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KAREN LAUB-NOVAK
JANA NOVAK Jana's latest adventures can be found on her new blog: Latest Book All Nature Is a Sacramental Fire: By Michael Novak
Living the Call:
No One Sees God
Summer institutes TMI (Krakow) » Slovak Seminar on Free Society. Principles for the new millenium.
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A Different Priestly Scandal Published in The Catholic Thing May 13, 2012 Burning injustices rest on our consciences, and will continue to burn us until we correct them. I had dinner the other night with a marvelous priest, who started out our dinner by having the little children who were with us recite together (partly in song) the blessing before meals. They loved doing it. Loved the sound of it. Loved the solemnity. Loved the fun. I did not know until well along in the meal, almost at the very end, that this good priest – so well informed about so many matters of faith, so genial, and so patently good-hearted and faithful – had been falsely accused of sexual molestation eight years ago. He was forced to leave the ministry (an accusation these days is enough to do this – a horrible scandal in itself). His accuser died of a cocaine overdose in his mother’s house, but not before exonerating the priest by admitting the falsity of his accusation. But all that notwithstanding, the bishop in his diocese has not moved – dared? – to reinstate this good man and return him to his proper standing in the priesthood, or even to give a public apology for his unjust treatment. Nor has the press that stirred up the atmosphere of high-tech lynchings revisited his case (and hundreds if not thousands of others) to clear them of this horrible wrong. Read more »
In Honor of Chuck Colson Published in Michael's collection of verse, ALL NATURE IS A SACRAMENTAL FIRE (St. Augustine's, 2011). A poem written by Michael in October of 2006 to celebrate the 75th birthday of his friend and colleague Chuck Colson:
Chuck Colson is a gold, gold train
Donahue Academy Opens the Karen Laub-Novak Library in Ave Maria, Florida. Published in The Ave Maria Herald on March 30, 2012 www.aveherald.com/news/ave-maria-news/1075-new-library-dedicated-at-donahue-academy.html Students at the Rhodora J. Donahue Academy in Ave Maria began using the new, spacious Karen Laub-Novak Library on their second floor Thursday, replete with more than a dozen computers, thanks to a substantial seed grant from Michael Novak and other donations for the long-desired facility. Named for Karen Laub-Novak (below, left, as portrayed in a portrait in the library), an artist and the beloved wife of Mr. Novak, the media center/library will operate under the direction and guidance of Mary Claire Dant, a certified media specialist who has worked in that capacity for many years at Poinciana Elementary and Vineyards Elementary in Naples. Read more »
From the Archives (1994): Looking Backward, Looking Ahead: Remarks on the Announcement of the 1994 Templeton Prize Delivered March 9, 1994 in New York [Awakening from Nihilism: The 1994 Templeton Prize Awarded to Michael Novak, ed. Derek Cross and Brian Anderson (Crisis Books, 1995), 35-42.] One of my favorite images is the white-hot ingot, such as I often saw while I was a youngster in the yards of Bethlehem Steel in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The ingot suggested how God is present in the world: the fire and light at the heart of everything, creating all things and seeing that they are good. The images of my childhood—of World War II and the holocaust, especially—have stayed with me. The nihilism of the twentieth century seemed to me a necessary starting place for writing about faith. One had to go into the nothingness, I thought, into the night, if one wished to write truthfully. The murder of my closest brother, Dick, personalized the world’s irrationality but the roots of the latter were far broader and deeper than anything personal. Since at least the second grade, and maybe before, I have always wanted to be a writer. I wanted to try stories, novels, poems, plays, the verse for musical comedies, philosophy, everything. I wasn’t sure which forms I could do well, but I wanted to try everything. I loved novels. As a teen, I tried to read fifty a year. Read more »
From the Archives (1994): A Tribute to Michael Novak By Christopher C. DeMuth, on the occasion of Michael's award of the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion. Published May 23, 1994 I don’t know what got into them, those hard-nosed business I executives who sit on AEI’s Board of Trustees, when they invited a theologian from Syracuse University to move down to Washington and join the Institute’s research staff in 1979. But I do know that no other AEI appointment has been so prescient and that no one has contributed more to the AEI spirit or to the progress of its ideals than Michael Novak. Thanks to the generosity of Mr. Templeton and the perspicacity of the Templeton Prize judges, Michael is now himself a walking illustration of the Novakian principle that wit and creativity, properly cultivated, can produce miracles of wealth. So I am happy to see him back from the Templeton Prize ceremonies in London not yet driving a Mercedes or wearing a Giorgio Armani suit or sporting a Christophe hairdo. In fact, I have been trying anxiously to reach him and have left several voice-mail messages requesting an appointment—just a brief visit at Mr. Novak’s convenience to drop off some AEI literature and tell him about the work of the Institute and answer any questions he may have about our pressing financial needs. Michael’s Templeton Prize is not only richly deserved but a source of special satisfaction to everyone associated with the American Enterprise Institute. At AEI, our concern for free enterprise and limited government is more than a matter of economics and efficiency (as important as we hold these things to be), and our concern for individual freedom is more than a matter of libertarian principle. Michael’s work has singularly embodied and advanced this spirit. He has never been a utilitarian or libertarian cheerleader; his moral justification of capitalism is not abstract or mechanistic; it convinces where others fail precisely because it is sinewy and particular, comfortable with tradition, and compassionate. He began a socialist and was led to his current position by despair at the extent of poverty in the modern world and extended inquiry into the practical means of alleviating poverty. In the course of becoming one of the world’s foremost supply-side poverty warriors, he developed an appreciation of the institutions of capitalism based not only on their tendency to improve material welfare but also to foster social cooperation and inventiveness. Like his old Congregation of Holy Cross and socialist comrades, he sees material wealth as the manifestation of cooperative human action; unlike them, he sees that effective cooperation springs from individual freedom and that political coercion is often the enemy of such cooperation. Read more »
Obama's Deceptive Hidden Premises Published in National Review Online February 17, 2011 The most evil thing about the Obama administration’s recent violation of the separation of church and state is its deceptiveness. With his order requiring inclusion of contraception and abortifacient drugs in insurance coverage, the president is smuggling the hidden premises of NARAL, Planned Parenthood, and other supporters of abortion into U.S. law, and doing so untruthfully. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) instruction attacking religious institutions such as hospitals, universities, and programs for the poor rests on four hidden premises.
(1) The first deception is that the president has issued a “contraception mandate.” It is not that; it is a presidential power grab. No state or other jurisdiction is trying to ban contraception. Neither the Catholic Church nor any other religious body is trying to ban contraception. The means of contraception are even more widely available than in drugstores; one can pick up condoms in restrooms, even in restaurants. The reason for this deception is to make opponents appear to be doing something they are not. They are not banning contraception. It is dishonest to focus on contraception instead of on the real issue, the attempt to extend presidential power into areas constitutionally forbidden to it.
The genius of this deception is its explicit attack on the Catholic Church. This tactic was aided by the Church’s long and well-known moral disapproval of contraception, as an artificial barrier between a man’s and a woman’s complete self-giving. Yet the Church does not try to ban contraception even among its own congregants, only to teach that it is morally wrong, because it reveals a self-absorbed form of love.
In this way, by distorting Church doctrine, the president and his enablers in the press masked his power grab of forcing conscientious objectors to pay for contraception. The press also masked his violation of the Constitution in defining which religious bodies are religious, according to his ideas. Beginning with George Stephanopoulos, most of the press has been a delighted accomplice in misdescribing the issue.
(2) The second deception is that sterilization, contraception, abortifacients — and by logical extension, at the proper hour, abortion — are not matters of private choice, but matters of women’s health. This definition is then expanded into an enforceable right to women’s health. This supposed right is then expanded into a duty upon others to pay for the private choices and values systems of some women. In other words, this is naked coercion in its most deceptive form, and an illicit and twisted use of rights talk.
Pregnancy is a disease? The destruction of an individual human being within, boy or girl, is a matter of women’s health?
Why My Critics Are Wrong Published in National Review Online February 13, 2012 The many critics of my article on Joe Paterno proved that some people in our culture, thank God, have not become “non-judgmental.” Some still have a robust moral sense. Same for most sportswriters I have read or heard, who seem to have taken the same tack as my critics, impugning as with one voice Joe Paterno’s moral legacy. At the same time, this readiness to diminish the classic greatness of Joe Paterno’smoral responsibility exposes the dangers at the opposite extreme.
My critics are correct on one small point: I did choose not to assess whether Coach Paterno was guilty of moral fault. Any such assessment is morally corrupting, and for four reasons. First, Americans react with horror to anything smacking of child abuse, and properly so. But we have recently experienced massive rushes to judgment that turned out to have been calumnious. We have seen psychologists in court misuse “repressed memories” to falsely accuse child-care providers of molesting tots over a long period of time. What an agony for those falsely accused — and later acquitted, too late to get their reputations wholly cleansed.
Second, we all went through the press stampede to condemn the young men of the lacrosse team at Duke for a deed they did not commit. It took months for the courts to vindicate these men’s innocence. Lesson: Those who falsely accuse athletes frequently go unchallenged for a very long time.
Third, just after my column appeared, my brother sent me Robert Louis Stevenson’s acrid rebuke to the Reverend Hyde, who brandished in a public letter a string of unproven allegations of moral sins by Damien the Leper, who had volunteered to live his whole life on an isolated island, to care alone for lepers avoided by the whole rest of the world. Stevenson had publicly praised Damien’s moral greatness.
Stevenson chose neither to deny nor to argue against Hyde’s allegations. Even if all these accusations are correct in every detail, Stevenson retorted, such was the moral greatness of Damien’s self-sacrifice that retailing his sins in public merely diminished the moral standing of those who did so, including the insufferable Reverend Hyde:
I will suppose — and God forgive me for supposing it — that Damien faltered and stumbled in his narrow path of duty; I will suppose that, in the horror of his isolation, perhaps in the fever of incipient disease, he, who was doing so much more than he had sworn, failed in the letter of his priestly oath — he, who was so much a better man than either you or me, who did what we have never dreamed of daring — he too tasted of our common frailty. “O, Iago, the pity of it!” The least tender should be moved to tears; the most incredulous to prayer. And all that you could do was to pen your letter to the Reverend H. B. Gage! [Who published it.]
Is it growing at all clear to you what a picture you have drawn of your own heart? I will try yet once again to make it clearer. You had a father: suppose this tale were about him, and some informant brought it to you, proof in hand: I am not making too high an estimate of your emotional maturity when I suppose you would regret the circumstance? That you would feel the tale of frailty the more keenly since it shamed the author of your days? And that the last thing you would do would be to publish it in the religious press? Well, the man who tried to do what Damien did, is my father . . . and he was your father too, if God had given you grace to see it.
Fourth, the forum for defending moral innocence lies before God alone, who reads all consciences limpidly. And into that forum no other of us has a right to intrude. By contrast, a public forum for “moral responsibility” does not exist. There is no court for it. There are no rules for it. But the so-called court of public opinion does exist, and as far as I can detect, its function is to squeeze from the amorphous feeling “somebody should have done more to stop this” (because such things shouldn’t happen amongst human beings, even though they actually do occur in monstrously disturbing numbers throughout the country) — its function is to squeeze this feeling into an accusation against somebody.
Even the board of trustees at Penn State squeezed their own feeling of this sort into the public accusation of Joe Paterno they made in the New York Times (January 18, 2012). Yet they pointed to no law broken, nor rule of the university (ultimately set by the trustees), nor criterion, nor precedent. They just made up a retroactive rule, which they did not apply to themselves.
As for public opinion, it is too easy for many to be swept up in a moral witch hunt seeking someone on whom to affix blame.
Nonetheless, because accusers persist, let me expose some facts that may help some of my critics see how wrongheaded their accusations are. Consider the chief allegation made against Coach Paterno. Yes, his accusers admit, Joe did his legal and his public duty, as the grand jury specifically said in November 2011.
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The Injustice Done to Joe Paterno Published in National Review Online January 30, 2012 On Wednesday, January 25, Joe Paterno was honored with a private funeral Mass in the presence of his family and a few close friends, in the chapel he and his wife had built on the Penn State campus. Joe Paterno gave vast amounts of his salary to Penn State. He gave almost his whole life. His last gift was a heart that was not bitter, despite the horrible betrayal he suffered at the end, at the hands of the board of trustees. Students and admirers by the thousands gathered round the chapel in silence and sorrow to show him their love and gratitude.
The next day, an enormous throng of at least 10,000 squeezed into the fieldhouse for a memorial service to show the same love and gratitude. And that is only the beginning of the testimonies for Joe that will continue to swell all around the country.
When the hundreds of thousands of Penn State alumni hear the name JoePa, they think of moral leadership, of the kind of person they aspire to be. Of his warmth, his fatherliness, his steadiness, and his granite character. Joe Paterno was for hundreds of thousands of alumni the very model of the moral ideal of Western humanism.
Hundreds of thousands of alumni think a huge injustice was committed against JoePa by the board of trustees, and they have emphatically expressed their sentiments to the new interim president of Penn State during his coast-to-coast series of alumni meetings to damp down the great anger he is encountering.
First news of the Sandusky scandal, in which longtime defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky was accused of sexually molesting underage boys, broke in March 2011, and it came before the board of trustees that June. They said it was not a Penn State problem, because Sandusky had left the university in 1999, though he continued to use an office there for several more years. It was a problem for the institution Sandusky had founded, the Second Mile organization for youngsters.
Then, quite suddenly in November 2011, with a huge national scandal erupting, the board suddenly acted as if the burden were on them. They did not weigh their own responsibility, their own inaction, their own failure to get to the bottom of the scandal of five months earlier. In a fit of what to many alumni seems to have been fear for themselves, the board’s members ducked their own responsibility, and in the most ignoble and impersonal way, made JoePa, the moral giant of Penn State, a moral outcast.
What did they do? Despite the fact that JoePa had said he was going to resign after the 2011 season was over, they gave Joe (after nearly 60 years of leadership unparalleled in the annals of any university) over to the national press and the national mob as a scapegoat, to bear the whole heartbreaking scandal on his shoulders, to be burned as a live offering, in expiation of their sins.
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Uncle Chiz Father Andrew Stanko is the son of an Army infantryman who went into the bitter battle of Guadalcanal right behind the Marines in World War II. There he contracted a jungle disease that was incurable, and came back home to marry his sweetheart Ann Mley, to father Andrew, and much too early to go to the Lord. Uncle Andrew was also, just before his death, my sponsor at confirmation in St. Emerich’s Church in Johnstown (in the district of Cambria City). Father Andrew has been the joy of his parents and our whole family for many years. Entered below is the homily Father Andrew recently preached, in his accustomed simplicity and depth, at the funeral Mass of Uncle Chizie Mley, another World War II vet, a Marine, and parishioner of St. Therese of Lisieux parish in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. My dear family in the Lord, especially Aunt Bernie, Chiz’s wife, Betty, his sister, his entire family, and all the parishioners of St. Therese parish gathered here today, and all the friends of Chiz who have come to his funeral. Certainly, my Aunt Bernie is grateful to all of you for taking the time to honor Chiz by your presence.
The last of September Chiz had a fall and was admitted to the hospital. At first, it didn’t look too bad, but one thing led to another, and things went downhill. I remember visiting Chiz when he was first admitted, and his greatest concern was that he would probably have to miss the novena in honor of St. Therese.
However, his sorrow was mitigated when Father Karmanocky visited him and brought him a blessed rose. Father Bernie, many thanks for this act of compassion. You don’t know how thankful Chiz was for that favor. I also noticed that he got a get well card from the parish.
Taking after the Little Flower, who based her spirituality on doing the little things well, this parish really follows the example of your patroness – you do the little things well. This is one of the things that sets this parish apart from so many other parishes. The Little Flower said that she would spend her heaven by doing good on earth. She does this through her “little way.”
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Reflections of a Former Trustee - Part V & VI Published by Ben Novak “Reflections of a Former Trustee” appeared in an abridged form in the Centre Daily Times on January 8th, 9th, and 10th. and later on www.bennovak.net. This is Part V and VI of VI. Part V. The Theater of Board Meetings and Responsibility of Media No discussion of the ignorance in which the members of the Board are kept would be complete without mentioning the Board’s meetings, which can only be described as dog-and-pony shows.
The meetings are planned solely as a backdrop for publicity aimed at the general public or the Legislature, at which the administration presents whatever good news and statistics they have in order to show that everything is going swimmingly — except that the Legislature is never appropriating enough money. The agenda is tightly packed with housekeeping functions, such as approval of building plans or real estate transactions, and information presentations by various colleges or programs of the University — all telling of great promise or success.
Never, never is anything raised as a problem area in which the Board is invited to give advice or input as to policy. Policy is only presented to the Board for approval after it has been fully formulated by the president together with the Power Group.
The annual budget, for example, is one of the more important things the Board must regularly approve, along with annual increases in tuition and fees and major changes in college or program funding. But this is never on the agenda to be discussed during the year until the proposed budget document, which is quite lengthy and detailed, is sent to the Board a week or so before the July meeting at which it is to be approved.
In this theatre of the absurd, any Trustee who seriously questions what is going on is subtlety placated, cast as a “loose cannon,” or otherwise marginalized. For the majority of the Board who are not permitted to know anything other than what the president tells them, and who are expected to approve whatever is set before them, there is only one word: Baaa.
The Responsibility of Media
What was most disheartening in the past were the press and media. Undoubtedly that is changed today, now that the media senses scandalous stories that attract controversy and readers. But before the Sandusky scandal it was quite different.
If a Trustee raised a serious question at a meeting (unless he or she is was member of the Influential Ones) that Trustee would definitely not be sought out afterwards for interviews on his or her issues, and would not even be mentioned in the news releases about the meeting. It is like he or she never said anything — except when the issue had previously been a subject in the media; then the dissenting Trustee was merely grist for the media’s pre-digested mill.
Reporters would go to the press briefing after the meetings, and the president or public relations vice president clearly indicated what they were to cover — and the journalists and media representatives dutifully filed their stories in a manner even more sheep-like than the Sheep on the Board who cast the votes. So, for a single Trustee to take a principled stand contrary to the administration or the Influential Ones was to shout into the void.
Example: The Naming of a University Building
The Board of Trustees once had a written rule that no University building could be named after a living Trustee. Then one of the Power Group gave a very large donation for a particular building, and the agenda for the next Trustees meeting contained a resolution for naming the building after this Trustee, who was still serving on the Board. While I had no particular objection to so naming the building, I felt that it would be an interesting test to see how the Board deals with a clear violation of its own rules. So, I raised a procedural objection, and asked the secretary of the Board to read the rule, which she did.
At that point, the chairperson of the meeting asked for a ruling by the Board’s legal counsel as to relevance. Legal counsel spoke around the bush for some minutes until he dutifully ruled my objection out of order. I knew legal counsel personally; he looked at me sheepishly after his ruling, as though imploring me to understand why he had to do what he had just done. The resolution naming of the building after the living Trustee was then called to a vote and adopted.
During this entire exchange, the press corps looked thoroughly bored, and not a word of what had just transpired appeared in the media. It was a non-event.
The Opportunity for Media
Now, of course, the press and media now have an insatiable desire to cover Penn State. Unfortunately, it has taken charges of pedophilia to get their attention. If the media would only responsibly cover what is going on — as it happens, rather than after a crisis — it is likely that the University and its various parts could be run more responsibly.
I’m hopeful that today, after such a sea change in the landscape of the news media and in its delivery mechanisms, we will see an improvement in how the Board of Trustees and the activities of the administration and its president are covered for all of us on the outside.
Careers can be made — and lives changed, or saved — if young reporters were to adopt a more skeptical and discerning eye toward the seemingly boring details of boring men and women on a boring Board of Trustees, and administrators to whom they’re happy to defer.
Part VI. What is Needed Today
While there are calls for the entire membership of the Board to resign in unison, they are unlikely to do so. Therefore, the loyal Penn State community — students, faculty, alumni, townspeople, and all true friends of Penn State — must band together to replace them. The first goal is electing new Trustees who will speak out both to and for the entire Penn State community.
In just a few days, the Board will be sending out an announcement for the election of three alumni Trustees. Each alumnus and alumna may nominate someone by writing in his or her name on the nomination form and sending it back. It is vital that alumni nominate people dedicated to restoring Penn State’s honor.
In May, the agricultural societies in each county will have the chance to elect two new Trustees. It is imperative that loyal Penn Staters involved in agriculture throughout the state begin now to make sure that two new members who are deeply committed to restoring Penn State’s honor are elected to these positions.
Every loyal Penn Stater has a role to play in helping Penn State recover from this disaster. Keep thinking through the kinds of reforms that will be necessary to enable us to get back on track again. Keep sharing with others in the community the deep love that binds us all to our Alma Mater. Reach out to help one another. Most of all, keep your faith in Penn State shining brighter than ever.
Dr. Novak can be reached by e-mail at ben@bennovak.net.
Reflections of a Former Trustee - Part IV Published by Ben Novak “Reflections of a Former Trustee” appeared in an abridged form in the Centre Daily Times on January 8th, 9th, and 10th. and later on www.bennovak.net. This is Part IV of VI.
Part IV. The Root of the Problem: The Centralization of Power with the President The root problem with the Penn State Board of Trustees arises from the centralization of all the powers of the University into the hands of the president. This occurred in July 1970.
The Old Model: Shared Tripartite Governance
Prior to this, the academic side of the University was governed by a whole plethora of largely independent parts. These consisted of departments, loosely presided over by department heads, who were in turn loosely overseen by deans of the colleges, as well as a variety of relatively independent programs such as Agricultural Extension Services, all largely working independently, though in concert. All of these in turn were very loosely brought together in the Faculty Senate. This was theoretically only one part of the University — the Faculty.
The second part consisted of the student body, roughly organized as the Student Government Association, or the All-University Cabinet, or the Undergraduate Student Government, as it was called at various times. Believe it or not, in many respects and at various times the student government through its chartering powers had slightly more control over its organizations — such as the fifty-six independent fraternity houses, its thirty-three independent sororities, the house governments in the dorms, and the multitude of independent student organizations that existed on and off campus — than the Faculty Senate. Indeed, back then the student body organized more university-wide activities than the faculty did.
The last loosely organized third of the University was the administration, which was supposed to be directly, but was actually only loosely, under the control of the president of the University. I say “supposed to be directly, but was actually only loosely” for three reasons.
First, because there were often conflicting lines of authority. For example, before 1970, the chief administrator in charge of student affairs was the Special Assistant to the President for Student Affairs. But he had no authority to promulgate policy regarding student affairs — that was vested in the Faculty Senate. Thus neither the president of the University or the chief administrative officer had any direct authority over student affairs. The same lack of direct authority held true for many other sectors of the University.
The second reason that the president of the University had only loose control over even his own administration was that nearly all employees in administration could exercise a large degree of discretion in how they handled their responsibilities. For example, Agricultural Extension and most research activities on campus looked primarily to their sources of funding and the communities they served, rather than to the central administration for guidance.
The third reason is that two of the first two communities were like states in the Union, each with their own governor and legislature — the Faculty Senate and its president, and the student government and its president. Each had their its own realm of power and activity separate from the others. Thus, before 1970, the president of the University had limited powers, and power was diffused throughout the community. In other words, the president did not rule the others, but presided over them like a chairman.
Over most of the University, therefore, the president had little real power, although he had a lot of authority. The difference is this: that while power is exercised from above, authority is given from below. Thus the president of the university could rarely order what he wanted done from on high. But his prestige was such that deans, department heads, program directors, and student leaders tried mightily to get together from below in order to go in the direction the president pointed.
How Governance from Below Works
Prior to 1970, the president’s real prestige and authority did not come from a Standing Order of the Board of Trustees, but rather from the general understanding that we — students, faculty, and administration—were all united in working for the good of the whole institution. This is what held us together and made Penn State so dynamic. It was the source of our great Penn State pride. We did things, not because we were ordered to, but because we wanted to. We were tremendously proud that we all had a part in determining where Penn State was going and what it was aiming to become.
At that time, too, there were a lot of men and women who, although they had no power that you could see on an organization chart, were nevertheless so highly respected that their opinions carried weight far beyond their job descriptions. Penn State was not an organization of mechanical parts back then, but was an organic whole, where the slightest pain in one limb was instantly communicated through the whole body. As a result, there were hundreds of checks and balances throughout the university system. Nobody could get away with much for very long because there were too many people watching. Everything was everybody else’s business because we were all in this together. Everyone kept one eye open for what was best for the University as a whole … and the other eye open for what was not.
Before 1970, a Jerry Sandusky would have been out on his ear at the first whisper of improprieties. This would have occurred at the lowest level and few above would need to know about it. The problem simply would have been gone before anyone had to think about it — and the kids would be — and indeed were — infinitely safer than they are today.
The Change to Power from Above
After 1970, all this began to change. Not suddenly but gradually an entirely new mentality began working itself through the Penn State body. It said: all that matters is who has the power — and this is determined by organization charts. Whole new positions and offices grew up to make regulations telling everybody how to do their jobs. Turfs were no longer decided by what was best for the University, but by who had the power. Revered professors found themselves of no more account than a junior administrator. Countless rules were issued that made no sense to those who had to enforce them, but were ordered from on high.
Let’s now give an example that ties this all together with what is happening now.
Example: A Veritable Epidemic
In the 1990s while I was serving on the Board, several nurses from Ritenour Health Center were upset because they believed that there was a veritable epidemic of venereal disease — herpes, gonorrhea, chlamydia, syphilis, AIDS, etc. — on campus. They came to me because all their attempts to get administrators at Ritenour or higher to do something about it had been fruitless.
The problem that I faced was that the nurses were afraid to allow their names to be used because they were afraid of losing their jobs. Therefore, I could not name anyone that administrators could go to in order to confirm what I told them. Nevertheless, I talked about the issue without naming any names with administrators who shrugged their shoulders; and with other Trustees who listened politely and said, “this is the president’s problem, he’s in charge;” or “We can’t talk about this kind of thing at the Board of Trustees level.”
By the 1990s, no one below the president had the power to institute, or even investigate anything, no matter how serious it was, unless his or her immediate superiors knew that the president approved. So, no word ever went out to the students about what some nurses at Ritenour thought was a major health problem.
(Personal confession: Perhaps I should have done more. I don’t know how many students now go through their lives bearing the scars of venereal disease. Maybe I am the Joe Paterno and Mike McQueary of a similar issue in an earlier age; if so, I know exactly how they feel. But I also know that even if I had stood on the rooftops shouting it, it would not have made any difference to administrators — it would only have been shouting into the void.)
The Moral of the Story
The point of this example is to show how the 1970 decision of the Board vesting all power in the president has played out. The moral is simple: Nothing happens anymore at Penn State unless and until the president says so. In this type of atmosphere, it is no wonder that a Jerry Sandusky could haunt the showers for years with no one taking action.
Under the previous system of governance, when someone of the stature and integrity of Joe Paterno reported to the heads of Athletics and Police Services in 2002 that a former emeritus coach was engaged in sexual activities with boys in the showers, these people would have done everything in their power to make sure that the problem was taken care of — and then prayed that the president of the University would never hear of such a disgusting thing!
But no, in a world where only presidential power matters, the only thing that Curley and Schultz did was to tell the president. Then everyone sat around for the next nine years waiting for the president of the University to tell somebody what to do. Since he did not tell them, Curley and Schultz did nothing more with what McQueary told them.
So, the moral of the story in the Sandusky case is the same as it was for when the nurses at Ritenour reported what they believed to be an epidemic: When all power is centralized in the president, Nothing happens anymore at Penn State unless and until the president says so.
Because of this principle of governance, Sandusky could go to the showers with boys for nine more years.
Because of this, two good men, Tim Curley and Gary Schultz, are charged as criminals.
Because of this, Joe Paterno, the greatest Penn Stater since Our Founders Strong and Great, has been rudely kicked out of Penn State.
Because of this, the reputation of America’s most famous football coach has been scarred forever.
Because of this, our football program and our University are in shame and disarray.
Because of this, Happy Valley is now sad and distraught.
This is the root of the problem and the key to understanding how this whole humiliating affair has happened. And this, my friends, is the system of governance that the Board of Trustees set in place since 1970.
Reflections of a Former Trustee - Part III Published by Ben Novak “Reflections of a Former Trustee” appeared in an abridged form in the Centre Daily Times on January 8th, 9th, and 10th. and later on www.bennovak.net. This is Part III of VI.
Part III. Why We Hear Nothing from the Trustees: The Silence of the Lambs
Ever since the Sandusky scandal erupted, members of both the University community and the public have been puzzled by the silence of the Trustees. Many find it hard to believe that all thirty-two of the individual Trustees are in favor of firing Joe Paterno, and they naturally wonder why none of them has spoken out. When any other type of governing body is called to deal with a problem, individual members usually offer their ideas as to how it should best be handled. But there has been not one peep from Penn State Board of Trustees members. Why is that?
The answer lies in the rules of the Board, specifically Standing Order IX, which contains without doubt some of the most amazing rules you will ever read governing the conduct of democratically elected representatives.
Section (1)(f)((5), for example, requires that members are expected to: “Speak openly within the Board and publicly support decisions reached by the Board.” While the first part of this sentence — “Speak openly within the Board” — is laudable, the second part — “and support decisions reached by the Board”—is not. What the second part means is that no member of the Board may publicly speak against a decision of the Board once it is adopted. Thus, the silence of the individual members on the Board is guaranteed by the rules of the Board.
To get an idea of how ridiculous this is, imagine that the United States Congress had a rule that once Congress adopted Obamacare, no member of Congress could thereafter speak publicly against it or urge its repeal. Yet, that is exactly what the rule governing individual members of the Penn State Board of Trustees states. One of the constant mantras that I heard repeatedly while on the Board was that the “Board acts as a Board, not as individuals.” What this was meant to enforce is that any dissent from a vote of the majority of the Board is considered speaking against the Board itself.
This rule is further buttressed by two others. Subsection (1)(f)(10) requires the individual Trustee to: “Maintain confidentiality without exception.” Thus individual Trustees are enjoined from ever reciting the arguments he or she disagrees with. Think of the scene of the entire Board sitting as silent as stones behind John Surma as he announced the firing of Joe Paterno—and you will have some idea what this rule means in practice This rule is further employed to get Trustees to agree to unanimity after-the-fact, because even if they oppose an action before its adoption, they are bound to support it after it passes.
Subsection (1)(f)(11) requires that each Trustee shall “Advocate the University’s interests, but shall speak for the Board only when authorized to do so by the Board or the Chair.” This could be interpreted reasonably, but it is not.
How the Influential Ones interpret it is that no Trustee may publicly give his or her idea of what is in the University’s best interest unless he or she first gets the permission of the Board or the chairperson of the Board. Of course, no permission will be given to speak against any action the Board has already taken. Thus, once the Board acts, every individual Trustee is required by the rules to remain silent — which is exactly what the public has seen since the Sandusky scandal erupted.
Reflections of a Former Trustee - Part II Published by Ben Novak “Reflections of a Former Trustee” appeared in an abridged form in the Centre Daily Times on January 8th, 9th, and 10th. and later on www.bennovak.net. This is Part II of VI.
Part II. How the Board Governs the University: The Prohibition Against Knowledge As the Sandusky scandal goes on and on, many people wonder what responsibility the Board of Trustees has in all this. The answer lies in how the Board has set up the University to be governed. In a nutshell, the Influential Ones, most of whom are businesspersons, have set it up to be run as a business corporation on the model of Enron, concentrating all the power and information flow in the hands of the president.
To understand how they have done this we must delve into the documents by which they have structured the deal. While the discussion that follows may seem detailed and legalistic, it is simply a situation where the old saying applies: “the devil is in the details.” We shall be concerned here specifically with Standing Order IX entitled “Governance of the University.”
(Anyone may follow the detailed discussion of these Standing Orders by reading them for himself or herself. Simply visit www.psu.edu/trustees and click on “Charter, Bylaws & Standing Orders,” then scroll down to Order IX. Or you can download a copy from my own website here.)
The Board’s Removal of Itself from Responsibility for Policy
Section (1)(a) of Standing Order IX recognizes the Board of Trustees as the “corporate body established by the charter with complete responsibility for the government and welfare of the university.” This means that the Board is responsible for what goes on … but not really.
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Reflections of a Former Trustee - Part I Published by Ben Novak “Reflections of a Former Trustee” appeared in an abridged form in the Centre Daily Times on January 8th, 9th, and 10th. and later on www.bennovak.net. This is Part I of VI.
Introduction
I was elected to the Penn State Board of Trustees more than two decades ago, and served on it as an alumni Trustee for twelve years — from 1988 to 2000. I came onto the Board thinking that it was a deliberative body such as one reads about in civics books. It is not.
It took me years to understand what was really going on. In what follows, I hope to shed some light on the inner workings of the Board, as well as to explain both why the Board remains so secretive, and why it has offered so little public leadership to the University since the Sandusky scandal erupted.
The simple truth is that it is not simply one bad apple that has brought about the humiliating situation we face. Rather, it is the way the Board of Trustees has structured the whole governance of the University that has made this scandal not only possible but almost inevitable.
Part I. Who Runs the Board
To understand how the Board works, one must understand how one set of Trustees runs it. The thirty-two-member Board (actually forty-eight members when one includes the sixteen Emeritus Trustees) consists of four separate groups, which I call the Power Group, the Praetorian Guard, the Emeritus Trustees, and the Sheep — with the latter divided into two subgroups.
If I Didn't Need the Exercise Published by Jana Novak at www.murphyscabin.net I went out of town this past weekend for one reason, and one reason alone: to be able to watch tv. Yep. I choose to live in an isolated cabin with no television and barely any internet, and yet.... And yet sometimes ya just gotta watch....
Okay, so it's actually not just that. It's because it was the first weekend of playoff games in the National Football League. And I happen to love sports.
Okay. Not all sports. Professional basketball is just useless to me: put 100 points on the board and 2 minutes on the clock, and then maybe we have a game and I'll watch. Otherwise, with such a short shot clock, there is no strategy, no plays -- just egos running up and down the court showing off.
But there are some sports I do just love, and will go out of my way (ie, drive an hour to a friend's house) to watch: Professional and college football. I also really like college basketball and professional baseball, but not necessarily enough to drive an hour.
I will be honest, there is a much deeper reason and meaning to my love of sports: my father. For those of you who have never heard of the writer, philosopher and thinker Michael Novak, he is worth researching a bit, and you can check out his website here. And I swear it's not just personal bias.
Okay, maybe just a little....
I know I have talked repeatedly about my mother, and all the things she has given me and taught me. My father was also a critical teacher in my life, but I will admit that the one thing I associate most with him is sports. He, of course (he is a writer people!), wrote about it (see here), a book chosen by Sports Illustrated as one of the top 100 sports books of all times.
But he also watched it religiously, played it, lived it. So if you wanted to spend time with dad when he was in town -- you did as well. He taught me how to focus and how to ignore fear by throwing baseballs straight up in the air as high as he could and having me catch them barehanded. He taught me plays, strategy, rules and regulations. He taught me to note the camaraderie of the fans, the importance of the team working together, and the anticipation and tension and release that occur during every game -- a million times during every game -- and the joy of those lessons and those sensations. He taught me that sports were sacred, and bonding....
Which just means that while I might allow myself to skip most of the season nowadays, I will absolutely ensure I can watch my team(s) in the playoffs.
So I basically invited myself over a friend's house, and she and her husband generously and graciously took me and my two pups in for the weekend. It was lovely. Especially since they happen to have a huge yard with an 8 foot high perimeter fence. Yep. Hollow proof.
And I got to watch the games. And what games they were this weekend! Okay, well -- there was one game that was actually interesting!
More than that though, I watched "teevee".... And um, that was where the problem is, and a reminder of why I have so far chosen not to install satellite television at the cabin: I sat there and watched and watched and watched.
It didn't seem to much matter what I watched (though I'm partial to crime shows and home shows), I was just mesmerized. I didn't manage to go to bed before 3 am a single night while I was there. It was delicious, it was awe-inspiring, it was awful, and dangerous.
I barely walked the dogs (I might miss the end of a show, or the next one on after that one, or a commercial!). I barely showered, I didn't eat full meals. I sat and I watched....
I did nothing. And loved it.
Which is probably why I fully deserved my arrival back home at the cabin this evening.
I open the vehicle doors, let the dogs jump down, grab one bag and turn to go open the front door, and.... out of the corner of my eye I see Rilke barely in view up the drive, and Hollow sprinting after him.
~ sigh ~
As a friend pointed out -- they surely had lots and lots of peemail to catch up on. Umm yes. Clearly their inboxes were quite backlogged. As I saw no sight of them for an hour.
And then just now, on our late evening potty break? Well, Rilke came back when called. Hollow did not. She still has not made an appearance....
So it's become even more blatantly clear to me: these dogs do not need me. Frankly, they are pretty happy with the toys, treats and dog food.....but I think, given a choice, they'd probably actually hesitate.... Clearly they do not need me for their exercise or adventures.
Which just means.... If I didn't need the exercise, I would give up worrying about ensuring they have at least 2 hours of vigorous exercise every.single.day. I would give up on worrying about them period -- and just hope they have enough sense to come home at night before I lock up for the evening.
But the problem is? I, ummmm... do need the exercise. And I ummmmmm.... do need them. I need the camaraderie, the sense of a team working together... And yeah, probably the anticipation, tension and release of their disappearances. Well. Maybe not that.
~ sigh ~
Still waiting on Hollow.....
Oh wait, I just saw that the motion sensor light by the front door has just come on....
Collar cams. Yep. Collar cams.
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May 01, 2012 Read Jana Novak's latest Murphy's Cabin blog entry: "Other Things I Never Thought I Would Need to Learn" MurphysCabin.net February 13, 2012 Michael has added his name to the list of signatories of the statement from the Beckett Fund for Religious Liberty regarding the latest "accommodation" from the Obama Administration's Health Care Law. Read the whole thing here.
Click here to watch the video of the recent Catholic Information Center panel discussion "Contesting the HHS Mandate" on C-SPAN. January 11, 2012 Matthew Kenefick reviews Living the Call in the December/January issue of The American Spectator. Read the whole thing here. December 18, 2011 In a recent piece in The New York Times about Speaker Gingrich's Catholicism, Michael had the following to say:
He was just attracted by the stateliness and the beauty of the church, and the antiquity, and that’s what prodded his historical interest. As he got involved with the history, it blew his mind. There was just so much of it and I don’t think he had understood that before, that he really had a sense of the intellectual tradition behind it.
Read the whole piece here. November 16, 2011 Newsmax.com recently interviewed Bill and Michael about Living the Call. Watch the whole thing here. |
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