Oh, yeah. Here we go. Lotta bitching about this one!
Although former Penn State President Graham Spanier hasn’t yet been convicted of obstruction, perjury, and failure to report a crime, he sure will incur a lot of wealth envy wrath from the hoi polloi over his $3.3 million severance package. Now that we have a president who promotes wealth envy, I’m sure it will make Spanier’s detractors even more vocal.
Ain’t right!
See the story in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Joe says
Yeah, but he’s smart like a fox that’s why it’s deferred until 2017, that way if El Presidente gets his way to keep us from doing a head first over the “cliff”, he’ll miss the extra tax liability and take his chances on what the new resident in the White House does in ’16.
The Nittany Turkey says
Are you certain that he’s considering a favorable political climate instead of forecasting when he’ll get out?
—TNT
Joe says
Hell the way this thing is going, he may not even go to trial by then, but either way, he might have more money in his pocket after his parole or a new administration rescinds Obama’s higher tax rates by waiting until ’17. Everybody keeps saying he’s a really smart guy right?
BigAl says
The severance package is in line with the salary he received while he was president. The real outrage is the exhorbitant salaries that university presidents get for being little more than fund raisers.
And the BOT will pay a multi million salary to attract Penn State’s next “superhero president” so that they can go back to sitting on their asses and pretending that they are important.
The Nittany Turkey says
Some university presidents are more than fund raisers — they’re consummate politicians who can move their institutions broadly forward. Having served a 13-year stint in higher education at the University of Central Florida, I had firsthand experience with four presidents.
The initial president I served under accomplished little after taking the reins from his predecessor, who was the first guy to run the university, namely changing the name of the institution, establishing a football program, and looking good walking around with a bent pipe, tweed jacket, and academic beard.
The second was young, dynamic, good looking, smart, personable, would mingle with students, and had great ideas for the future; alas, he also had a penchant for rough scenes with hookers charged on expense account Master Cards while on lobbying trips to Tallahassee and Washington.
The third was a retired ex-president of the University of Florida, a grandfatherly figure who was hired on an interim basis to promote “healing” after Hookergate. He was merely a caretaker.
The fourth was an older fat guy, John Hitt, who previously had been president of the University of Maine and from whom I expected little, yet another one of this turkeys predictions gone awry! During his 20-year presidency to date, the university has grown to be one of the largest in the country; a medical school was conceived and established; the school was classified as a “very high research activity” institution by the Carnegie Foundation; the football team moved up to Division I-A, hiring George O’Leary as head coach after the rest of the NCAA world had given up on him; and Hitt lost 100 lbs. Hitt is the longest serving public university president in Florida. He receives one of the largest compensation packages among university presidents nationwide, and is damn well arguably worth it.
Hey, one out of four ain’t bad, but a .250 lifetime batting average won’t get you into Cooperstown unless you’re a pitcher.
Perhaps Penn State will choose another John Hitt, but expectations are naturally low, given the machinations of the BoT of late.
Sorry for the big red above. I couldn’t resist. Here is what he’s doing 20 years later.
—TNT
BigAl says
You can’t do anything stupider than paying for pussy with your corporate credit card. Except maybe paying for it with a personal check (like Jerry Springer did when he was vice mayor of Cincinnati).
Still, he seemed to land on his feet with another presidential gig. Got to wonder where Spanier will wind up working. I don’t think it will be making liscense plates – I wouldn’t be surprised if the new AG drops charges in a couple of months.