How the mighty have fallen... and who may take their place

Graham Spanier goes on trial today in my home state of Pennsylvania.  To coin a cliche, it seems like only yesterday that Spanier was a national leader in higher education.  Penn State wasn't just a football power boasting perhaps the most popular coach since Knute Rockne.  It was the 800-pound gorilla in the Keystone State's higher ed living room.  In a state with dozens of small liberal arts colleges and a 14-university state system, PSU seemed to be in everybody's face.  It's two-year feeder campuses were rapidly being converted into four-year competitors to nearly every other college and university, no matter in which out-of-the-way corner of the Commonwealth.  And an online presence sought to make the whole human population into potential customers.

But there has always been a little something of the de classe about PSU.  It's hard to put one's finger on it.  But let me try an anecdote.  About ten years ago, Notre Dame was hosting Penn State football.  I took my mother-in-law, a die-hard Notre Dame subway alumna, to South Bend for the game.  We started our Saturday morning on campus with mass in the  famed golden-domed chapel.  After mass, I bought her a green rosary.  Then, before going to our bus's tailgate gathering, we took a walking tour of the campus.  We ran into a lot of Penn State students in town for the gridiron contest.  One of them, already inebriated at noon, advised us, "You Notre Dame fans don't know how to throw a party."

Penn State's party came at a high price.  It killed Papa Joe Paterno in two quick stages: first his reputation and then his life.  And, whatever the trial's outcome, it ended Spanier's illustrious career.  Quite a few lesser lights of PSU also went down with the Sandusky ship.  A couple of them will be appearing as witnesses against Spanier.

Was a time when college presidents were spokesmen (well, yes, they were all men) for national values.  One---Woodrow Wilson of Princeton --- became the actual U.S. President.  Today, we witness a former president of a major university system in the dock.  What a reversal of fortune for higher education.

But perhaps the women in higher ed's highest office will redeem us.  The University of Pennsylvania, under the leadership of President Amy Gutmann, has declared itself a sanctuary campus.  If Dr. Gutmann finds herself in the dock one day, it will be for all the right reasons... not for the sake of a macho football program.

Penn's official statement is one that co-founder Benjamin Franklin would be proud of, I think.  And Dr. Gutmann is proving herself to be a real class act.