Penn State Admits and the Sandusky Scandal

[juilletmercredi]

Nope.

I'm currently investigating a postdoctoral fellowship at Penn State.  It is very well suited to my interests; there are people there doing the kind of research that I want to be doing; they're highly regarded within my field; and furthermore, I'm sure that my own university is involved in all kinds of unethical crap that they simply haven't been caught at (I mean, we planned the Manhattan Project and are currently using eminent domain to take away private business holdings from business owners in Harlem so we can build more Columbia).

I don't see your students being late to class for a morally reprehensible reason being any different from them being late to class because they were attending a pro-choice rally or a meeting on microfinance…they shouldn't be late to class.  Doesn't matter why!

When you go to conferences, people will give each other a look when they hear the name "Penn State."

Doubt it.  When I think of "Penn State" I think "huh, great public university, really good human development and family studies department, sweet methodology center."  The vast majority of scholars is not going to look down upon a scholar for studying at a great university that happened to have a football scandal they had nothing to do with before they even got there - not now, and certainly not 6-10 years from now.  It'd be different if the department were caught out for falsifying data or something like that.

I hesitate to be a part of a campus that thinks they're the best public college in the country...what are they ranked by most polls, like...50th or something? You want to applaud their research, great, but they are not the only university out there.

Every college thinks they're the best.  Who wants to go to a school where people are chanting "We're number two!" or "We're not that great, but we're pretty decent a least!"?  (And out of public colleges, they are certainly not 50th.  US News ranks them as the #13 public school in the nation, tied with UIUC, UT-Austin, and University of Washington.  And top 50 in the national university rankings is actually quite good.)
 

Here's the rub - how can you be absolutely certain that none of the other universities you've applied to have not had similar instances and have just been better at covering it up?  No university is 100 percent ethical; how do you choose which is better and which is not?

[Chai_latte]

Could you elaborate? If not, that's ok, I just think I fail at searching the New York Times site. 

 

Happy, half of my graduating class in high school attended PennState. (Heck, I even applied there for undergrad) I have multiple family members AND friends who worked/work there. I also went to undergrad with a lot of graduate students currently at PennState. And I agree it's a good institution. And I HAVE done my homework. A lot of the information I've gathered come from them. There is a lot of (circumstantial and hearsay evidence) that JoePa knew about it in 1998. A simple google search gives you that much. Regardless, it's the guiltiness of a dead man (RIP) so it's almost a moot point. The point I was making was that regardless of his guiltiness other high-ups who were involved in covering it up, and those people have abdicated or lost their position or been replaced, so it's almost a whole new place. If you couldn't tell, I was saying a pro for saying yes to PennState.

Yes, congratulations on the PennState students for THON, that's a lot of money for charity. Cheers. (Still it speaks to the hugely herdist mentality (for example of said mentality, look up riot and JoePa, some students didn't even know what they were rioting for) that's prevalent on the campus. You MUST know about THON or talk about it if you're a PennState student.. etc., Whatever, it's great for PennState, for the students and great for cancer research!)

Sure.  This was ages ago.  I think I was in junior high (or early HS).  I don't remember all of the details, but racial tensions were high among students and the final straw was something about a noose and a big protest in the football stadium (had nothing to do w/ the football program, just the stadium was the biggest space on campus).  What I've heard (not documented in an article, to my knowledge) was about tenure-track female science professors accusing certain departments of discrimination.  I believe these ended in settlements.  However, one of my cousins (female chemist) did some research there a few summers in a row and had no trouble.  She liked it (and she has experienced gender descrimination in the past...just not at PSU). 

[sr0304]

Nope.

I'm currently investigating a postdoctoral fellowship at Penn State.  It is very well suited to my interests; there are people there doing the kind of research that I want to be doing; they're highly regarded within my field; and furthermore, I'm sure that my own university is involved in all kinds of unethical crap that they simply haven't been caught at (I mean, we planned the Manhattan Project and are currently using eminent domain to take away private business holdings from business owners in Harlem so we can build more Columbia).

I don't see your students being late to class for a morally reprehensible reason being any different from them being late to class because they were attending a pro-choice rally or a meeting on microfinance…they shouldn't be late to class.  Doesn't matter why!

When you go to conferences, people will give each other a look when they hear the name "Penn State."

Doubt it.  When I think of "Penn State" I think "huh, great public university, really good human development and family studies department, sweet methodology center."  The vast majority of scholars is not going to look down upon a scholar for studying at a great university that happened to have a football scandal they had nothing to do with before they even got there - not now, and certainly not 6-10 years from now.  It'd be different if the department were caught out for falsifying data or something like that.

I hesitate to be a part of a campus that thinks they're the best public college in the country...what are they ranked by most polls, like...50th or something? You want to applaud their research, great, but they are not the only university out there.

Every college thinks they're the best.  Who wants to go to a school where people are chanting "We're number two!" or "We're not that great, but we're pretty decent a least!"?  (And out of public colleges, they are certainly not 50th.  US News ranks them as the #13 public school in the nation, tied with UIUC, UT-Austin, and University of Washington.  And top 50 in the national university rankings is actually quite good.)

 

Here's the rub - how can you be absolutely certain that none of the other universities you've applied to have not had similar instances and have just been better at covering it up?  No university is 100 percent ethical; how do you choose which is better and which is not?

For the first part, it looks like you missed the other half of the story, so I will copy and paste it here for you.

"

Maybe my words were not most accurate--I would hate to be part of a campus that refused to acknowledge its own limitations, its own shortcomings.

And I'm not arrogant.

 

There are reasons to be proud of Penn State. But those reasons don't negate sexual abuse that the University was complicit with for ten years.

I applied to Penn State because of the department.

I question whether i would be happy in the department thanks to the attitude of the campus.

Cancer research is wonderful. My point was not that PSU was no good (why else would i apply? and btw, read my original post--I applied to a fantastic program). But the stance that cancer research nullifies abuse is ridiculous. Just as saying that the abuse shouldn't effect what I think of the University is ridiculous. I didn't expect that thinking the abuse would have an impact would be controversial. I'm surprised it is. I thought this discourse would be more interested in questioning the extent to which the scandal matters in terms of being a part of the institution. I will have to chant, 'We are Penn State.' But in light of recent events, what is Penn State?"

And how do I know that there are not pedophiles being protected by other Universities? How do I know that not all Universities are knowingly sending children to the care of a pedophile for over ten years?

Well, what can I say other than that I must have a little faith.

But, hypotheticals aside, we **know** PSU has. So now what?

Edited February 21, 2013 by sr0304

[selecttext]

the vast majority of faculty and administrators had nothing to do with the sex abuse scandal and the complicit are sanctioned.

 

 

 

I would hate to be part of a campus that refused to acknowledge its own limitation

 

So who exactly are you referring to? Faculty? Undergrads? Grads? Administrators? Support staff? You are spewing mere non-sense. You haven't a clue what you are talking about.

[ridofme]

This thread has been an entertaining read, to say the least. I think it is advisable to consider a school's overall culture when deciding whether to attend. Undergrad and grad student culture can vary wildly within an institution, however, not to mention differences between individual departments. This is even truer at a massive institution that has the population of a mid-size city.

 

 

And as to Penn State's ranking, I would recommend this article about the college ranking process in general:

 

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2011/02/14/110214fa_fact_gladwell

 

Gladwell actually atually discusses Penn State's position as #47 in some detail.

 

 

 

Finally, sr0304: you are aware that we can see that you are upvoting your own posts, correct?