Graham Spanier - Biography

Graham B. Spanier (born July 18, 1948) is an American academic, who served as the 16th president of the Pennsylvania State University from September 1, 1995, until he was forced to resign on November 9, 2011, in the aftermath of the Penn State child sex abuse scandal. During his tenure as president, the campus expanded considerably, including the creation of the Schreyer Honors College, the College of Information Sciences and Technology, and the Penn State World Campus, and merger with the Dickinson School of Law. He continues as a tenured professor at PSU.

Early life and education

Born in South Africa, Spanier grew up in the Chicago suburbs and graduated from Highland Park High School (Highland Park, Illinois). He was a boxer and had his nose broken in bouts with his father several times, according to close friend Michael Oriard of Oregon State University. He earned his bachelor's and master's degrees from Iowa State University where he was honored with the Distinguished Achievement Citation by the ISU Alumni Association in 2004. He earned his Ph.D. in sociology from Northwestern University where he was a Woodrow Wilson Fellow.

Career

While a researcher, Spanier contributed to the publication of ten books and over 100 scholarly journal articles. As a family sociologist, demographer, and marriage and family therapist, he was the founding editor of the Journal of Family Issues. Spanier was also an author of a study in the Archives of Sexual Behavior concerning the practice of mate swapping, or "swinging".

Spanier served as chancellor of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Oregon State, and vice provost for undergraduate studies at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He was a faculty member and administrator from 1973 to 1982 in Penn State's College of Health and Human Development.

He returned to PSU as President in 1995.

While President of Penn State, Spanier earned an annual salary of $545,016, as determined by a sub-committee of the University Board of Trustees. His compensation was ranked third among his peers at surveyed public universities nationwide., and was the fifth-highest university pay in America, a total annual package in excess of $800,000.

"Spanier spent five years trying to block the release ... by The Patriot-News of Harrisburg [of] the salaries of Penn State’s highest-paid officials, including Paterno, from the state retirement system. ... The university lost before the pension board, the Commonwealth Court and, in 2007, the State Supreme Court."

Board memberships

He has served on national boards such as the Board of Directors of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, deputy chair of the Worldwide Universities Network, the Board of Directors and a founding member of the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development, and chair of the Kellogg Commission on the Future of State and Land-Grant Universities. Spanier has also chaired the National Security Higher Education Advisory Board.

Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal

In 2011, Spanier was criticized for his initial reaction to a sex abuse case involving former Penn State football defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky. Sandusky was charged in November 2011 with 40 counts related to alleged sexual abuse of minors. Penn State athletic director Timothy Curley and university Senior Vice President Gary Schultz were also indicted for perjuring themselves and not reporting a 2002 incident in which a graduate assistant said he witnessed Sandusky abusing a child on Penn State property.

After the charges came to light, Spanier issued a statement in which he said Curley and Schultz had his "complete confidence", and saying they "operate at the highest levels of honesty." Spanier was criticized for expressing support for Curley and Schultz, and failing to express any concern for Sandusky's alleged victims. After this, he largely dropped from public view; according to the Chronicle of Higher Education, the Board of Trustees ordered him to keep silent. He did, however, cancel head football coach Joe Paterno's weekly press conference due to legal concerns; Paterno was a key witness in the grand jury probe.

A group of Penn State students created the Facebook page "Fire Graham Spanier", in order to call on Penn State's Board of Trustees to fire Spanier. An online petition at change.org calling for Spanier's ouster garnered over 1,700 signatures in four days.

On November 9, 2011, the Penn State Board of Trustees announced that Spanier had resigned and head football coach Joe Paterno had been fired, in both cases effective immediately. Earlier that day, The Express-Times of Easton reported that the Board of Trustees had given Spanier an ultimatum—resign before that night's meeting or be fired. Later, a member of the board told The Morning Call of Allentown that the board was very angry about his statement of unconditional support for Curley and Schultz. Although he is no longer president, Spanier is still a tenured professor at Penn State. Provost Rodney Erickson was named his successor.

In the wake of the Sandusky revelations, a Phoenix private investigator named Paul McLaughlin came forward. He charged that in the early 2000s Spanier and others at Penn State had rebuffed his efforts to report his sexual abuse as an 11-year-old in the late 1970s and early 1980s by, among others, PSU education professor John T. Neisworth. McLaughlin, who had secretly taped a purported confession from Neisworth, said Spanier said "Don't bother" when McLaughlin offered to send him the tape. As it happened, McLaughlin's conversation with Spanier occurred, according to McLaughlin, in March, 2002, days before the alleged Sandusky rape. "Neisworth retired in 2002, though he continued teaching a distance-education course for a few more years," it was also reported. David Monk, a PSU education dean, said he had not been offered the tape and that “I did take the charges seriously and immediately determined that Mr. Neisworth’s Penn State duties did not involve direct contact with children.” One university official sent back a copy of the recording unopened. McLaughlin says that Neisworth paid him a "six-figure" settlement after a lawsuit, but criminal charges were not sustained due to statutes of limitations and admissability issues.

Internet and copyright issues

Spanier has an expressed interest in internet technology: he was a founding member of the Internet2 board. In 1997, Spanier was recognized by Al Gore for his work on the University Corporation for Advanced Internet Development (UCAID). More recently, Spanier has become an outspoken critic of unmonitored online file sharing, and testified before Congress in 2002 about the issue. He was the first University president to collaborate with music companies in an effort to halt illegal file sharing among students when Penn State signed a contract with Napster that provided all students access to Napster's music catalog. In 2007 he signed a contract with Ruckus Network which provides ad-supported access to millions of songs and videos to Penn State Students. He served as co-chair of the Committee on Higher Education and the Entertainment Industry.

Personal life

Spanier and his wife Sandra, who is professor of English at Penn State, have two children, Brian and Hadley, both of whom have attended Penn State University.

External links

• WPSU's website.