Colleges Can Cut Scandal With Transparency, Top School Administrators Say
Universities need to be more transparent internally and with the public when there is trouble, college athletic directors and administrators said during panel discussions in New York today.
The officials, who were speaking at the IMG Intercollegiate Athletics Forum, said the need for communication is paramount, especially in light of the child sex-abuse allegations tied to Penn State University.
“The moment something goes wrong, you have a press conference about it, you get it out and you deal with it,” University of Texas President Bill Powers said during a panel discussion about the state of intercollegiate athletics. “Almost all the problems that we’re seeing were exacerbated by not getting them out and dealing with them.”
Penn State fired football coach Joe Paterno, 84, and President Graham B. Spanier, 63, last month for their handling of child sex-abuse allegations against former assistant coach Jerry Sandusky.
Sandusky, 67, was charged by state prosecutors Nov. 5 with 40 counts related to alleged molestation of eight boys from 1994 to 2009. He has denied any wrongdoing. Today he was charged with sexually abusing two more children.
Paterno, who won a record 409 games as Penn State’s coach, was fired and Spanier was removed as the university’s president by the Board of Trustees for inaction after word of possible assaults became known in 2002.
Athletic Director Tim Curley and Senior Vice President Gary Schultz were charged with perjury and failure to report the allegations. They have denied the charges.
Winning Mentality
“Being transparent is a part of being a winner,” University of Washington Athletic Director Scott Woodward said in an interview. “Promoting that culture is a key part of an athletic director’s job.”
John Currie, athletic director at Kansas State University, said that his salary was listed in the second paragraph of the press release when he was hired in 2009. That set the precedent for openness throughout the department, Currie said.
“We are getting out, meeting face to face with our people, being very communicative and listening,” he said. “The transparency thing has worked.”
Ohio State football coach Jim Tressel resigned last year after the National Collegiate Athletic Association found that he kept information regarding infractions by his players from school administrators for more than nine months. Five Buckeyes were suspended for selling or trading uniforms and other memorabilia, and the team vacated 12 wins from the 2010 season.
Secrecy Threatens
NCAA President Mark Emmert said secrecy is one of the biggest dangers to any organization.
“Any place in society where people have power asymmetry, where you have high levels of trust between those people, and then surround it with secrecy or privacy you are at risk for bad things to happen,” Emmert said. “Athletics programs are especially susceptible to all three of those and we have to work very hard to make sure that those kinds of environments don’t exist.”
Penn State would also benefit from outside perspectives, Woodward said during the panel.
“You always need new blood,” he said.
There may be financial benefits for schools being more transparent. Currie said Kansas State’s alumni have responded to the university’s commitment to openness.
“We’re over-the-top transparent and the people have responded to that with some of the largest giving years we’ve ever had,” he said.
To contact the reporters on this story: Eben Novy-Williams in New York at enovywilliam@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Michael Sillup at msillup@bloomberg.net
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