained I would be very proud if I could put on my résumé I had a B.A. from Penn State,'' Jason said. ``At this point I had four years and no degree.''

When Jason told his wife he sent the letter, she wasn't optimistic.

''I thought, they're never going to give him a degree,'' Loretta Jason said.

What Loretta didn't realize is that Spanier saw a human interest story which would provide the perfect marking opportunity. There was no way Spanier would not find a way to get this guy his degree. In fact, the Colleges of Arts and Archetecture jumped through hoops to get Jason his degree. I wouldn't think Penn State was too expensive if it provide this sort of service to me at no cost-remember he had't taken a class in 53 years.

Yvonne Gaudelius, the interim dean of the College of Arts and Architecture, got the letter, along with a handwritten transcript listing his grades.

''We dug old bulletins out of the archive and tried to correlate his courses with current degree requirements,'' she said. ``The grading system was totally different. The registrar converted his grades . . . because of the way the degree is now shaped, he had done everything he needed to do.''

The two newspaper accounts are in conflict. The Heralds account does not say that he completed his French requirement, rather it leaves the impression that the University determined that under current guidelines he met all of the requirements for the degree. The CDT explicitly states that he finished three credits in French. I put my bets on the Herald.

One more point worth noting in the Herald article is that Spanier's anti-intellectualism is on full display.

Cards congratulating Jason on his graduation stand on a mantle in the home. He also has his diploma in a black covering and a letter from Spanier.

''Congratulations, George!'' the letter reads. ``I'm so pleased that the College of Arts and Architecture saw fit to approve your degree. French wasn't my strong suit either!''

Ah yes, The Penn State Way.

The CDT Blinks

Today the CDT's op-ed page makes nice with Penn State. It looks like the threat of economic retaliation may have been too much.

While we frequently remind readers of this page how much a Penn State degree costs, it is also good to reflect on how much one is worth.

For some, everything.

It was worth enough for Tamba Hali that the former Nittany Lion defensive end and this year's first-round draft choice of the Kansas City Chiefs flew in from a grueling NFL training camp last week to graduate with his class.

Hali was 10 when he left war-ravaged Liberia to live with his father in New Jersey. He recently became an American citizen and, as of last week, a college graduate.

"We came here, and I couldn't read or write, and now I'm graduating from a major university," Hali, a major football talent, said, as reported in last Sunday's front-page story.

"And I did it in four years," he said proudly.

Charlie Brown, of Bellefonte, graduated from Penn State in December 2004, but was unable to attend the commencement ceremony with his classmates. He had been called to active duty in Iraq with the 109th Infantry, based in Scranton, days before.

Brown also participated in last Saturday's ceremony at the Bryce Jordan Center, as did Jason George, of Dania Beach, Fla., who, at age 78, finally finished the three credits in French he needed for his theater degree.

"I feel great," he told the Centre Daily Times. "When I realized I was going to get my degree, there was no way they were going to mail it to me. I was going to be here. This is one of the highlights of my life."

Yes, it is expensive.

Is it worth it? Ask Hali, Brown and George.

First off, Hali didn't have to pay for his education, because he was a scholarship athlete. While all three no doubt are happy with having obtained their degrees, the second two would just as likely have had warm feeling no matter where they went to school. In short, the experience of these three says nothing about whether Penn State is overpriced.

This is just the typical Penn State spin printed for free by the CDT.

Penn State Spins

As I noted in my previous two posts, the CDT reported yesterday on changes made to Penn State's "Free Speech Zone" policy which were made as part of a settlement of a lawsuit filed by A. J. Fluehr. Penn State flack Bill Mahon had this to say about the change,

...Penn State had been considering the policy changes even before Fluehr brought the litigation.

Old Main will never admit that they were wrong and when forced to change a policy they will claim they were thinking about doing so before the they were forced to. Now thinking about something and doing something are two entirely different things. But the the likely intent of this statement is to give the impression that the change was on the way and the suit, if anything, only sped it up. This crap is so typical of Old Main.

It is also interesting to note that the revision history within the policy.

June 28, 2006 - Editorial change made in "Locations For Expressive Activity," removing sentence that referred to other areas on University property.

By not actually quoting the removed sentence this brief description of the revision obscures the importance of the change. This is made worse by the misleading characterization of the change as merely editorial. Why did the University chose to characterize the change, rather than fully quote the removed sentence? Could it be that they had hoped that no one would notice the significance of the change? Further, if they intended to make the change on their own, as Mahon's claim would suggest, why obscure the change when it was made?

These guys act like they believe no one is paying attention.

Update: Here is what Mahon told Penn State Public Radio.

The Alliance Defense Fund said its backing of the student lawsuit forced the changes, and said it was a victory for speech rights. Mahon said, though, that the timing of the group's action was coincidental. "We started talking last winter that maybe we needed to alter theses slightly to bring them up into current compliance," he said, "Some time after that -- weeks or months later -- we were contacted by this law group."

In this quote Mahon is far more explicit about his claim that the University was going to revise the "Free Speech Zone" policy well before the lawsuit was filed. These guy's cannot admit that they aren't always calling the shots.

I think they are afraid to look weak. Once they look weak people may begin to stand up to them and put an end to their power plays and power grabs. By the way, one of the things which I hope to do with this blog is to document Spanier's power plays and power grabs, past, present, and future.