Did you ever feel as if there was a nameless, faceless group of people somewhere making odd rules just to see if we will all go along with them?
Or, sometimes we even know the names and faces of the people making the odd rules, which at least allows us to personalize the irony of man’s inhumanity to man. Right up until the irony evaporates, that is, and then all we’re left with is the absurdity.
Last Tuesday here in Happy Valley we had one of those odd rules established that, in a normal world, wouldn’t affect many people. But here in State College, where 22,922 of Centre County’s residents are Penn State alums, and tens of thousands work for the university, decisions by the Penn State Board of Trustees tend to get a lot of attention.
So, what did the Trustees do this time, you ask?
Well, as reported on this website and elsewhere, the Board of Trustees created a Nominating Subcommittee of the Governance Committee of the Board, and gave it the power to, “review candidates for Alumni Trustee and determine whether Candidates are qualified to be placed on the ballot.” (Emphasis is mine.)
That’s right, a small subcommittee of the Board of Trustees is now going to decide who gets to be on the ballot for trustees elected by the alumni. (If you are really interested in the specific language, it’s on page 2 of the “ELECTIONS APPENDIX TO BYLAWS” – which are found at the end of the bylaws on Penn State’s website here.)
The Congress of the United States doesn’t set up a subcommittee to say who can or can’t be on the ballot for U.S. senator or U.S. representative. The General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania doesn’t set up a subcommittee to say who can or can’t be on the ballot for state senator or state representative. The State College Borough Council doesn’t set up a subcommittee to say who can or can’t be on the ballot for Borough Council.
Then why is the Penn State Board of Trustees setting up a subcommittee to say who can or can’t be on the ballot for alumni-elected trustee? The cynics would likely say that sounds like they’re trying to stack an already stacked deck.
Now, in the interest of maintaining a somewhat open mind, the board did also give this committee the power to “Interview and make recommendations to the board with respect to candidates for the at-large, business and industry, academic and student trustees.”
And, the subcommittee will also, “share the board’s required elements for candidates along with the board’s Skills and Demographics Report and the ‘Candidate Questionnaire’ with the Office of the Governor and Senate leadership to support their processes in trustee selections.”
In other words, they are applying some sort of gateway to the other trustees as well as the alumni-elected trustees.
But, since all those other trustees are appointed and not elected, this is really just codifying what we had hoped they had been doing all along anyway – at least engaging in some due diligence on the people they themselves are appointing to the board. Rather than what the cynics likely believe they were doing, which is just appointing their buddies.
Which gets us back to the alumni-elected trustees.
You can now decide to be a candidate for an alumni-elected trustee opening, meet the basic qualifications (be of full-age, be a graduate, be nominated by as many as 50 electors, etc.), complete the necessary paperwork, etc. that the Board requires, only to be told that you are not qualified and never get put on the ballot.
As I said above, odd… and maybe a few other things.
In support of this odd rule, one of the at-large trustees of the board was reported to have offered a reason that it is a good way to identify people who have skill sets that are lacking on the board. For example, it was suggested that there is “not a lot of health care experience on the board currently, but since Penn State has a large health system, that skill set is valuable to have.”
Which sounds somewhat reasonable right up until you remember that, oh yeah, there are six appointed members of the Board of Trustees that represent business and industry endeavors. Not to mention three at-large trustees who can represent whatever endeavors the Board wants.
You would think, since health care and social services is the third-largest component of the gross domestic product in Pennsylvania, that somebody on the board would have thought that one of those nine appointed spots should be someone with a health care background. In other words, not only is the rationale offered unsound, but it identifies the current appointed trustees aren’t doing a very good job reflecting the reality of Pennsylvania business and industry in their appointments.
Now, I would love to be able to channel my inner Judith Martin when she said, “When Miss Manners observes people behaving rudely, she behaves politely to them, and then goes home and snickers about them afterward.”
Or like Groucho Marx, who famously said, “I wouldn’t want to belong to a club that would have me as a member”
Or, even Susie Derkins, who Calvin yells down to from his treetop boy’s club that, “You can’t come up here, Susie! No girls allowed.” Susie quickly retorts, “What on earth makes you think I’d want to sit in a stupid tree in the first place?!?”
I’d love to be uncaring about this, but, I can’t. As Wilford Brimley’s character states near the end of the movie “Absence of Malice,” “and worse than that, by God, it ain’t right.”
So, what’s a concerned Penn State alum to do?
I can’t believe I’m going to say this, but I think the state government needs to get involved. Of all the other cohort schools in the Big Ten, Michigan State seems closest to Penn State in many respects: land-grant university, a [name of state] State University rather than a University of [name of state], and second-largest university by revenue in the state.
Michigan State’s Board of Trustees consists of eight members elected for staggered eight-year terms. And, get this, they are publicly elected by Michigan voters. Everyone in the state has the ability to vote for Michigan State trustees. Not just alums, and certainly not just a small group of appointees.
In recent years there have been attempts by members of the Pennsylvania General Assembly to make minor adjustments to the composition of Penn State’s Board of Trustees. Perhaps it’s time to just completely throw out the book and try a whole new level of accountability. One that reflects not only the wishes of the 395,000 Penn State alumni living in the state of Pennsylvania, but the millions of Pennsylvania residents who are impacted by what this university sharing the state’s name does and how it’s run.
How about everyone in Pennsylvania gets the opportunity to elect the Trustees? Doesn’t sound so odd after all, does it?
