Saturday, November 17, 2012

Penn St. trustees set to search for new president

STATE COLLEGE, Pa.?Penn State trustees are set to formally begin the search for a new president against the backdrop of renewed scrutiny of university governance in light of the Jerry Sandusky child sex-abuse scandal.

Trustees are scheduled Friday to wrap up two days of regularly-scheduled meetings with a full assembly of the board, during which they plan to vote on plans to search for President Rodney Erickson's replacement.

Erickson took over the post a year ago to replace Graham Spanier, who departed under pressure the same day Hall of Fame coach Joe Paterno was ousted in the fallout from the sweeping scandal. Erickson has said he intends to retire when his contract expires in June 2014.

The search process was initially supposed to start early next year, board chairwoman Karen Peetz said Thursday. But the timeline was accelerated and the process will officially start Friday because the potential pool of candidates is tighter than usual, and "there have been a lot of people out looking recently," Peetz said.

"We're giving it a little extra time because as we understand it the field for candidates is reduced," she told The Associated Press after committee meetings Thursday.

She said she was optimistic the school could attract promising prospects in spite of the bevy of issues facing the institution because of the scandal, citing as an example the recent hiring of Stephen Dunham as general counsel from Johns Hopkins. The hope is to settle on Erickson's replacement by next November.

Trustees began meeting Thursday in various committees, but did not take final action on any topics. If the process is approved Friday as expected, a trustees committee headed by Peetz will head the search. The committee will receive potential candidate names from a separate panel comprised of students, faculty and other campus constituencies.

The school is also expected to hire a search firm to help. Board members at a governance committee meeting hearing Thursday in part discussed whether the school wanted to limit its search to traditional, academic-minded candidates, or to look at prospects with more diverse experiences.

The beginning of the search process comes on the heels of the state auditor general's recommendations to reform the university's governing structure because of the scandal that led to unprecedented sanctions against the football program from the NCAA, college sports' governing body. Criminal charges are pending against Spanier and other former high-ranking university officials accused of helping to cover up abuse complaints, but they say they're innocent.

One of the recommendations from the auditor general was the removal of the university president as a voting trustee. The school is still sifting through many of the 119 recommendations made by former FBI director Louis Freeh, who led Penn State's internal investigation.

The University Faculty Senate is also scheduled to deliver similar recommendations. Trustees said they will consider all the recommendations before deciding how to proceed.

In addition, the trustees on Friday are scheduled to vote on a "Code of Conduct" for the athletic department, part of the "athletics integrity agreement" in the NCAA's consent decree with Penn State.

Source: http://www.yorkdispatch.com/ci_22008924/penn-st-trustees-set-search-new-president?source=rss_viewed

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