“To date, Penn State has taken a number of actions including: strengthening policies and programs involving minors, including child abuse and mandated reporter training; ensuring a process for prompt reporting of abuse and sexual misconduct; hiring a new Clery Compliance Coordinator and providing Clery Act training for employees; beginning a national search for the newly created position of director of University Compliance; and restructuring within the Board of Trustees to ensure diligent governance of the University.”
So far, none of the university’s 32 trustees has resigned, although the board did vote to shorten terms of office from 15 years to 12 years.
How to deal with the legacy of head football coach Paterno – whose bronze statue is perhaps Penn State’s most famous (now infamous) icon – is something the school’s trustees say they just can’t deal with now.
"It's going to take a lot of dialogue with the community," trustees chair Ms. Peetz said Friday. "We want to be reflective, we want to go slowly, and it will be something that will take a lot of deliberation."
But prominent sports columnist and book author John Feinstein says, “Paterno’s legacy is no longer stained or tarnished – it is destroyed.”
“Regardless of how many good things he did during his 62 years as a Penn State employee, the tragedy that he failed to stop overwhelms all the good he did,” Mr. Feinstein writes in The Washington Post.
Some have suggested that Mr. Paterno’s statue be removed and that the library building bearing his name be renamed.
"You go to a Penn State football game and there's 100,000 people down there and they got that statute and you know doggone well they'll start talking about Sandusky," former Florida State coach Bobby Bowden told The Associated Press. "If it was me, I wouldn't want to have it brought up every time I walked out on the field."
