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Letter to President Barron and Office of Giving

B_Levinson

Well-Known Member
Jun 27, 2014
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President Barron, (cc: Penn Staters for Responsible Stewardship, Raise Penn State)


Thank you for including Coach Paterno in the video shown at the Homecoming game. This is a first step toward making good the damage caused by the Board of Trustees’ rush to judgment in 2011, and its subsequent failures, but it is only a first step, and not sufficient to alleviate my concerns about donating or leaving money to Penn State. I am trying to ascertain from the Office of Gift Planning (copied on this E-mail) whether a directed donation or bequest to a specific program, such as the Department of Chemistry, Paterno Fellowship, or Paterno Library, will be used expressly for that purpose or whether the money is fungible with Penn State’s general budget, or the Development Fund takes a portion of directed donations or bequests. If the money is fungible in any way then I will, as matters stand presently, have to disinherit Penn State in favor of something else such as THON assuming THON is totally independent of the University. There are no circumstances under which I will trust the Board of Trustees, as currently “led” by its appointed rather than elected (alumni) Trustees, to use the money responsibly for the University’s educational mission.

The University still has my recommendation, based on my own experience as a student, over far more expensive Ivy League schools. I can’t speak for radio host Dave Ramsey but I think he would recommend Penn State over Ivy League schools so students can avoid incurring debt while still getting a first-class education. I will not, however, donate or bequeath money so the Board of Trustees, as currently “led” by the appointed majority, can squander my gift or bequest on, for example, the NCAA sanctions,* the Freeh Report (which the Board failed to review diligently when it was released and has continued to decline to review), and (my opinion) tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in payouts to alleged Sandusky victims for whose injuries Penn State bears no responsibility whatsoever.

Penn State’s Board of Trustees does not have my trust, respect, or support

A lady or gentleman who makes a mistake apologizes for the mistake, and shows what he or she will do to ensure that the mistake will never happen again. When this happens, the person to whom the apology is directed will, if he is a gentleman, then conduct himself as if the offense had never happened. I like to think of myself as a gentleman but this Board has, far from apologizing, compounded its original mistakes. The Board needs to correct its past failures by formally apologizing to Penn State and the Paterno family, and by restoring the Paterno Statue to its former place, before it deserves to regain the trust, respect, and support of the Penn State community.

November 9 2011

The Board that fired Joe Paterno in 2011 did not exercise even rudimentary diligence and due process by asking Coach Paterno for his side of the story and in fact, as I recall, did not take Paterno’s phone calls. The same Board did not ask Mike McQueary for his side of the story. Had it done so, it would have learned that, contrary to the Grand Jury presentment, McQueary did not see Jerry Sandusky sexually assault a child and did not tell Paterno he had seen a sexual assault. This would have largely dispelled public outrage over the false belief that McQueary reported an actual crime to Paterno and University administrators who then ignored it.

The Board would also have known that McQueary did not tell Spanier, Curley, or Schultz that he actually saw a crime. I read a transcript of his deposition and he said he did not deem what he thought he might have possibly maybe have seen reportable to police. His father, a mandated sexual abuse reporter, and a family friend (Dr. Dranov, another mandated reporter), did not advise him to report the incident to anybody but Paterno who, in turn, followed University procedures for which the Trustees were ultimately responsible by reporting it to his own superior. Paterno also followed the NCAA’s procedures, at least as currently written. They say you report a suspected incident to the designated person (which Paterno did) and then you keep your hands off. You do not conduct your own investigation, share unfounded with suspicions with others (as Freeh suggested Paterno should have done), or “do more.”

March 2012

In March 2012, this Board released the following statement. : https://news.psu.edu/story/150954/2012/03/12/report-board-trustees-concerning-nov-9-decisions This story was repeated in newspapers around the country.

“While Coach Paterno did his legal duty by reporting that information the next day, Sunday, March 3, to his immediate superior, the then Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley, the Board reasonably inferred that he did not call police. We determined that his decision to do his minimum legal duty and not to do more to follow up constituted a failure of leadership by Coach Paterno. … At about 9 pm, we unanimously made the difficult decision that Coach Paterno’s failure of leadership required his removal as football coach.”

“Unanimous” means that every single member of the Board, as constituted at the time, was a party to this statement (minus one who distanced himself from it by resigning). Here, however, is what Trustee Keith Masser said under oath in his deposition in Corman and McCord vs. NCAA.

From pages 54 and 55 of this deposition (answers are Masser's):
11 Q. Do you know if anyone had interviewed Coach
12 Paterno prior to that decision being made?
13 A. The decision to remove Coach Paterno had
14 nothing to do with what he had known, what he hadn't
15 done. It was based upon the distraction of having
16 him on the sidelines would have caused the
17 University and the harm to the current football
18 team. It had nothing to do with what Coach Paterno
19 had done or hadn't done.


The Board as constituted in March 2012 used the phrase “failure of leadership” twice, while not under oath. If the decision to remove Paterno had “nothing to do with what he had known, what he hadn’t done” then he was not removed for failure of leadership which means (my opinion, based on my understanding of the USMA’s Honor Code) the entire March 2012 Board, minus the honorable exception, lied or acquiesced to a lie told on their behalf, i.e. “tolerated those who do.” http://www.truthmagazine.com/archives/volume17/TM017411a.html adds, “Silence is often the refuge of the coward and the compromiser. It is quite often an effective means in perpetuating a vicious lie. Many an individual, who would not think of voicing a vicious falsehood about his neighbor, will give consent to and assist in perpetuating such a lie by silence when a word from him could have corrected and stopped the matter.”

I did a Google search on “false accusation” and “honor code” with the expectation of finding something on the USMA’s web site. The first entry that came up was that of Penn State’s law school. https://pennstatelaw.psu.edu/honor-code/chapter-2 “Interfering with the investigation and disposition of any violation or alleged violation of the Honor Code, including but not limited to a knowingly false accusation…” and the entire Board (minus the one exception) as constituted in March 2012 falsely accused Coach Paterno of “failure of leadership.”

July 2012

In July 2012, Karen Peetz stated "The Board of Trustees, as the group that has paramount accountability for overseeing and ensuring the proper functioning and governance of the University, accepts full responsibility for the failures cited in the Freeh Report.” The minutes of the July 2012 meeting do not indicate that the Board reviewed, much less ratified, the report. My recollection is that the Board’s rules do not permit any Trustee to speak on behalf of the Board without the Board’s consent. This Board failed to step up and correct Peetz’s statement by saying that she could speak only as an individual Trustee and not on behalf of the Board. The NCAA later used the Board’s “acceptance” of the Freeh Report as an excuse to impose its highly questionable sanctions.

Even worse, when an alumni Trustee (Joel Myers, as I recall) pointed this out, the same Board pressured him to sit down and shut up. University-paid communication resources were also used later (2014) to publicly attack other alumni Trustees which I perceived as a misuse of University resources for personal purposes not approved by the University.

Masser’s deposition also shows that members of the Board’s Executive Committee, along with Rodney Erickson, concealed the NCAA consent decree from the rest of the Board in accordance with demands from the NCAA. That is, the NCAA was permitted to do an end run around the people who have fiduciary responsibility for the University.

September 2012

The Board, as then constituted, declined to review the Freeh Report despite numerous defects (such as conflicting stories told by Freeh as to what Paterno knew about Sandusky’s activities) that are immediately obvious to anybody who exercises even basic diligence by reading it. https://www.pennlive.com/midstate/2012/09/penn_state_trustees_arent_plan.html

Conclusion

As matters stand, Penn State’s governance does not command my trust, respect, or support. Other alumni have expressed similar beliefs. An unequivocal apology from the Board to the Paterno family and to Penn State for its past actions and failures would clear the air and allow the University to “move forward” and “put it behind us” as the Board has wished for more than seven years while making itself the principal barrier to achievement of this goal.

* Commonwealth Court Judge Dan Pellegrini issued a very scathing opinion to this effect, upon which he said the majority of the court agreed. The Trustees disbursed money for something unrelated to Penn State’s educational mission, and for which Penn State had no legal obligation to spend the money.

“The majority [of the court’s judges] appears to arrive at this outcome because it is bewildered, as I am, by how the Board of Trustees of PSU could have approved or allowed to be executed a “Consent Decree” involving the expenditure of $60 million of PSU funds when the Consent Decree specifically states that the matter “ordinarily would not be actionable by the NCAA.” If, as the majority suggests, the NCAA did not have jurisdiction over conduct because it did not involve the regulation of athletics, then the expenditure of those funds is problematic, given that PSU is a non-profit corporation as well as being tax-exempt as a charitable organization, and that Boards of Directors of non-profit charitable corporations have a fiduciary duty to ensure that funds are only used for matters related to its charitable purpose – in this case, the students of PSU. See 15 Pa. C.S. §5712. Moreover, the majority position is understandable given the lax supervision by those responsible for insuring that non-profit and charitable organizations operate as non-profit and charitable organizations as well as their failure to take action against Boards of Directors and Officers who use funds of a non-profit and/or charitable entity to pay funds that they are not legally obligated to pay and/or expend funds not related to their charitable purpose or who no longer act as a charity. See Zampogna v. Law Enforcement Health Benefits, Inc., 81 A.3d 1043, 1047 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2013).


Bill Levinson, B.S. ‘78
 
They won’t change - agreed. But maybe they can be embarrassed, although they would never admit it.
That reminds me of a guy I knew, now deceased, who was worth over 20 million but generally dressed like he lived under a bridge. I said to him once "Sam, no offense, but you dress like crap. Aren't you embarrassed?" And he replied "Nothing embarrasses me. I don't give a shit what people think."
 
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Awesome exposition, please publish it! You should allow anyone who is solicited by Penn State to send this as a response. Make this a standard response! Flood them with it. Also, send a copy to Governor of PA. Publish as BLOG, circulate it. This is excellent work, you put a lot of energy in this write up.

I salute you Bill.
 
We all know of the lies and subterfuge, and failing to answer us. Our only recourse is to withhold funds until they reform.
 
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I’d have to agree...... though I can appreciate the effort on the part of the poster.


These folks - the “folks” who’s ranks include Barron - need to be OPPOSED.
Opposed strongly, intelligently, righteously, publicly, vigorously, and continually.

Engaging in attempts at “persuasion”, with folks like Barron, are likely to be more hurt than help...... and only serve to solidify their delusions of superiority and justification.


Anyway........ so much for the soapbox

I agree with this. I'll also add that I doubt Barron actually reads it. But, if he does see it, I doubt he reads the entire piece. I think the OP should make the long version public and significantly shorten what he sends to Barron to include only two or three of his most important bullet points and at the end direct him to the longer version. If enough people send the short version, he might eventually decide to read the long version.
 
President Barron, (cc: Penn Staters for Responsible Stewardship, Raise Penn State)


Thank you for including Coach Paterno in the video shown at the Homecoming game. This is a first step toward making good the damage caused by the Board of Trustees’ rush to judgment in 2011, and its subsequent failures, but it is only a first step, and not sufficient to alleviate my concerns about donating or leaving money to Penn State. I am trying to ascertain from the Office of Gift Planning (copied on this E-mail) whether a directed donation or bequest to a specific program, such as the Department of Chemistry, Paterno Fellowship, or Paterno Library, will be used expressly for that purpose or whether the money is fungible with Penn State’s general budget, or the Development Fund takes a portion of directed donations or bequests. If the money is fungible in any way then I will, as matters stand presently, have to disinherit Penn State in favor of something else such as THON assuming THON is totally independent of the University. There are no circumstances under which I will trust the Board of Trustees, as currently “led” by its appointed rather than elected (alumni) Trustees, to use the money responsibly for the University’s educational mission.

The University still has my recommendation, based on my own experience as a student, over far more expensive Ivy League schools. I can’t speak for radio host Dave Ramsey but I think he would recommend Penn State over Ivy League schools so students can avoid incurring debt while still getting a first-class education. I will not, however, donate or bequeath money so the Board of Trustees, as currently “led” by the appointed majority, can squander my gift or bequest on, for example, the NCAA sanctions,* the Freeh Report (which the Board failed to review diligently when it was released and has continued to decline to review), and (my opinion) tens if not hundreds of millions of dollars in payouts to alleged Sandusky victims for whose injuries Penn State bears no responsibility whatsoever.

Penn State’s Board of Trustees does not have my trust, respect, or support

A lady or gentleman who makes a mistake apologizes for the mistake, and shows what he or she will do to ensure that the mistake will never happen again. When this happens, the person to whom the apology is directed will, if he is a gentleman, then conduct himself as if the offense had never happened. I like to think of myself as a gentleman but this Board has, far from apologizing, compounded its original mistakes. The Board needs to correct its past failures by formally apologizing to Penn State and the Paterno family, and by restoring the Paterno Statue to its former place, before it deserves to regain the trust, respect, and support of the Penn State community.

November 9 2011

The Board that fired Joe Paterno in 2011 did not exercise even rudimentary diligence and due process by asking Coach Paterno for his side of the story and in fact, as I recall, did not take Paterno’s phone calls. The same Board did not ask Mike McQueary for his side of the story. Had it done so, it would have learned that, contrary to the Grand Jury presentment, McQueary did not see Jerry Sandusky sexually assault a child and did not tell Paterno he had seen a sexual assault. This would have largely dispelled public outrage over the false belief that McQueary reported an actual crime to Paterno and University administrators who then ignored it.

The Board would also have known that McQueary did not tell Spanier, Curley, or Schultz that he actually saw a crime. I read a transcript of his deposition and he said he did not deem what he thought he might have possibly maybe have seen reportable to police. His father, a mandated sexual abuse reporter, and a family friend (Dr. Dranov, another mandated reporter), did not advise him to report the incident to anybody but Paterno who, in turn, followed University procedures for which the Trustees were ultimately responsible by reporting it to his own superior. Paterno also followed the NCAA’s procedures, at least as currently written. They say you report a suspected incident to the designated person (which Paterno did) and then you keep your hands off. You do not conduct your own investigation, share unfounded with suspicions with others (as Freeh suggested Paterno should have done), or “do more.”

March 2012

In March 2012, this Board released the following statement. : https://news.psu.edu/story/150954/2012/03/12/report-board-trustees-concerning-nov-9-decisions This story was repeated in newspapers around the country.

“While Coach Paterno did his legal duty by reporting that information the next day, Sunday, March 3, to his immediate superior, the then Penn State Athletic Director Tim Curley, the Board reasonably inferred that he did not call police. We determined that his decision to do his minimum legal duty and not to do more to follow up constituted a failure of leadership by Coach Paterno. … At about 9 pm, we unanimously made the difficult decision that Coach Paterno’s failure of leadership required his removal as football coach.”

“Unanimous” means that every single member of the Board, as constituted at the time, was a party to this statement (minus one who distanced himself from it by resigning). Here, however, is what Trustee Keith Masser said under oath in his deposition in Corman and McCord vs. NCAA.

From pages 54 and 55 of this deposition (answers are Masser's):
11 Q. Do you know if anyone had interviewed Coach
12 Paterno prior to that decision being made?
13 A. The decision to remove Coach Paterno had
14 nothing to do with what he had known, what he hadn't
15 done. It was based upon the distraction of having
16 him on the sidelines would have caused the
17 University and the harm to the current football
18 team. It had nothing to do with what Coach Paterno
19 had done or hadn't done.


The Board as constituted in March 2012 used the phrase “failure of leadership” twice, while not under oath. If the decision to remove Paterno had “nothing to do with what he had known, what he hadn’t done” then he was not removed for failure of leadership which means (my opinion, based on my understanding of the USMA’s Honor Code) the entire March 2012 Board, minus the honorable exception, lied or acquiesced to a lie told on their behalf, i.e. “tolerated those who do.” http://www.truthmagazine.com/archives/volume17/TM017411a.html adds, “Silence is often the refuge of the coward and the compromiser. It is quite often an effective means in perpetuating a vicious lie. Many an individual, who would not think of voicing a vicious falsehood about his neighbor, will give consent to and assist in perpetuating such a lie by silence when a word from him could have corrected and stopped the matter.”

I did a Google search on “false accusation” and “honor code” with the expectation of finding something on the USMA’s web site. The first entry that came up was that of Penn State’s law school. https://pennstatelaw.psu.edu/honor-code/chapter-2 “Interfering with the investigation and disposition of any violation or alleged violation of the Honor Code, including but not limited to a knowingly false accusation…” and the entire Board (minus the one exception) as constituted in March 2012 falsely accused Coach Paterno of “failure of leadership.”

July 2012

In July 2012, Karen Peetz stated "The Board of Trustees, as the group that has paramount accountability for overseeing and ensuring the proper functioning and governance of the University, accepts full responsibility for the failures cited in the Freeh Report.” The minutes of the July 2012 meeting do not indicate that the Board reviewed, much less ratified, the report. My recollection is that the Board’s rules do not permit any Trustee to speak on behalf of the Board without the Board’s consent. This Board failed to step up and correct Peetz’s statement by saying that she could speak only as an individual Trustee and not on behalf of the Board. The NCAA later used the Board’s “acceptance” of the Freeh Report as an excuse to impose its highly questionable sanctions.

Even worse, when an alumni Trustee (Joel Myers, as I recall) pointed this out, the same Board pressured him to sit down and shut up. University-paid communication resources were also used later (2014) to publicly attack other alumni Trustees which I perceived as a misuse of University resources for personal purposes not approved by the University.

Masser’s deposition also shows that members of the Board’s Executive Committee, along with Rodney Erickson, concealed the NCAA consent decree from the rest of the Board in accordance with demands from the NCAA. That is, the NCAA was permitted to do an end run around the people who have fiduciary responsibility for the University.

September 2012

The Board, as then constituted, declined to review the Freeh Report despite numerous defects (such as conflicting stories told by Freeh as to what Paterno knew about Sandusky’s activities) that are immediately obvious to anybody who exercises even basic diligence by reading it. https://www.pennlive.com/midstate/2012/09/penn_state_trustees_arent_plan.html

Conclusion

As matters stand, Penn State’s governance does not command my trust, respect, or support. Other alumni have expressed similar beliefs. An unequivocal apology from the Board to the Paterno family and to Penn State for its past actions and failures would clear the air and allow the University to “move forward” and “put it behind us” as the Board has wished for more than seven years while making itself the principal barrier to achievement of this goal.

* Commonwealth Court Judge Dan Pellegrini issued a very scathing opinion to this effect, upon which he said the majority of the court agreed. The Trustees disbursed money for something unrelated to Penn State’s educational mission, and for which Penn State had no legal obligation to spend the money.

“The majority [of the court’s judges] appears to arrive at this outcome because it is bewildered, as I am, by how the Board of Trustees of PSU could have approved or allowed to be executed a “Consent Decree” involving the expenditure of $60 million of PSU funds when the Consent Decree specifically states that the matter “ordinarily would not be actionable by the NCAA.” If, as the majority suggests, the NCAA did not have jurisdiction over conduct because it did not involve the regulation of athletics, then the expenditure of those funds is problematic, given that PSU is a non-profit corporation as well as being tax-exempt as a charitable organization, and that Boards of Directors of non-profit charitable corporations have a fiduciary duty to ensure that funds are only used for matters related to its charitable purpose – in this case, the students of PSU. See 15 Pa. C.S. §5712. Moreover, the majority position is understandable given the lax supervision by those responsible for insuring that non-profit and charitable organizations operate as non-profit and charitable organizations as well as their failure to take action against Boards of Directors and Officers who use funds of a non-profit and/or charitable entity to pay funds that they are not legally obligated to pay and/or expend funds not related to their charitable purpose or who no longer act as a charity. See Zampogna v. Law Enforcement Health Benefits, Inc., 81 A.3d 1043, 1047 (Pa. Cmwlth. 2013).


Bill Levinson, B.S. ‘78

Nice letter Bill. I also no longer trust Thon, as it is too affiliated with psu. Good luck
 
Donations designated for a specific purpose are, what I will call for want of a better term, "semi-fungible, regardless of whether PSU strips a percentage off for other purposes. For example, say you give $100K with the proviso that the entire sum goes to funding scholarships. Independent of your gift, PSU in its budgeting process had allocated $10mm from the General Fund for the same purposes. On receipt of your check, the boys with the green eye-shades and garter sleeves inform Old Main. What do you think those assholes do? Increase the scholarship budget to $10.1mm, or leave it at $10mm and find another use for the $100k? My guess is that you've just made a $100k contribution to Eric and Molly's Fine Art Space even though you'll get a nice letter from some factotum acknowledging your support of the scholarship fund.

The only way you exercise complete control of how you money is spent is to find something which PSU is otherwise not funding. Good luck with that.

Again, you are sorely misguided if you believe Fats is a source of redress.
 
That reminds me of a guy I knew, now deceased, who was worth over 20 million but generally dressed like he lived under a bridge. I said to him once "Sam, no offense, but you dress like crap. Aren't you embarrassed?" And he replied "Nothing embarrasses me. I don't give a shit what people think."
Fair...
That wouldn't be the same Sam who owned a number of rental properties in State College in the 60s, 70s and 80s is it?
 
Donations designated for a specific purpose are, what I will call for want of a better term, "semi-fungible, regardless of whether PSU strips a percentage off for other purposes. For example, say you give $100K with the proviso that the entire sum goes to funding scholarships. Independent of your gift, PSU in its budgeting process had allocated $10mm from the General Fund for the same purposes. On receipt of your check, the boys with the green eye-shades and garter sleeves inform Old Main. What do you think those assholes do? Increase the scholarship budget to $10.1mm, or leave it at $10mm and find another use for the $100k? My guess is that you've just made a $100k contribution to Eric and Molly's Fine Art Space even though you'll get a nice letter from some factotum acknowledging your support of the scholarship fund.

The only way you exercise complete control of how you money is spent is to find something which PSU is otherwise not funding. Good luck with that.

Again, you are sorely misguided if you believe Fats is a source of redress.
This includes THON, BTW.... Much as I respect what they do.
 
Barron might be afraid to act because of Lubert, Dambly, Masser, and other Trustees who were appointed by those who fired Paterno, or are friendly with them. The BOT needs to understand that this issue is simply not going to go away on its own.

In short, he's a coward. Yeah, I'll buy that.
 
The only power we have over these turd eaters is to shut them off.

And if you have a history (history is a function of both frequency and amount) they do pay attention. They don't do anything, but they certainly are aware that people have turned off the spigot.
 
And if you have a history (history is a function of both frequency and amount) they do pay attention. They don't do anything, but they certainly are aware that people have turned off the spigot.
you dont think they have a meeting where they sit around and say, I wonder what the problem is? Why have so many quit giving?
 
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They did get back to me and said very clearly that a gift cannot be diverted, which means 100% will be used for the designated purpose. This means that people can direct gifts and bequests to a particular program and 100% will be used for that purpose.

I am now comfortable designating a specific PSU program or activity in my will.
 
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you dont think they have a meeting where they sit around and say, I wonder what the problem is? Why have so many quit giving?

Oh, they know. I'm aware of one person who makes it abundantly clear to them every time he's contacted and I don't imagine he's alone in that regard.
 
They did get back to me and said very clearly that a gift cannot be diverted, which means 100% will be used for the designated purpose. This means that people can direct gifts and bequests to a particular program and 100% will be used for that purpose.

I am now comfortable designating a specific PSU program or activity in my will.
BUT, what happens is that monies originally budgeted for the purpose from the general fund or other funding that is not designated can now be moved to other projects the university wants to do. How do you think all the state lottery monies work? Here in Ohio, the lottery money goes to the schools. And it does. But the funding originally planned for the schools? That gets cut by an amount equal to the funds the lottery raises for the schools. The schools do not get any "extra" money because of the lottery--even though it is "sold" that way.
 
Donations designated for a specific purpose are, what I will call for want of a better term, "semi-fungible, regardless of whether PSU strips a percentage off for other purposes. For example, say you give $100K with the proviso that the entire sum goes to funding scholarships. Independent of your gift, PSU in its budgeting process had allocated $10mm from the General Fund for the same purposes. On receipt of your check, the boys with the green eye-shades and garter sleeves inform Old Main. What do you think those assholes do? Increase the scholarship budget to $10.1mm, or leave it at $10mm and find another use for the $100k? My guess is that you've just made a $100k contribution to Eric and Molly's Fine Art Space even though you'll get a nice letter from some factotum acknowledging your support of the scholarship fund.

The only way you exercise complete control of how you money is spent is to find something which PSU is otherwise not funding. Good luck with that.

Again, you are sorely misguided if you believe Fats is a source of redress.

No doubt this is what happens. Here in Oregon we had a voter referendum where more money from the lottery was to be used for Veteran programs. What does our governor do? Reduce the existing money being spent by the amount of what the lottery funds would provide.
 
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BUT, what happens is that monies originally budgeted for the purpose from the general fund or other funding that is not designated can now be moved to other projects the university wants to do. How do you think all the state lottery monies work? Here in Ohio, the lottery money goes to the schools. And it does. But the funding originally planned for the schools? That gets cut by an amount equal to the funds the lottery raises for the schools. The schools do not get any "extra" money because of the lottery--even though it is "sold" that way.

Florida had the same issue. "But...education!" is how the lottery gets presented to voters. Then reality kicks in.
 
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BUT, what happens is that monies originally budgeted for the purpose from the general fund or other funding that is not designated can now be moved to other projects the university wants to do. How do you think all the state lottery monies work? Here in Ohio, the lottery money goes to the schools. And it does. But the funding originally planned for the schools? That gets cut by an amount equal to the funds the lottery raises for the schools. The schools do not get any "extra" money because of the lottery--even though it is "sold" that way.
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdoc...pe=HTM&ttl=15&div=0&chpt=55&sctn=47&subsctn=0

(b) Nondiversion of certain property.--Property committed to charitable purposes shall not, by any proceeding under Chapter 59 (relating to fundamental changes) or otherwise, be diverted from the objects to which it was donated, granted or devised, unless and until the board of directors or other body obtains from the court an order under 20 Pa.C.S. Ch. 77 (relating to trusts) specifying the disposition of the property.
 
https://www.legis.state.pa.us/cfdoc...pe=HTM&ttl=15&div=0&chpt=55&sctn=47&subsctn=0

(b) Nondiversion of certain property.--Property committed to charitable purposes shall not, by any proceeding under Chapter 59 (relating to fundamental changes) or otherwise, be diverted from the objects to which it was donated, granted or devised, unless and until the board of directors or other body obtains from the court an order under 20 Pa.C.S. Ch. 77 (relating to trusts) specifying the disposition of the property.

You still don't get it?

Let's keep this simple. Old Main takes your $100K that you wanted to go to scholarships and uses it for scholarships. But they take $100K from the General Fund (you know, tuition, fees, state appropriation, etc) that would have gone to scholarships and uses it for the Molly Gallery in the new fine arts museum. So does this break the law you cited?
 
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Let’s keep this even simpler so Art can understand it. They would take the money for the art museum from the general fund (or other designated contributions for the museum) irrespective of your gift. You know better than that, Art. So the gift is a net plus for the scholarship recipients.
 
Let’s keep this even simpler so Art can understand it. They would take the money for the art museum from the general fund (or other designated contributions for the museum) irrespective of your gift. You know better than that, Art. So the gift is a net plus for the scholarship recipients.

No, it isn't dipshit. They'll just take $100k more for the museum (than they had originally budgeted) and keep scholarship funding level. And I'm not the only person in this thread who understands that.

So do we get another rendition of your resume' to prove how smart you are?
 
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No, it isn'ands that.

So do we get another rendition of your resume' to prove how smart you are?
Dipshit? That’s showing off your intelligence. Your wrong on the issue so you resort to childish retorts to distract from your transparent negativity.
 
Dipshit? That’s showing off your intelligence. Your wrong on the issue so you resort to childish retorts to distract from your transparent negativity.

I'm just tired of your incessant cheer-leading for everything Penn State.....where shit don't stink....even the most trivial accomplishment. Maybe if you showed some critical thinking for once, I'd change my impression of you, but until then you're a dipshit.
 
BUT, what happens is that monies originally budgeted for the purpose from the general fund or other funding that is not designated can now be moved to other projects the university wants to do. How do you think all the state lottery monies work? Here in Ohio, the lottery money goes to the schools. And it does. But the funding originally planned for the schools? That gets cut by an amount equal to the funds the lottery raises for the schools. The schools do not get any "extra" money because of the lottery--even though it is "sold" that way.
Not to change the subject, but..

The State Lottos are about as corrupt as they come... "corruption for the cause" should be the universal slogan.

Anyone see this story back in 2006?

4239 my a$$
 
I'm just tired of your incessant cheer-leading for everything Penn State.....where shit don't stink....even the most trivial accomplishment. Maybe if you showed some critical thinking for once, I'd change my impression of you, but until then you're a dipshit.
Maybe you should read the second post in this thread before embarrassing yourself.
 
Art is right, it is common practice to trade dollars between accounts. I am speaking from my experience as a department chair and assistant dean (not at Penn State). Upfront, I am a big fan of Penn State for offering high quality education and Football Program ala JoePa and continued by Coach Franklin. As a segue, I plan to donate to specific academic programs at Penn State for scholarships.
 
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Art is right, it is common practice to trade dollars between accounts. I am speaking from my experience as a department chair and assistant dean (not at Penn State). Upfront, I am a big fan of Penn State for offering high quality education and Football Program ala JoePa and continued by Coach Franklin. As a segue, I plan to donate to specific academic programs at Penn State for scholarships.
I donate to the Penn State Football Excellence Fund. I've followed the program forever and was a big fan of Joe. I'm now a big fan of coach Franklin so my support has continued. The program was unfairly targeted in that js shit show too.
 
And if you have a history (history is a function of both frequency and amount) they do pay attention. They don't do anything, but they certainly are aware that people have turned off the spigot.
At least the aholes are aware of something other than their own enrichment.
 
You money is invested in Univ. Endowment which is managed like a mutual fund. You know how many shares you have all the time. If you specify a program you wish to endow (for example scholarships in Chemistry). Moreover, you can stipulate conditions how your endowment is distributed. After you done this, the program takes ownership. The program becomes the sole guardian. You can cover all your stipulations in a Trust that Penn State Admin. must sign off. Penn State allows you to fund scholarships for students in medical, law, science, or engineering colleges. Any other college will work just as well. I like Penn State over Ivy schools, Ivy schools are well endowed while Penn State Endowment is good but not robust enough to serve the needs of large student body. Penn State has many nation's best student who should be rewarded with scholarships. You can specify all of this ……….
 
You money is invested in Univ. Endowment which is managed like a mutual fund. You know how many shares you have all the time. If you specify a program you wish to endow (for example scholarships in Chemistry). Moreover, you can stipulate conditions how your endowment is distributed. After you done this, the program takes ownership. The program becomes the sole guardian. You can cover all your stipulations in a Trust that Penn State Admin. must sign off. Penn State allows you to fund scholarships for students in medical, law, science, or engineering colleges. Any other college will work just as well. I like Penn State over Ivy schools, Ivy schools are well endowed while Penn State Endowment is good but not robust enough to serve the needs of large student body. Penn State has many nation's best student who should be rewarded with scholarships. You can specify all of this ……….
All of this is true--but does not change the fact that the money is at least semi-fungible.

But I would say that if you endow a specific named scholarship (not the general scholarship fund), you are probably closest to the goal. It's not a scholarship they would have been funding anyway, so that reduces the fungibility quite a bit. Creating an endowed chair? That's a bit different, as whoever gets that Chair would have to have been paid anyway--making the funds quite a bit more fungible. Thon? Much as I respect the charity--it's fungible money. The researchers don't get a "bonus" if Thon brings in more cash.

BTW, and slightly off topic, I assume the OP, Bill is the Bill I knew in the Chem department back in the day??
 
This thread has drifted in another direction, and it's a good discussion. I just want to make one simple point about JVP.

Joe would have had to have believed that Tim, Gary and Graham had mishandled the McQueary report in order to be guilty of failing some subjective, moral standard. In other words, if Joe was of the belief that C/S/S had dealt with the matter appropriately....even if they hadn't.....it's total BS to suggest he failed to lead. There's just no evidence Paterno felt that way. More to the point, how did the BOT determine that he felt that way?

Carry on.
 
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