As a graduate of Penn State, I have experienced the events that have transpired this past week with more than a passing interest. It can’t be ignored, even if you try. Its inescapable discussion whether on broadcast media or at the “water cooler” gives new meaning to ubiquity. I somehow think the sobriquet “Happy Valley” will never be used again. Worse, the perpetrator had carefully woven a coat of irreproachable “credibility” with a long, public connection to a children’s charity, so the shock is exacerbated.

While there is considerable shock and anger over this, let’s be honest. It goes on more than we’d like to admit. It’s so common that some of us on this board are aware of an individual who was charged with crimes of a similar disposition this year, although, thankfully, there is no suspicion or evidence at this time that it involved physical contact although we can assume the imagery was exploitative. That individual is now being subjected to the legal peril euphemistically referred to as “justice”. It’s neither necessary nor relevant to this post to discuss the details of this anymore (don’t PM me for details; I will not expend the energy to gossip or satisfy prurient interests.)

As the Wall Street Journal noted this week, it is somewhat edifying that we can still recognize and react with visceral disgust to a horrendous evil in a “libertine” time.

I take the best indication of the magnitude of the crime not to be the fact that it could cause the ignominious and unceremonious termination of a publicly revered coach whose final effort should have been a celebratory and honorary.

Indeed, the best indicator of the horrific nature of these alleged offenses, against these children would be that merely seeing them reduce a former college athlete (McQueary), in his physical prime -somebody whose fearlessness reportedly once extended to intervening in a knife fight (and without adhering to the injunction to bring a gun) -to quivering, emasculated ball of impotence unable to respond only by calling his father. At least in the initial reaction, he was a victim as well.

However, there are lessons from Penn State. There used to be lengthy tomes on here about how a board’s job was to look good, raise money and let the “professionals” do their job, unperturbed. Clearly penned by people unacquainted with corporate operations or life, it was difficult to argue against with a sound bite. Now it’s obvious. While I’m not suggesting every executive should be subject to cynical suspicion, we have to be aware people can go wrong, or make mistakes.

Character is a difficult thing to assess. It’s also not something not immune to degradation. Billy Graham reportedly never traveled overnight with his secretary to avoid temptation. Few others are so aware of their own frailties.

We also know there was a first victim, likely sometime long after Sandusky had distinguished himself as a capable defensive coordinator. Did he always harbor such disordered passions or just develop them. Who knows?

It was the action that mattered and more importantly when did the University or its staff know? We know that a highly regarded “genius” suddenly resigned in 1999 at the age of 55. The indictment indicates one of the victims indicated that there was a meeting where Paterno told his widely assumed to be heir apparent he would not be Paterno’s successor.

Nobody ever “picked him up”, either. Was it an NCAA "open secret" or did retirement afford him unlimited opportunity? We may never know.


But what does this mean to readers of this forum?

If there’s mess with your organization, the board will be responsible. As the PSU board of trustees is finding out, you can only delegate authority-but not responsibility and this kind of thing needs to go as far up the chain as it can, even though "this type of thing" can't be easily defined or qualified.

Be aware and involved in what the management does now or deal with a potentially catastrophic mess later-Penn State will be wounded by this (S&P put it on credit watch) and you can be sure enrollment, endowment, donation, licensing and endorsement’s will take a big hit. Of course, it won’t be catastrophic. The University’s resources and dependence on legislative appropriation means it will survive. We will move on to some other disaster. Nothing is unforgettable, given enough time.
However, a small railroad museum would be cratered if a prominent individual did this on its premises.

So, here are a few lessons.


Have an active, informed and involved board.

If you have somebody who thinks they are beyond reproach, so important as to be indispensable (Paterno reportedly told Spanier he’d determine when he was ready to leave), you already have a problem.

Facility access should be monitored and restricted. Repeated entry at odd times is a cause for concern.

When it comes to children, you have an extraordinary duty of care-if you witness abuse-you better do all you can, not just what’s required. You can’t “wash your hands”. Respond as if the victim was your child or grandchild. You might be the only thing between them and mass inaction.

There will no doubt be a slew of reports, policies and procedures emerging from this episode and not one will do anything to instill two forgotten virtues-vigilance and fortitude. Being in charge means dealing with the unanticipated, unprecedented and unpleasant.

I’m sure the rest of the board can think of additional lessons.

OK, put it into action terms.

How many of you have rules in place prohibiting staff from contacting outside media/police/regulatory agencies?

Are there personnel or safety issues which staff could individually be liable for if they limited their response to informing management?

"personnel or safety issues which staff could individually be liable for if they limited their response to informing management?"

That's a hard question to answer. Sometimes you aren't even allowed to discuss with management. A couple of years ago, I had an nearly sixty year old employee who was notorious for episodes of erratic behavior. Examples:

An hour long tirade about how John Snow (in his capacity as Treas Sec, not CSX CEO) was responsible for American economic decline. No, this had nothing to with her job.

Laughing at her desk for apparent reason.

Delusions of persecution such a when her near thirty-year subordinate took a day off (that tenure entitled the subordinate to over 25 days off per year) accusing the subordinate of timing the leave requests to "screw" the individual.

The coup de' gras was walking about the halls pointing a banana like a pistol and saying "bang bang" and "pow pow" (your tax at work). This was followed by a call to the employee assistance service, who indicated that the behavior was indicative of being "troubled" and required monitoring and counseling for workplace violence.

The response was the filing of a nine-page sexual harassment claim that was COMPLETELY fabricated and in some cases included accusations of things that would have required a suspension of the laws of physics or a belief that there was a way to prevent other staff of seeing the alleged actions.

Fortunately, a well stocked file documenting a seemingly endless supply of similar behaviors and a three month series of interviews resulted in the best outcome- "no evidence to support".

This was several years ago, I am still prevented from discussing this except with the principal investigator and the head of HR. My superiors know there was an "EEO claim" and the outcome.

Ironically, ordinarily, when an employee files a claim of mismanagement of any other kind, the manager is provided with legal counsel. In the case of EEO complaints -you are on your own.

In short, there's no good answer to your question. Every situation has unique considerations and best practices.

Even in the PSU case, there's much to be discovered. I read comments by a commenting attorney that the University might be prevented from terminating McQueary, because there's a state law that protects whistleblowing employees who report suspected abuse to superiors.

It appears Paterno's mistake was directing McQueary to talk to Curley (Paterno's "boss" the Athletic Director), rather than going himself.

While reporting abuse is important, it is equally important to design the interactions between children and adults in ways that both make abuse and the appearance of abuse difficult. (We want to protect children from abuse; we also want to protect adults from unfounded accusations of abuse.) For example, we should avoid situations where one adult and one child are alone with each other, especially in settings that are not clearly visible to others.

I am a member of our local Rotary Club… ( a great way to connect to your community… a source of small local grants…one local club funded a flatcar restoration, my club funded the fire sprinklers in our new car barn…)

Rotary International has very strict rules about “Child Protection” For a club to have any interaction with children’s groups, EVERY member of the club has to be trained in Child Protection issues… ANY member directly having an interaction with children is finger printed and background checked. Every member needs to understand what child molestation might look like…

Unfortunately there are bad people about… Organizations need to be careful to assure that they and their programs are not associated with such activities…

We like to think we are playing with trains… preserving trains… but there a folks, maybe members of our groups who may be thinking about other things…

We had a former board member who was arrested for Child molestation… not at our site… We didn’t have a youth program at the time… we were not looking… He was quickly removed as a board member, expelled from the group, banned from the site… his life membership was refunded… When we checked after the fact… he had been convicted in another state… and was a leader in a well known youth group here… and a simple background check would have shown his past activities… IF anyone had checked…

Remember

I) If you have youth programs have training and a background check program in place
II) If there is an allegation, a suspicion, anything… treat it responsibly… suspend pending an investigation, investigate, take appropriated action… (which could include reinstating the individual if allegations are disproved)

This is an issue that no group can ignore…

I think this is a very good article explaining how men who should know better allow things like this to happen:

http://health.yahoo.net/experts/menshea ... id-nothing

At the same time that this is an issue no group can afford to ignore, it seems to me that the costs involved with all these programs, background checks, etc. can easily become a handy "excuse" to do away with such youth programs, or never to consider them in the first place especially given lean economic times. I can easily see several such situations where a realistic appraisal of the cost-to-benefit ratio would make any such program at anything short of a state institution/facility a "non-starter."

Where do we draw the line?

"it seems to me that the costs involved with all these programs, background checks, etc. can easily become a handy "excuse" to do away with such youth programs, or never to consider them in the first place especially given lean economic times."

Oh but just wait. The Radithor prescribers we call "leaders", will eventually cease their largely useless and self-aggrandizing memorializing and philosophizing and give us what we crave-action. Don't just stand there! Do Something! (I waive my arms like rotary wings for several minutes every morning to keep elephants from overrunning my neighborhood, and so far its been 100% effective, its hard to argue with the results, although its seems to be completely ineffective against deer, and I can't figure out why)

Lengthy reports, will implement unflinchingly rigid, lengthy and complicated rules whose imposing nature will assure the vast swaths of the population that "nothing like this will ever happen again", just as the rules implemented after the Thalidomide did, until we find out there will be more,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_withdrawn_drugs

because no drug is "safe" under all conditions and anything powerful enough to be therapeutic, is powerful enough to have unanticipated side-effects that may not rear their ugly heads until its tested in the real world. Of course, the stronger the assurance no bad drugs come to market, the stronger the chance good ones will be excluded because there are "Type I" and "Type II" errors.

This is a moral failure, principally by one man (assuming the accusations are true), a product of the moral ambivalence of our time. No policy or procedure is going to stop it-and worse, every decent man who might be inclined to help kids is now calculating whether he'll be the subject of suspicion at some time. I say men, because many people who are in a frenzy now, when there was a rush of female teachers molesting students, a couple years ago started humming "Hot for Teacher". Mary Kay Latearno's (sp?) marriage to her victim was even on TV.

Nicolas Nassim Taleb explores the common errors of the political response to these sorts of issues in "The Black Swan", specifically that the response is to specific and backward looking. It's one of the best books of the past few years, along with "The Forgotten Man" discussed in another thread.

I believe the company that runs Thomas the Tank Engine events requires anyone who will have any contact with children during the event to undergo a background check.

More to the point, in Australia, any volunteer at a railway museum even visible to children must undergo such a check.

"I believe the company that runs Thomas the Tank Engine events requires anyone who will have any contact with children during the event to undergo a background check."

And while it would catch previously convicted offenders, Sandusky didn't have a record and it is charged that he persisted in this criminality for a decade and a half.

There is no "magic bullet", no matter how much we might like there to be.

I wonder if that is in the contract for Thomas Events. I can see that being done for their direct employees, but few if any of their personnel staff or participate in the running of the event. How could it be stipulated for the hosting site, often involving 200 or more volunteers coming just for this event to support it? Many of those are only seen on site once per year. And some of those are 'hired' as outside contractors. And things like service contracts - porta potties come to mind. Those guys are at best 'swarthy borderline' in costume and demeanor. I would not take their job if unemployed. Yet, if unbalanced, they certainly meet what I would define as coming in contact with children, all sorts of mischief possible, especially with an accomplice at hand. So, how do you define "HAVE ANY CONTACT"?

Saying the above, without having privy to a contract document so have not been able to answer my own question.

Bob Kutella

In my local United Methodist Church we now follow a Safe Sanctuaries program, where the bottom line is that one on one contact by volunteers and staff with children is generally prohibited. The "ideal" policy is pretty strict if you want to be 100 percent compliant. The overall impact is that folks are aware of the goal of Safe Sanctuaries and program plans are prepared accordingly. I do not recall that we screen contractors, etc. as Bob discusses with DOWT.

Wesley

I had originally thought about this case in relation to what most railroads require in their rules of conduct for employees. I believe that both Class I's I've worked for have policies that require employees report criminal misconduct or other incidents to immediate supervision - to the point that grade crossing/trespasser accidents get reported to the dispatcher and not 9-1-1. Also, it's a standard part of the rules that no one outside of public affairs/corporate communications talks to the media without permission of supervision. If PSU's rules of conduct were similarly constructed, the then-GA/intern coach fulfilled the legal obligation of notifying his immediate superior of the incident he witnessed, although really, I would have been sorely tempted to beat the living daylights out of Sandusky on the spot.

There has been a general discussion of sexual misconduct in the workplace because of this incident and the alleged Herman Cain misconduct recently. I remember having a generally evil and truly hated supervisor 20 years ago who supervised a large number of both male and female employees. Anybody who knows me well has probably heard the uncensored version of this story. One day he called in a low-level female employee for "counseling", and propositioned her to engage in some very "kinky" acts. Knowing his reputation, she had a tape recorder going in her purse and immediately went down the hall to his boss. Within an hour, the evil snake supervisor had been removed from his position, but was not fired. He was kicked upstairs to HQ (to a position that kept him away from temptation), then later forced cross-country in a management shake-up to another position that put him back in-charge of low-level female employees. He was suspended twice for sexual harassment while in that job, but was eventually allowed to retire with a full pension about 13 years ago. Simply amazing. Mind you, this happened at a Class I.

I think the major problem here, which the media has yet to focus on, is that the GA/intern coach walked in on a situation that was clearly an illegal activity in progress. That should require an immediate response of calling law enforcement, although it could be argued that campus security would be the agency with jurisdiction. The fact that he didn't do so should be sufficient grounds for his termination.

I don't think that anyone's rules prohibit that. Yeah, in the railroad context the train crew is supposed to call their dispatch center, but the dispatch center is supposed to immediately determine the proper jurisdiction and make the call for assistance. This is more an artifact of a time when train crews didn't carry cel phones and didn't have the means to summon help, whereas the dispatch center did. I can see where management likes the insulation this provides, but I would suspect that if the train crew made the call, but assistance never arrived and a death occurred because of it, that the train crew could be held liable for not pursuing the issue with the dispatch center.

In the case of everyone else involved at Penn State, the facts become somewhat murkier. None of the management people seemed to have first hand knowledge that a crime was committed, but all eventually became aware that no investigation resulted, so obviously someone was responsible for the cover up of child abuse. Everyone involved should have an obligation to see that this was reported so it could be investigated by an impartial agency.

I'm guessing you're probably right about the policy being out of date regarding the use of cell phones. However, having been "qualified" on almost 500 miles of railroad, it's far quicker and easier for a crew to tell a dispatcher they are at MP XX.X than to try and tell a 9-1-1 dispatcher which underpass they are probably near in a town the crew is not familiar with. I always carried the maps for my territory, but taking the time to look up your exact location is not always practical, especially when it's more important to run back along the train to see if you can render assistance to anyone who might be injured. If I knew for sure exactly where I was in terms of streets in a town, I wouldn't hesitate to use a cell phone to call the local authorities for help - after having made a good faith effort to contact the dispatcher. If you work the extra-board, and go months without seeing some of your territory, I think it's next to impossible to remember the name of every minor road crossing, and especially the names of under or overpasses you do not cross at-grade.