<p>so forget the morality, legality or general questions of who did what to whom, and who knew. Let me ask another question, very relevant to this board. What do you think of the way this is being handled by PSU? In a place where public relations/communications is touted as one of the best majors, what can we say about the PR nightmare that continues? Is anyone in any position of authority paying any attention whatsoever to the utter and complete failure of this university to handle this correctly? And I am talking about from the day of the arrest forward, not before.</p>
<p>I cannot imagine being the parent of a potential comm/PR major sending them to this school. What do you do, put this as a case study of "What not to do?"</p>
<p>^^^^ I would disagree. You may not like some of the decisions they have made but I think they have made the hard choices and handled it pretty well (and I’m an alumnus)</p>
<p>MY H is an alum, and recently received the “Pennstater”, the alumni magazine. It is usually filled with fluff type article about current students, alumni and sports. This month’s issue was completely devoted to the horrible events that made it “Penn State’s Darkest Days” as the cover indicated. I read through it, and was impressed by the way they handled the situation.</p>
<p>I am a parent of a potential COMM major at PSU, and I’m perfectly fine and a pretty responsible parent. The BOT exec committee is made up of CEOs and such, not professional PR people. Obviously. They’ve done a poor job controlling their message, and you are correct: one of the COMM classes is, in fact, using the ongoing trainwreck as a “what not to do” seminar. It is difficult to separate “what they decide” from “how they present it” but an instruction nevertheless.</p>
<p>I don’t think the BOT’s inability to strike the right tone has much significance toward my student’s education in the classroom about how to manage an edit, how to produce a good camera shot, or how to write a good lead. PSU will continue to have excellent facilities and opportunities for PA students and OOS students with $$$, and that’s why S2 wants to go there.</p>
<p>I did not receive the PennStater magazine (need to get on that list), but have received numerous emails from the university, alumni organization and the new university President. They have certainly done a good job of keeping their constituencies (students, alums, parents) informed.</p>
<p>And greenbutton is right - this is an exceptional learning opportunity for current students, and future students.</p>
<p>I have a student who is in the “comm/PR”, etc. area of study at the graduate level at PSU. She started at the school before all this broke and has never considered leaving because of the excellent education she is receiving. </p>
<p>It is not the job of, or the responsibility of, OR are the thousands of excellent professors even given the chance to “handle this correctly”. There is a small group of people (BOT) handling the aftermath, and what they do does not affect the quality of the education the students are receiving. This small group of 30 or so are the voice for a school with 45,000 students, nearly 9,000 academic staff and thousands of other employees. Would what they are saying be what these 65,000-70,000 people would say?? How about those who live in State College, they certainly have a vested interest in this too! How would they handle it?? You could go on and on. At some point you have to say that this is the responsibility of this group of people and let them do their job. </p>
<p>In the end, does any person, group or institution ever handle something like this “correctly”. The very nature of it doesn’t allow for it. Handling it one way would draw praise from one side and condemnation from another. I think they are handling it the best they can. Our daughter agrees that it can be an unparalleled learning experience - stand back and watch, step up and take a stand, see what worked, noticed what failed. And during this time of healing, PSU will continue to be a top notch university with very bright students and excellent professors.</p>
<p>I think that PSU is doing the right things from a communications pPOV…just this week they started positioning it as a Sandusky scandal…this is the first step to take the focus off PSU…</p>
