GRADUATING WITH DISHONORS: THE ONE LESSON UNIVERSITIES MUST UNDERSTAND BEFORE DEALING WITH ATHLETIC DEPARTMENT CRISES
Recent crises within the athletic departments at Penn State University and at Rutgers University are a cautionary tale about how carefully crafted reputations developed over generations can be quickly destroyed. Experts who conduct independent studies into these scandals add to the problems by failing the institutions they serve and the public. Their reports practically assure similar cases will continue to be mishandled in future because they fail to address a key recommendation that should be the cornerstone of their findings.
The additional recommendation should be phrased in the form of a question that each school President should ask immediately upon learning of a burgeoning scandal: "If this issue appears on Twitter and other social media this afternoon, unfiltered, with all video and text records, how would I react?" By creating a scenario for Presidents that imagines the cat out of the bag, their frame of reference would change from a detrimental secretive and insular point of view into a more realistic scenario that forces consideration of public awareness. The wheels would be set in motion for a more long-term and constructive strategy of public disclosure that would truly assist in reputation management.
A beneficial byproduct of this rule would be the immediate and pro-active involvement of the university public information officer. This member of the university's professional staff is in the best position to develop goals and to implement a comprehensive strategy to identify and engage with all affected parties including the media. The rule would mandate a Board-level position for the media relations officer with the purpose of highlighting opportunities and threats based on all current business before the Board.
It is disappointing but not surprising that the oversight committees and special investigators suffer from the same myopic viewpoint of the administrators they supervise. Boards and the investigative counsel they hire are made up in many instances of people with similar professional backgrounds in administration, business, finance and law. Their experience would be augmented by a professional whose day-to-day responsibilities include the potential ramifications of policy on all parties -- parents, students, boosters, media, faculty, administration, government -- and with the skills to set realistic goals and to develop strategy to inform each of them.
With this rule in place, Penn State may have helped heal sooner from the horrible consequences of their inaction. The fantasy of a few decision-makers that the information they possessed would be contained would have quickly been discounted as folly. Rutgers University officials viewed a video last December of their basketball coach assaulting players and spewing homophobic slurs and other verbal abuse. The advice of any legitimate PR professional would have been swift and unambiguous: start by taking immediate steps to fire the coach and to contact each player identifiable in the video with support and outreach.
The implementation of this rule would also help to end decision-making paralysis or short-sighted decision making caused by potential legal implications. Often swayed by legal argument, administrators may hesitate to take disciplinary action against an employee. The Rutgers coach was suspended and fined initially after the video was viewed by the athletic director and some board members. A PR professional would help highlight additional points of view -- that of the parents of the student-athletes in the video for example. Also, if involved at the board level, the public information officer would have pointed out that, if one video exists, then there are probably more, and it may already be in the public domain or will be shortly.
It's almost too late for Rutgers. The rage and aggression of the Rutgers coach seen abusing the basketball players in the video raises questions about what his behavior is like within his own family unit. It's too late for Penn State. The recent appointment last month of Regis Becker as Director of University Ethics and Compliance at Penn State is not the solution for the problem highlighted here. His skills do not overlap with the public information function. His position is not at the Board level. He reports to the Legal and Compliance Committee of the Board of Trustees. How helpful were that committee's contributions to the Sandusky tragedy?
Expect more troubling announcements from more athletic departments at more universities until they can learn to teach themselves this valuable lesson.
