Penn State Office of the President
201 Old Main
University Park, PA 16802
Dear President Barron
Thank you for taking the time out of your busy day to write to the Penn State community. As a 3rd generation Penn Stater whose roots date back to 1928, I do hope that one thing you do more than any other in your tenure here is keep open honest lines of communication with all constituents in our great community. One thing that has surely been lacking in this crisis for PSU is strong leadership and good communication.
With that I do take exception to your letter regarding civility. From day one of this crisis the powerful few who control our beloved University (the Board's power bloc), have shown complete disregard for civility. Though I could come up with dozens of examples ("There are no do overs" - Ken Frazier), the single shining example of this was the firing of Penn State coaching legend Joseph Vincent Paterno via phone the evening of November 9, 2011.
Coach Paterno served this amazing university for 61 years with loyalty, love, dedication, hard work, excellence, and honor. As recently detailed by his son Jay, he often gave up being a normal father and husband to tend to Penn State. In what was his career's darkest hour, when he most needed the University he gave everything he had to to have his back, the record indicates that they turned their back on him. In the 4 days from when the Sandusky news broke until the moment of that fateful phone call the Board never once asked Joe Paterno his version of what happened. They never once gave him any chance to respond to the allegations, not facts, presented publicly. Instead after four days they simply sent one of his previous pupils to his door in the dark of night with a phone number and fired him with disgrace over the phone. After that they tried to claim they had not done what the world saw them do, claiming he had not been fired, but "retired early".
The leaders of our university sacrificed the man who spent 61 years building the institution they now use to further their careers for expediency and ease. Little did they know that would be their worst mistake. The man who taught us everything, how to do things the right way, Success With Honor, is a man that many of us will go to the ends of the earth to fight for. Our power brokers are learning that now. Despite their attempt to sweep all of this under the rug and "move forward", they will one day have to answer on record for their selfishness. They are being pulled into multiple lawsuits, and great people like Ryan Bagwell are demanding that records be made public. Coach Paterno's last dying wish was the truth, and many of us will not stop until that is seen.
So when you ask for civility you hold the power to help make this happen. The first step is an official apology to Sue Paterno and the Paterno family for how they have been treated in all of this. The second step is to stand up and fight for what is right and true. The stakes are high, as children in PA are still in grave danger as long as these truths are kept in the dark. I ask you to take the first step and have the University officially apologize to the Paterno family.
John G. Yonchuk III
B.S. Biology 1999
Life Member, Penn State Alumni Association
Thank you for your eloquent and excellent response.
ReplyDeleteExcellent response John. President Barron has already sent out a clarification to his intent behind the original message.
ReplyDeleteVia Onward State....
I thought I would respond to you directly. The letter, which comes from discussion at many levels in the University, arises from several examples. Let me give you a few. This spring, many commencement speakers at different universities across the country were disinvited or bowed out because groups exhibited outrage because they disagreed with actions taken by the speakers. That is incredibly unhealthy given that universities should be places where you are able to discuss ideas freely. Alumni candidates on both sides of the issues related to the Consent degree have complained that they were astounded by the rudeness of some of the comments they received. That is not exactly the message we want when we want to encourage strong candidates to run for office. We have donors who tell me this is a subject to avoid, or if they have spoken out loud about it, that they have lost their "feel good about Penn State" sense. That is a sad story. Some may think this letter is about a "side" or an event, but it isn't, and it would be good to re-read it. The letter is about making sure we can talk about important issues, and it stems from and accumulation of examples, some of which are national in scope.
Thank you, John.
ReplyDeleteWell written and to the point.