Tom Corbett vs Graham Spanier - THE PENN STATE CULTURE

by Barry Bozeman
FOR THE FUTURE - we must recognize the past. 

The announcement yesterday of the great achievement of the FOR THE FUTURE campaign reminds us of when that campaign began back in April of 2010.

Penn State sets $2 billion goal for campaign to help students

April 23, 2010  University Park, Pa. – President Graham Spanier announced that Penn State will aim to secure $2 billion by 2014 to ensure that the University can continue to offer an outstanding education to students from every economic background while benefiting the public through research and service.

 Penn State raises more than $2 billion in For the Future campaign

April 12, 2014 -- Penn State doubled the amount collected in its last 7 year drive, became one of only 12 public universities in the country to exceed $2 billion in a fundraising campaign, and convinced more alumni to donate along the way than in any other campaign in the nation.

Graham Spanier's 16 year tenure as Penn State University just keeps on giving. We have to wonder why it had to stop. A brief history lesson that should be known to all Penn Staters. 

Read more here: http://www.centredaily.com/2014/04/12/4132588/penn-state-raises-more-than-2.html#storylink=cpyCorbett defeats Onorato

Corbett defeats Onorato

November 3, 2010  -- Pennsylvania is open for business: That’s the message governor-elect Tom Corbett emphasized in his acceptance speech Tuesday night after opponent Dan Onorato conceded the race.  A 1971 graduate of Lebanon Valley College, Corbett went to St. Mary’s Law School 

Devastating appropriation cut by Gov Corbett advanced for Penn State 

March 8, 2011 -- Penn State and other Pennsylvania public universities are slated for the most dramatic appropriation cut in the history of American higher education, based on the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania's budget proposal released today (March 8) by Gov. Tom Corbett.

The budget cuts Penn State's appropriation by 52.4 percent, a devastating reduction of $182 million. This includes a 50 percent cut in Penn State's educational appropriation, a 50 percent cut in its Agricultural Research and Cooperative Extension appropriations, the loss of all federal stimulus dollars, a reduction for the Pennsylvania College of Technology, and the total elimination of medical assistance funding for the Penn State Hershey Medical Center.
 The proposed appropriation represents the most severe funding cut in Penn State’s 157-year history and suggests a redefinition of Penn State's role as Pennsylvania’s land-grant institution.

 Spanier: 'Abraham Lincoln Is Weeping' as Corbett Pushes Penn State Cuts

March 09, 2011 -- Gov. Tom Corbett's proposed budget would move Penn State "substantially" toward privatization and signal "near-total abandonment" of state support for public higher education in Pennsylvania, university President Graham Spanier said Wednesday. "Public higher education is not just a private good. It is a public good that benefits all society,"  Spanier opened in part by declaring that "Abraham Lincoln is weeping today," a reference to the Morrill Act of 1862. The act, signed by then-President Lincoln, fostered the creation of land-grant institutions -- including Penn State -- to expand the availability to higher education for the non-elite.

Attorneys say Gov. Tom Corbett is behind the charges against Graham Spanier

NOV 1 2012 -- Former Penn State president Graham Spanier says he's not guilty of the cover-up charges he faces in the Jerry Sandusky molestation scandal, and he is accusing the governor of trying to settle a personal score. Spanier's lawyers say facts don't support the charges, and claim Corbett is behind what they call a politically motivated frame-up. The charges are the result of Gov. Tom Corbett trying to divert attention from the three-year investigation into Sandusky that began when the governor was attorney general. Corbett spokesman Kevin Harley says Spanier's statement "sounds like the ranting of a desperate man who just got indicted."

Investigation to Focus on Governor’s Handling of Penn StateAbuse Case

January 31, 2013 -- Pennsylvania’s new attorney general is set to name a special prosecutor in the coming days to investigate Gov. Tom Corbett’s handling of the case, specifically why nearly three years elapsed before criminal charges were brought.:

The Inside Scoop from Sources at Penn State

At Saturday's Penn State Blue and White spring game, Graham Spanier was seen with Sue and Jay Paterno. Fans attending the first public outing of new head coach James Franklin's Penn State football team flocked to the trio, shaking hands and asking to have their pictures taken with the group. That is the way things should be in State College, where legendary Joe Paterno's wife and son and the 16-year former President together greet fans, alumni, and students representing a legacy of Success with Honor.  Yes, that's the way it should be and, in some ways, that's how it is, but a very large cloud hangs over this pleasant spring event in State College and over these leaders who did so much to shape Penn State.  

Two men are primarily responsible for that cloud that covers and confuses what should be. One, an old assistant football coach from well over a decade in the past, sits in a prison cell. The other, a man who never attended Penn State, sits in the Governor's office.  

Flashback to this same stadium on a game day in October, 2010. Democratic gubernatorial candidate, Don Onorato, arrived at the stadium and had a chance encounter with President Graham Spanier, when he entered the elevator taking dignitaries to the special suites above the stands. Someone saw Spanier and Onorato in that elevator and reported it to Republican candidate Tom Corbett. 

President Graham Spanier's expressed policy was to never endorse or support any political candidate for state office. Spanier's office would send  notice of that policy to every campaign, stating that Penn State would welcome candidates on campus and at sporting events and even entertain candidates for Governor in the President's suite, where Onorato was scheduled to be that day. Visits would be scheduled on an equal time basis and  Corbett was scheduled for the following week. Evidently Corbett  failed to understand the policy that day. 

Corbett, reportedly, was enraged over the two men in the elevator -- telling several people attending the game in a corporate suite that one of his first acts as Governor would be to "get a new PSU President."  In that one campaign promise, Corbett succeeded -- but at what cost to Penn State? 

We are left to wonder which interests were represented in that corporate suite. It certainly wasn't education in Pennsylvania. This Governor evidently despises educators, given his budget-slashing at record levels. 

The score at the Blue - White game isn't important -- those Penn Staters are all on the same team. But the financial scoreboard at Penn State should be important. In that contest, Graham Spanier is way out in the plus column, while Corbett is down in deficit hell. Graham Spanier served Penn State with honor and integrity for 16 years and his insight in November, 2011, should have been followed.. But the interests controlling the BOT decided against Spanier and for Corbett. 

Siding with Corbett and Surma led to $300 million or more in losses to Penn State in settlements, sanctions, and penalties. If the BOT had taken the intelligent course outlined by Graham Spanier in this post, Joel Myers vs Graham Spanier The PENN STATE CULTURE, we would be waiting for the courts to adjudicate the Curley, Schultz and Spanier cases to determine the legal liability of Penn State in the Sandusky Scandal. Tom Corbett made the Sandusky Scandal into the Penn State Scandal, and the BOT caved in to his petty, vindictive attack. The costs associated with Corbett's attack and the BOT's weak-kneed complicity has yet to be fully resolved. 

Tom Corbett or Graham Spanier -- which man had the best interests of Penn State at heart? One controls your Board of Trustees -- the other awaits trial on absurd conspiracy charges. We are left to ponder the impact of that elevator ride and Corbett's drive to deprive Penn State of millions in funding on the decision to indict Penn State administrators including Graham Spanier. The clear evidence that the Attorney General purposely altered the date of the false McQueary claim in order to clear the statute of limitations is a definite cause for concern.