This is Nuts

Penn State is doing more than $765 million in annual research and the claim that we would jeopardize a stellar international research reputation over a small research project is a pretty big stretch[.]-Penn State Chief Bullshit Artist Bill Mahon as quoted by the AP.

This video features Penn State nutritionist Penny Kris-Etherton extolling the health benefits of eating pistachios ostensibly, at least in part, based on her recently published research.

Penn State ran its first press release on Penny Kris-Etherton's research on pistachios and cholesterol back in May, which I discussed here. In a nutshell, Kris-Etherton research into the link between pistachio consumption, higher levels of blood antioxidants and lower levels of oxidized low density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol failed to find the effect she was looking for. Why does this failed investigation deserve not one, not two, but three separate posts, the last with the above video embedded,  at The Penn State Propaganda Portal? Before I answer that question-no fair looking at my previous post, let's review Kris-Etherton's research on pistachios.

It had already been established that pistachios lowered the level of LDL cholesteral, i.e. bad cholesterol, and raised high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, i.e. good cholesterol, in individuals with elevated levels of cholesterol, in the latter case in measured against a low fat diet. A high level of LDL is a well-known risk factor for coronary artery disease, thus the name bad cholesterol, but it is less well-known that there is much stronger association between oxidized LDL and coronary heart disease.

Enter Kris-Etherton. Pistachios  are loaded with antioxidants. The question that Kris-Etherton asked is, do pistachios lower the level of oxidized LDL beyond the amount one would expect from the overall lowering of the LDL level? Her work confirmed the earlier research on the diminution of the level of LDL  In addition, she found that the level of certain antioxidants in the blood were raised in a pistachio diet. However, she found no statistically significant association between the antioxidant levels and the level of oxidized LDL in the pistachio diet when the overall lower level of LDL was controlled for.  That is Kris-Etherton did not find the effect that she was looking for.

It would hardly seem appropriate under the circumstance to engage in a PR campaign to promote findings which weren't found, but that's exactly what Kris-Etherton with the help of The Old Main Propaganda Shop did.

In the first press release, she claimed,

Pistachio nuts, eaten as part of a healthy diet, can increase the levels of antioxidants in the blood of adults with high cholesterol, according to an international team of nutritional scientists.

"Our previous study showed the benefits of pistachios in lowering lipids and lipoproteins, which are a risk factor for heart disease," said Penny Kris-Etherton, distinguished professor of nutrition, Penn State. "This new study shows an additional effect of pistachios so now there are multiple health benefits of eating pistachios."

While the press release does not come out and say that the increase in the levels of antioxidants in the blood of adults with high cholesterol is a health benefit of pistachios, these two paragraphs are clearly written to lead the reader to that inference.

But that press release contradicts that inference.

"Currently, studies on antioxidants do not show major benefits," said Kris-Etherton. "Maybe we are not studying people long enough. Maybe there is something in the food that travels with the antioxidants. The
antioxidant story is very disappointing to the scientific community."

The reason for the disappointment is that studies on specific antioxidants currently do not show health benefits, but epidemiological studies seem to indicate benefits. Many people feel that we have not
figured out antioxidants yet, said Kris-Etherton.

If antioxidants are important, then pistachios fit the bill as antioxidant-laden food.

So on the one hand, Kris-Etherton tells the readers that there is no evidence that antioxidants show major health benefits and on the other hand, Andrea Messer, the Penn State Bullshit Artist that wrote the press release, tells the reader that the press release would be correct if one assumes to be true that which the research failed to show to be true. Pretty neat.

But, in the two more recent press releases, all of the information about antioxidants showing no major benefits has been removed. In the second press release, the two misleading lead paragraphs remain and in the third, the misleading information is split between the headline and the caption on the video.

In the video embedded in the third press release, Kris-Etherton steers clear of any implication concerning the higher levels of antioxidants and lower levels of oxidized LDL. But she introduces a new twist in an effort to promote the supposed benefits of elevated serum antioxidants, reduction in free radicals. This is something her research never even looked and, again, there is no evidence of a health benefit  from antioxidants neutralizing free radicals.

The Western Pistachio Association also issued a press release on the study. (The have a video, too, but it's really rough.) It was even more explicit in claiming a health benefit for pistachios due to their high level of antioxidants. The headline on the release is "New Research Unveiled in The Journal of Nutrition Reveals Pistachios Protect the Heart in a New Way: Rigorous Study Shows "The Green Nut" is Rich with Antioxidants Linking Consumption to Reduced Risk of Cardiovascular Disease." Kris-Etherton is quoted in the release, too. 

"In the past, many studies have focused on the role of lipids and cholesterol in heart disease," said Dr. Penny Kris-Etherton, researcher at Penn State University’s Department of Nutritional Sciences. "Pistachios are the only nut that give you significant amounts of lutein and zeazanthin -- 342 mg per ounce. They also provide 6.4 mg of gamma tocopherol. This study validates the significant antioxidant benefits of consuming pistachios. We plan to continue to explore the positive role pistachios play in the American diet."

Notice the pattern here? Kris-Etherton is very circumspect when making claims about her findings in these releases, here claiming not a health benefit, but rather an antioxidant benefit, meanwhile the authors of the releases make exaggerated claims about her findings.

The problem for the Western Pistachio Association is that the FDA regulates what type of health claims can be made about  foods on their labels and, in the case of nuts, the FDA has turned down a request that from the International Tree Nut Council to make the following claims with respect to pistachios amongst other tree nuts and peanuts,

1. "Diets containing one ounce of nuts per day can reduce your risk of heart disease."s
2. "Eating a diet that includes one ounce of nuts daily can reduce your risk of heart disease."

due to a lack of scientific evidence. The FDA did approve the following limited claim for these nuts.

"Scientific evidence suggests but does not prove that eating 1.5 ounces per day of most nuts [, such as name of specific nut,] as part of a diet low in saturated fat and cholesterol may reduce the risk of heart disease. [See nutrition information for fat content.]"

Clearly, from a marketing standpoint, an equivocal claim is superior to one that hedges. So  the Western Pistachio Association funds research in the hopes of coming up with the evidence needed to get FDA approval for the stronger claim. When the research doesn't provide the answers needed to persuade the FDA, they ignore the findings and issue misleading press releases that the FDA has no control over. No need to waste all that money spent from the marketing budget on that research now is there?

And Kris-Etherton plays along, trying to keep her hands clean, in the whole dirty business,while letting her benefactors know that, "We plan to continue to explore the positive role pistachios play in the American diet." and she might add, we hope you keep funding us.

But even worse, Kris-Etherton with the help of The Old Main Propaganda Shop uses Penn State's "stellar research reputation"  to help the Western Pistachio Association sell a few more nuts in the hope of a few more dollars for a "small research project." and maybe as a bonus an all expense paid trip to some exotic land, too. 

Yep, quite a stretch there, Bill.

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Penn State Summer 2008 in Review

Welcome back Penn State students. While you were off picking up a few dollars with summer jobs to help pay your skyrocketing tuition bills or your bar tabs, things did not stand still in Hapless Valley. Here then is a round up of the summer highlights you may have missed.

In May, the Board of Trustees approved a new facilities fee for University Park students over the objection of University Park undergraduate student leaders. But don't worry a new advisory group, which will include student representatives, is in the works to provide easily ignored input on how the fee should be used. At the next BOT meeting in July, the trustees voted in favor of facility fees at the Commonwealth campuses. This had the support of the Commonwealth student governments, but that may have been the result of some heavy lobbying on the part of Old Main. The amount of the fee at each campus was determined based on the advise of the Chancellor of the campus, although back when the the Commonwealth student government voted in favor of the fee the press reported that the fees at each campus would be based on the recommendation of the campus allocation committee. These committees have strong student representation. Ah, but by July no one was paying attention.

Also in May, David Jones, a Harrisburg Patriot-News sportswriter, wrote a series of articles based on an interview he did with Graham. Graham related a story to Jones about his father which he said he hadn't shared with many people...that is unless you count the time that he told the whole Penn State community in his inaugural address. What a weasel.

Of course, it should be of no surprise that Graham's first act after being hired as president of Penn State, even before he officially took office, was to put the Old Main propaganda shop under his direct control.

In some positive news, the Dean of the Eberly College of Science didn't pimp the Rent-A-Nobel-Laureate, Barry Marshall. But the Old Main propaganda shop, in late May, did pimp a thirty-out-of-thirty place ranking of Hershey's Children's Hospital. However, they failed mention that Pitt and Penn cleaned their clocks on this set of rankings.

June brought two more rankings of medical schools. The first concerned conflict-of-interest policies with regard to pharmaceutical company perks. Pitt and Penn both ranked well. In fact, Pitt did very, very well. What about Penn State? Not so much. Hershey wouldn't cooperate with the group doing the ranking. Then came the other ranking which was pimped on the Penn State Propaganda Portal with the headline, "Penn State Hershey Medical Center ranked among the Top 100 hospitals." You just have to read about this ranking to understand the absurdity of that headline.

Of course, no discussion of Penn State rankings would be complete without a mention of the Princeton Review top party school honors. This year Penn State was back in the top five at number three.On cue, one of Penn State's professional bullshit artists sallied forth to explain why no one should take the Princeton Review ranking seriously. Well, except for the Penn State bullshit artist who had touted the results from some other Princeton Review rankings that they liked on the University's Web site. That is until they decided to scrub the Web site. You gotta love that festering swamp on Pollack Rd.

Penn State wants to be known as a business friendly university. This summer they demonstrated what that means when they undertook an advertising campaign on behalf of Hershey's Chocolates. They seem to be having trouble grasping the whole conflict-of-interest thing.

When Graham isn't smooching business interests, he has lips planted firmly on DOD's butt. Go read his nuanced take on his buddy Defense Secretary Robert Gates Minerva Project and then read this.

In the it could have been worse file, Crime Scene University, featuring Penn State's forensic science program, began airing this summer.

While tution and fees keep shooting up at Penn State, it appears that Graham still flys around on University owned jets.

We also learned this summer that the PLCB is concerned that Penn State might use PLCB money for propaganda. Smart folks there at the PLCB.

Finally, this month we learned a bit about how justice usually works in Center County. Fortunately for Mifflin Streaker Elizabeth Burke Centre County justice didn't take its usual course: her charges were dismissed. Penn State chief bullshit artist Bill Mahon used the opportunity to explain Old Main's educational philosophy.

That brings us to the new academic year. Let's clean off our waders as we prepare to walk hip deep in all the bullshit that Old Main will be shoveling our way.

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More on Burke-ing the System

Today's Centre Daily Times has more on the dismissal of charges against Mifflin Streaker Elizabeth Burke. Here is Penn State's chief bullshit artist Bill Mahon's take on the situation

We will continue to promote what we believe is appropriate behavior on campus and try to educate students about the expectations of society as they develop into responsible young adults, said Bill Mahon, Penn State’s vice president for university relations.

Does he really think that the Mifflin Streak has uncovered a widespread failure of Penn State students to have been fully socialized? Does Mahon think that Penn State students don't know that in general it is not acceptable to run naked in public?

It's also funny the way that Penn State views arresting students for engaging a harmless tradition to be part of their education. What's the real lesson? Beware of powerful entities abitrary exercise of power. That's a valuable life lesson, for sure, but does one actually have to be arrested to learn it?

Come on, this is not about educations. It's about Penn State protecting its brand. Even the DA was on board with that.

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The Nittany Lion: Shitfaced Again

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has lengthy article on efforts by the State College police department to crackdown on underage drinking. The story should be familiar to those of you who live here.

"People are drinking faster to get drunk," said borough Police Lt. Dana Leonard.

"The first eight weeks of the fall semester are what we call the Red Zone. The weather is still warm and the newly arriving students have plenty of money in their pockets," he said. "There is a celebratory atmosphere around Penn State football games."

The semester's early weeks can be even more dangerous for freshmen. "They're relatively naive," Lt. Leonard said.

[...]

About 4,000 of the 7,000 incidents handled annually by State College police involve alcohol, a share that has been rising in recent years, according to department data.

Often, officers on the midnight shift rush from call to call, breaking up street fights, aiding young people unconscious outside bars, or -- as was the case around midnight this same Friday -- a young man passed out while seated on a public transit bus.

"I've seen people with an extremely low pulse near death," said Officer Andrew Sim, one of two SIP officers working the midnight shift. "Once we finally do slow down, at 3 or 4 a.m., just driving around the streets you'll see someone laid out on the sidewalk, lying in a yard.

"In winter months there are hypothermia issues. You don't know how long they've been lying there," he said. "They're just soaking wet in the snow.''

Among those cited this summer as a result of an SIP investigation was a fraternity suspected of supplying alcohol to a teenager who later fractured his skull in two places and broke his collarbone trying to do a back flip off a wall outside the post office.

In all, 89 citations for furnishing alcohol to minors were issued in the borough last year, 37 percent more than in the year before SIP debuted. Most are older Penn State students, including hosts of off-campus apartment parties where students sometimes drink for free, Lt. Leonard said.

[...]

If Penn State has been unable to quell dangerous drinking, it's not for lack of initiatives.

It has an array of enforcement, education and counseling programs and will use Liquor Control Board money this fall to add campus SIP patrols. Non-alcoholic activities are regular weekend fare in the Hetzel Union Building, and a year ago, Penn State banned alcohol from tailgate parties from kickoff to final play at Beaver Stadium, the 107,000-seat home of Nittany Lions football.

Even so, alcohol-related trips by students to Mount Nittany Medical Center are up from 199 in 1999-2000 to 444 in the 2006-2007 school year. The average age of those treated is 20 years old, and their average blood alcohol content has risen to 0.235, nearly three times the state's legal limit for an adult.

The reason the problem persists is that Penn State doesn't actually think that it bears any responsibility for the problem. The fact that the University appointed its chief bullshit artist to head up the committee to deal with the problem should indicate to everyone that Penn State sees this as primarily a pr problem. And the pr strategy for dealing with the problem is to shift the blame to someone else, anyone else. It's the PLCB's fault; no no, it's the bars' fault; no I've got it, the problem is with the hair salons.

Bill Mahon, a Penn State administrator [bullshit artist] who co-chairs a town-and-gown committee on dangerous drinking, said he'd like to think the emergency room trips meant awareness campaigns are making students more inclined to get help. But he cited other factors, including the debut of Sunday liquor sales in the state, loosening of bottle shop restrictions and a trend toward more dangerous drinking behaviors nationally on college campuses.

About 100 businesses serving alcohol are located within five miles of Penn State's Old Main administration building, and some aggressively market dollar-pitchers and 25-cent drafts. One hair salon near campus even advertises complimentary beer.

"It could be any combination of these things," Mr. Mahon said. "I don't think we're unique."

Two-thirds of those charged with drunk driving in the borough last year were not students, and Mr. Mahon said such ratios illustrate how far-reaching in society the problem is. "This is not just a student issue," he said.

So Bill would like to think-actually he wants you to think- that there isn't more heavy drinking, just more people seeking help. Damn I think the the Collegian received the "Graham Spanier Award for Most Outrageous Spin" last year for trying pedal that tripe. He also blames Sunday liquor sales-Sundays are actual fairly quiet around here-, loosening of bottle shop restrictions, and the favorite of teenagers everywhere, "But Mooooom, everybody's doing it." And about those 2/3's of non-student drunk driving arrests, how many are Penn State faculty and administrators? A group whose alcohol problem goes unnoticed because they tend not to fall out of open windows on to the sidewalks. Although I've seen one professor carried out of a bar, in front of some of his students, too drunk to walk .

Until Old Main owns up to the fact that Penn State's alcohol problem is, in fact, an academic problem there will be no solution.



Technorati Tags: Penn State, alcohol abuse, spin, Bill Mahon, Spanier

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Mahon Praises Spanier's Tan While Reaching for More Sunscreen.

This is an update of my previous post concerning Democratic State Representative Tim Mahoney's proposed open record law. The Collegian picked the story up this morning and moves the ball forward with interviews of Representative Mahoney, Penn State flack Bill Mahon, and State Representative Kerry Benninghoff. I think the article deserves some analysis.

I said in my earlier post Spanier will oppose the language in the bill which explicitly expands coverage of the open record law to Penn State, but Mahon didn't come out against the bill or the proposed language.

Bill Mahon, Penn State spokesman, said he has no problems with the proposed legislation.

"There are a number of newspapers over the years who have demanded Penn State make budget information available. This usually comes from newspapers who haven't checked our Web site," he said. "You can literally find hundreds and hundreds of pages of budget information."

Note the hostile tone. According to Mahon newspapers didn't request or ask for budget information, they "demanded budget information". His next statement is designed to give the impression that Penn State already makes the requested information available, therefore the papers were somehow being unreasonable. But the online budget is not a line item budget. So if you want to know how much Penn State spends on feeding Trustees at their bi-monthly meetings you won't find it on Penn State's Web site or anywhere else. (To learn more about Penn State's use of suncreen, I highly recommend a series of entertaining and informative columns written by Collegian columnist Renée Petrina back in 2004. You can find them here, here, here,here and here.)

Mahoney isn't buying Penn State's talking point, he said "that under his bill, institutions would have to further break down the budget information they currently make available to account for spending within certain categories."

Before anyone concludes from Mahon's remarks that I was wrong about Spanier opposing the language in the bill which would explicitly extend the open record law to Penn State, remember that we are early in the game. Mahon's position as expressed in today's Collegian is Penn State's opening gambit. There is no need for them to oppose a bill which has not even been introduced on the floor of the house. To do so would give the impression that they have something to hide, which, in turn, would would give further impetus for the language. While they take a "what me worry" public position on the bill, you can be sure they are working behind the scenes to kill the bill before it comes to the floor. Their go-to-guy on this is Kerry Benninghoff who has reassuring words for them.

State Rep. Kerry Benninghoff, R-Bellefonte, said, in general, he supports open records, but Mahoney's bill has a long way to go before it can be passed.

"It needs to be narrowed," Benninghoff said. "If it's too broadly written, it will die under its own weight. Then, there will probably be several public hearings at which time I believe the universities will have a word on it. It could include stuff the university doesn't want out there."

"It needs to be narrowed," should be read don't worry Graham I've got your back. Benninghoff is carrying water for Spanier, who will remain above the fray and keep what is left of his pristine image as a good guy. Oh and by the way, bills don't die of their own weight. Bills are killed by legislators. I am looking at you Kerry.

For those of you who despair that Penn State will succeed in squashing this bill before it has a chance to see the light of day, there is some good news today as well. According to the CDT Ed Rendell plans for his upcoming term includes a surprise.

[Rendell] broke new ground with his promise to overhaul the state's open-records law, which many right-to-know advocates regard as archaic because it limits public access to specific categories of records rather than opening all records to public scrutiny except for specific ones.

The fight is on to bring sunshine to Old Main. Contact your State Representative and Governor Rendell in support of Mahoney's bill and be sure to tell him/her that Penn State and other state-related universities must be covered by the bill.

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It's Never Penn State's Fault

That Bill Mahon is a crafty guy. Today the CDT has publish a letter that Mahon has written ostensively to congratulate the police for their work on DUI arrests. Now as you all should know Bill is Graham's mouthpiece, but he is not identified as such by the CDT. That is likely the CDT's fault not Mahon's fault. This wouldn't be too much of a problem if it weren't that Mahon is also Penn State's point man on alcohol abuse. His job is not so much to curb the abuse of alcohol by Penn State students, but rather to make sure that Penn State doesn't have to take the blame for its drinking problem. You can see my previous discussions of his work here, here,here, here, and here.



Back to the letter. Mahon is up to his old tricks. Take a look at this passage.

With a large increase in alcohol sales in Centre County in recent years, expansion of the number of alcohol businesses in the immediate State College area and heavy promotion of drinking in the media coupled with national alcohol-abuse trends, this is not a problem that will be easily solved.

Note that there is no mention of Penn State's contribution to the problem and that he cuts himself and the University some slack by claiming that,"this is not a problem that will be easily solved." What a yutz.


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He Should Have Gone with My Script

Earlier today I speculated tongue-in-cheek about how Penn State University flack Bill Mahon would spin the spanking Penn State received in the Education Trust report Engines of Inequality: Diminishing Equality in the Nation's Premier Public Universities. Well, there is no longer any need for speculation. Inside Higher Ed has Mahon's response to the report. It is his standard angry denial which he employs so often when the University is placed in a bad light or criticized. Just click on the Mahon label over in the right hand column to see other examples of this. Here is his emailed response to Inside Higher Ed.

Some officials bristled. Bill Mahon, a spokesman for Pennsylvania State University, which was among the universities that received an overall grade of F, said in an e-mail that he was “not impressed with the superficial analysis of the statistics [Education Trust] gathered.” Penn State’s F for minority access is ironic, he wrote, given that “we have increased minority enrollment every year for at least the past decade, even though located in a part of a state with an extremely small minority population.” He noted that black enrollment has grown to 4,481 this year from 2,864 in 1996, and that “Penn State (Grade ‘F’) has more than twice the number of minority students enrolled than the entire student body of the University of Alaska Fairbanks (Grade ‘A’).

“Penn State has been on the right track for more than a decade and will continue to move forward on minority enrollment and access issues in the future,” Mahon added. “We are proud of what we have done and where the institution is going.”

The worst part of Mahon's response is how bad it makes Penn State look when compared to how other officials responded. Here is a compendium of the other responses. You be the judge.

• “The inference of this report and the basis for the grading of flagships is that their responsibility is to reflect the demographics of the state,” said Shirley A. Ort, associate provost and director of scholarships and student aid at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, which received an overall D grade in the report despite its recent efforts at expanding access for low income students. “I say that it’s not, not based upon our charter, anyhow. It’s to make sure that excellence remains the hallmark of a flagship, and that we are welcoming and inclusive of those students who have demonstrated the aptitude and preparation to meet our admissions standards.”



• William E. (Brit) Kirwan, chancellor of the University System of Maryland, whose flagship campus, the University of Maryland at College Park, received an overall grade of D, said he hoped the Education Trust’s “important” report would “help to bring attention to what I think is really becoming a crisis in our country: the underrepresentation of low income students, many of whom are minorities, at our colleges and universities.” Like officials at several other institutions, he said the report’s several-year-old data may fail to account for steps that College Park and other universities have taken in the last two years to bolster access for low income and minority students.
  
  
  
  And “no one should fault flagship campuses or any other university for aspiring to improve its quality, and to become recognized as a very high quality institution,” Kirwan said. But he added that he agreed at least partially with the report’s contention “that in that pursuit of excellence, certain things have become distorted,” including the push toward merit-based rather than need-based aid. “That is something that we have to address on our campuses,” Kirwan said. “It cannot continue along this path."
  
  
  
  
• “The flagship public universities strongly believe in their social and economic mobility role and they will want to review the study carefully,” said Peter McPherson, president of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges. “We have some methodology questions about the survey and some of the data is dated. We do recognize there is an imbalance in the distribution of need vs. merit-based aid. The input-oriented ranking systems are probably the driving factor here. Universities, however, do have an important responsibility in this area.”





• And Robert Berdahl, president of the Association of American Universities, added: “All of the AAU flagship campuses and the other selective public universities with which I am familiar take seriously their mission of providing opportunity for minorities and those from low-income backgrounds. To the degree their state laws permit, they work hard to increase the number of students from these backgrounds who attend and succeed at their institutions. While we might question the report’s methodology, its recommendations make sense, and our universities are already doing most of these things. But clearly there is more to be done to achieve the goal of full equality of opportunity.

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Penn State Recognized as One of the Nation's Premier Public Universities

The Education Trust has released a report entitled Engines of Inequality: Diminishing Equality in the Nation's Premier Public Universities. When asked about the report Penn State spokesman Bill Mahon, speaking on behalf of Penn State president Graham Spanier, said, "President Spanier is very happy to see than Penn State is receiving the recognition it deserves as premier public university." He went on to note that. "every Penn Stater should be proud to be included on list which includes such well respected schools as Berkeley and theUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison."

Fine, Mahon didn't really say that. I was just trying to imagine how the Old Mainpropaganda machine was going to spin the dismal news that Penn State received so many F grades and an overall grade of an F on this report card which gauges how well Flagship schools fulfill an important aspect of their mission:access to higher education by the disadvantaged.

One measure used in this study was the ratio of the percentage of Pell Grant awarded at a school to overall percentage of Pell Grant awarded in the home state of the school. Schools for which this ratio was less than or equal to .69 were deemed to have flunked this test. Penn State flunked. Compare this to the fact that Spanier makes a big deal out of Penn State's mission as Land-Grant University. For example, here is what he had to say on the occasion of Penn State one hundred fiftieth anniversary.

The Farmer’s High School, which you now know as Penn State,
became the national model for the land-grant university –created by
an act of Congress in 1862.

Before the establishment of land-grant schools, a college education
was out of reach to all but the children of the well heeled. Many
of you in this Rotunda, including many of you whose names are on
the House and Senate resolutions to my left and right, are, like me,
children of immigrants who would not have been able to benefit
from higher education if not for the creation of public colleges that
have grown out of the land-grant movement.

While the term ‘land-grant’ may be a throw back to an earlier time,
its place today in American higher education is anything but
archaic. The fundamental concept is to provide a diverse program of studies that is financially accessible to a broad segment of the population, and to make new knowledge available for the public good. That concept is as pertinent today as it was in 1855.

Under Spanier's leadership Penn State has failed to serve this aspect of its mission.





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My Fault? No, It's Not My Fault!

The CDT has a story today about the increase in the number of students carousing at night in the Highlands neighborhood of State College this Fall. The anecdotal evidence is supported by an increase in the number of police calls this year in the time period of late August to late September over last year. Tom King, the police chief in State College, attributes the increased numbers to the increased number of freshman that Penn State admitted this year. Penn State flack Bill Mahon offers the following in response to King's ascertion about the cause for the increase number of calls for noise violations and disorderly conduct.

Penn State spokesman Bill Mahon, in an e-mail, said the volume of alcohol peddlers in town has a bigger impact on the booze problem than freshman enrollment.

"Based on statistics like the huge increase in alcohol-related emergency-room visits last year, the alcohol problem in State College was at its worst level ever at a time when Penn State's enrollment numbers were actually down," Mahon wrote. "The data indicate the number of student alcohol overdose does not appear tied to enrollment. Borough and campus police arrests for public drunkenness jumped sharply in 2005, when enrollment was down."

Two things are noteworthy in this response. The first thing is that Mahon chooses to address the question of public drunkenness arrests which was not mentioned by King. Then having misrepresented the problem he places the blame on booze peddlers and accepts none of the responsibility for the University. The blame shifting is part of Spanier's pr strategy for dealing with the bad reputation Penn State enjoys as a party school. Borough council member Jeff Kern shot back,

"I would hope that the university would have more respect for its student body and the town than to (attribute) a serious problem to the environment," he said. "I think there are behavioral issues that need to be dealt with, by both town and gown ... and I think we're just a little overwhelmed right now.

Kern showing backbone and standing up for the borough is a welcome relief. Typically when Mahon or someone else from Old Main tries to shift the blame for the drinking problem to the town, the claim goes unanswered.

Finally, why would Mahon bring up Penn State's drinking problem when that really isn't the issue? After all, Penn State would prefer not to have the spotlight placed on its drinking problem. This may have something to do with Mahon shifting the discussion to alcohol and then blaming the bar owners.

[Councilwoman Elizabeth] Goreham and Councilman Jeff Kern said Penn State ought to pony up some extra money to help finance the added patrols. The university pays the borough about $445,000 per year in an impact fee and an in-lieu-of-tax arrangement.

"We just got 2,000 extra people (freshmen) on a semi-permanent basis who have no impact on our tax base but have a significant impact on our expenses," Kern said.

Penn State is willing to talk about its alcohol problem if it can help it avoid taking financial responsibility for the problems it creates.

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.

Some of the Wealthiest People I Know Are Drunks.

This is just too funny. Penn State has come up with a half-assed measure to deal with its national recognition as a party school; it has banded alcohol consumption at tailgate parties during the game. It's fine to get drunk before the game. It's fine to get drunk after the game. However, you will no longer be able to get drunk during the game. Here is how Tim Curley Penn State athletic director explained the new rule.

"Tailgating before and after football games has evolved into one of college football's most recognized, most treasured traditions that bring family, friends, alumni and colleagues together for good times and good memories," said Tim Curley, Penn State athletic director. "Penn State is pleased and proud to be recognized annually as one of the nation's finest hosts to this tradition, largely because Penn Staters know how to celebrate responsibly and respectfully."

"With increasing frequency, however, a number of fans are coming to the tailgate areas with no intention of attending the football game. They have no interest in supporting the team inside the stadium and are simply utilizing the parking lot areas for group parties," Curley said. "This has diminished what the great majority of Nittany Lion tailgaters value about the best atmosphere in college football."

"We fully expect that our fans will continue to uphold the national reputation that Penn Staters enjoy by continuing to tailgate responsibly before and after every game, while cheering the Nittany Lions on to victory inside Beaver Stadium."

What's with the "finest hosts" nonsense? Can't anyone in central administration at Penn State open their mouth without making an empty boasts?

As far as the new policy goes, I am having trouble making sense of it. Is Curley suggesting that only those who come to tailgates during the game over consume alcohol? Is he saying that the privilege of getting drunk on Penn State property should only go to those who support the team? Or, perhaps he is simply hoping that that the University can appear to be doing something about that "national reputation which Penn Staters enjoy" without pissing off wealthy donors or potential donors? I would have to go with door #3 on this one.

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.

We Were Cheated. We Should Have Been #1.

Today the CDT ran the story about Penn State's status as the number two party school in the nation. Coincidentally, it was written by Anne Danahy who also wrote the puff piece on entrepreneurship from 2004. The article reports on Penn State flack Bill Mahon's take on the ranking.

...[W]ith the amount of marketing of alcohol, he 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.

"There are 90 bottle shops, beer distributors, bars, state (liquor) stores and restaurants that sell alcohol within a five mile radius of Old Main. Our students don't stand a chance," Mahon said in an e-mail.

"We are not going to wave the white flag and give up, but it is a struggle every year to compete with the businesses in this community that aggressively promote alcohol consumption with our students," Mahon said.

Mahon is co-chair of the Town-Gown Partnership United Against Dangerous Drinking. This partnership is the latest in a long running effort by Penn State to fight alcohol abuse by its students. The above response is canned as you can see from this passage from Penn State Live, PSU's propaganda portal.

Last year 353 Penn State students were taken to the Mount Nittany Medical Center in State College with an alcohol overdose. University officials hope not to see a repeat of that high statistic in the new school year.[...]

"Within five miles of Old Main there are about 90 bottle shops, bars, State Stores, beer distributors and restaurants that sell alcohol," Mahon said. "The alcohol culture is a big part of this small town."

Penn State deserves credit for admitting that there is a problem and taking positive steps to end some of the most public of Penn State's bacchanalia. Sometime during the Bryce Jordan presidency the University eliminated Gentile Thursday a rock festival which took place yearly on a Thursday in April on the HUB lawn while classes were still in session. Shortly there after, it dropped the Phi Psi 500 an annual foot race which involved running form bar to bar and chugging a drink at each.

Penn State's return to the top ten party schools coincides with its first successful football season in years. I don't think that this was a random occurrence, since football is the single largest contributor to the alcohol culture at Penn State. While Gentile Thursday and the Phi Psi 500 could be eliminated, football is too well integrated into both the culture and economy of Penn State and the Centre region to be dropped. Those 90 bottle shops and bars are not just here to satisfy student demand. They are here because on five or six Saturdays each fall 100,000+ people cram there way into Happy Valley to watch Penn State football and they demand adult beverages. Mahon certainly is aware of this or should be. In the intimidating op-ed piece he wrote for the CDT he states,

Two-hundred-eighty million dollars [of the Penn State budget] is associated with self-supporting budgets such as housing, food services, athletics, the Bryce Jordan Center, conferences and the Nittany Lion Inn. Cutting that just means fewer jobs and less tourism in the region, not to mention less material available to fill the CDT sports pages.

Let me connect the dots for Mahon. Cutting the athletic budget means less tourism which means fewer bars and bottle shops. Fewer bars and bottle shops mean less temptations for students to drink. Fewer temptations means less drinking.

Until Penn State acknowledges that football culture and alcohol culture go hand-in-hand the problem will go unsolved.

It's a Lovely Paper You Have. You Wouldn't Want Anything to Happen to It Would You?

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it.-Upton Sinclair

Speaking of the CDT and Penn State flack Bill Mahon, he recently penned an op-ed for the paper. It was in response to a CDT editorial which criticized the University for having the highest tuition of any public university in the country. What makes this op-ed interesting is that it contains a veiled threat to use the University's economic muscle to punish the CDT. In fact there were two veiled threats. The first is this reminder to the CDT about which side of their bread is buttered by the University.

Two-hundred-eighty million dollars [of the Penn State budget] is associated with self-supporting budgets such as housing, food services, athletics, the Bryce Jordan Center, conferences and the Nittany Lion Inn. Cutting that just means fewer jobs and less tourism in the region, not to mention less material available to fill the CDT sports pages.

Then there was a reminder that many CDT readers depend on Penn State for their livelihood and they suffer when Penn State holds tuition down.

Before editorializing that Penn State's administration needs to have its feathers ruffled, it might be a good idea to speak to the thousands of CDT readers who are Penn State employees. These dedicated Penn Staters, in order to help us keep tuition increases down, received pay raises that barely kept pace with inflation, had their college and department budgets cut by millions of dollars, will see their instructional workloads grow and are asked year after year to tighten their belts further.

The unspoken premise is that we will redirect their ire about the measly raises and heavier loads from us to you.

Now most people understand that a paper like the CDT in a town dominated by a single employer, as Penn State dominates the Centre Region, cannot be too critical of that employer for fear of economic retaliation. However the threat is typically understood but not spoken. Rarely do you see even a veiled threat such as this. Therefore the op-ed is educational, while at the same time, it is appalling.

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.