Pennsylvania’s Educational Culture of Corruption

by Robert B. Sklaroff, M.D.

Philadelphia

The Sandusky Affair exposed an aloofness that pervades academe, certainly in Pennsylvania and perhaps nationally.  The State Legislature will need to confront how it will fund a system that forgot its fundamentals; this challenge extends to all institutions supported by The Forgotten Taxpayer, not just Penn State.

No Smiles in Happy Valley

During the four decades following my graduation from Penn State Graduate [B.S. 1972], I have revered Joe Pa’s image of promoting academics over athleticism, ethics over egotism.  The Freeh Report [http://i.cdn.turner.com/si/.element/img/4.0/global/swapper/201207/120712.01.pdf] and The Coach’s acknowledgements have confirmed his shortcomings, and a strong case will be made to the NCAA for imposition of the “death penalty” [banned for a finite time-period, and thus forced to rebuild a program]. That crimes were unreported may be the trigger, but that an underlying attitude infested the institution may be the determinant.

Raw arrogance yielded overt efforts to cover-up this scandal and to obstruct the Freeh investigation, promulgated by the top-tier leadership:  Graham B. Spanier (President), Gary C. Schultz (Senior Vice-President), and Tim Curley (Athletic Director).  Underreported was the misconduct of Cynthia A. Baldwin (General Counsel), who was permitted to witness Grand Jury testimony.  She remained silent as Curley and Schultz claimed to the Grand Jury (on January 12, 2011) that she represented them, a status she subsequently disclaimed.  And despite first-person awareness of what had transpired, she opposed any independent investigation by the University [akin to the Freeh Report] because “if we do this, we will never get rid of this group in some shape or form” (page 92).  As a prior Board Chair (2004-2007) and Supreme Court Justice (appointed by Governor Rendell in 2005), she was woven into the fabric of top-tier management and, thus, embodied its shortcomings.

This conduct contrasted with third-person portrayal of JoePa’s lack of assiduous follow-up of what he had reported to his superiors.  Thus, invoking the Paterno Statue as a metaphor, some have advised that he be removed from his pedestal, flipped 180-degrees to face his players from a lower-position [“so his back is facing everyone just like he turned his back on the kids”], and provided a blue-ribbon to symbolize the crime of child abuse. 

Anguish in Kutztown

I attended the Commencement at Kutztown University (on May 12, 2012), which is one of fourteen schools that comprise the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education.  The Keynote Address (“Surviving the Future”) was delivered by Anke B. Walz, Ph.D. (Associate Professor of Mathematics), whose attack on religious thought prompted two dozen people to walk-out.  As a result, I generated memos regarding what transpired, left unanswered both by the speaker and by top University personnel:  Robert Watrous (Dean of Student Services and Campus Life), Sean A. Dallas (Assistant Director of University Relations) and William J. Mowder, Ph.D. (Dean, College of Visual & Performing Arts). 

They chose to ignore proof that her broad-brush condemnation of The Church (past/present) was not supported by even the most superficial effort to acquire documentation via the Internet.  Thus, I challenged both her philosophy and her academic citations, advising that her credentialing be examined and that a clarification-letter be remitted to the graduates who had been exposed to her chicanery.

Her speech [http://www.ustream.tv/recorded/22537285] and my rejoinder [http://www. scribd.com/doc/100202037/Kutztown-5-12-12] are available for review, illustrating that I did not address this concern as a Fundamentalist Christian (her clear target, throughout), recognizing that I am a politically-conservative Jew.

Regardless of editorialization, however, I prodded these academic-administrators to clarify the record, for she had falsely claimed that Medieval mathematicians had to express undue fealty to the Church. 

I expressed “outrage over pseudo-simplicity masquerading as academe, over elitism smothering philosophy, over invoking Progressivism to launch youth into a world of complexity and opportunity…and, most importantly, over political bias dominating the very scientific method that is allegedly being espoused.”  I challenged her scholarship and her pandering to the politically-correct (global warming, gay marriage); although the latter had provoked the emotional reaction of disgust, the presence of the former reflected the diseased Ivory Tower Mentality that requires urgent remediation.

Opportunity in Harrisburg

The Constitution mandates that “The General Assembly shall provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of public education to serve the needs of the Commonwealth” (Article III, Section 14).  Within the context of graduate and post-graduate environments, this necessitates conveying a critical-thinking attitude towards pedagogy that would launch fulfilling and productive adulthoods.  Those who are role-models must set examples that do not falter when the need for good-citizenry has never been greater.

As Pennsylvania’s industrial base has waned, the educational edifice has flourished.  This has created conflict within small-towns that have benefitted economically while suffering morally, for “provincial” attitudes are predictably supplanted by on-campus micro-governments.  Ministrations directed against erosion of ethics (both in the sciences and in the liberal arts) would provide secondary-gain, restoring fealty to routinely-overlooked inconvenient truths.  When the university can divert law-enforcement from discharging its responsibilities—as occurred in State College (in 1998)—a fiasco cries for intervention…ASAP.

The Kutztown “Liberal” Mind (alas, not of the “Classical” variety in this “Modern” age) that would deliver such an unjustified and unjustifiable anti-religious diatribe is linked to an academic environment in University Park where a pattern of moral turpitude had been led for a decade by the most respected/honored leaders of the past four-plus decades.  Such atmospherics perpetrated internal-rot, for downplaying laser-focus on good/evil shrouded a cover-up rationalized by moral-relativism.   Students of all ages must be scrupulously trained to apply all the powers of situational-ethics when problem-solving—devoid of bias and piousness—for misdirection has no role in scholarship.

Historically, the coal and railroad industries may have run Pennsylvania, but now the state seems to be controlled by “higher education with lower standards.”  The imperious attitude of pseudo-academicians and powerful-profiteers now runs not only the trains, but the entire railroad.  It is the oversight responsibility of the legislature to ensure monies are not misdirected to those who would squander this opportunity to congeal the next generation of industrious Americans.