By now you’ve heard about the fines and sanctions leveled against Penn State for mishandling the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse scandal. But how will the July 23 NCAA decision impact not just Penn State, but other universities? Since we live in a big college town, I called on Dan Lebowitz, the executive director of Northeastern University’s Sport in Society organization, for his reaction.
While some people believe that Penn State should have gotten the “death penalty,” a suspension of the school’s football program, Lebowitz believed the punishment handed down by the NCAA was the better one overall for the long term.
“I think in some respects, it keeps the conversation going more than the death penalty because there’s been other institutions that have received that, and I was afraid this was going to get lumped in as a football violation,” said Lebowitz. “And what this is is an absolute leadership violation, an egregious act where an economic engine of football at college overran a child’s right to sexual safety, just safety in general.”
Could it happen here?
While this incident, along with many others, has raised the issue of whether athletics take too high a priority in schools, Lebowitz believed the Athletic Department at Northeastern is run very well.
“I think our athletic director here, Peter Roby, is incredibly attuned to the importance of running an athletic department that’s a national model,” said Lebowitz. “Here, he does not run as an island. He reports to a number of people. He engages in conversation across the university. This is an open athletic department, and one that every day is based on integrity.”
Lebowitz said that the faculty at Northeastern has been using the incident at Penn State as a learning experience for the students.
“Some [students] get caught up in the visceral reaction of ‘What about the players who are going there?’ and yet, when they engage in a larger conversation, for instance, if I run into students and ask them to close their eyes and imagine that they’re victims or their younger brother or their nephew or their cousin, how do they feel about it then?” said Lebowitz. “And that engages a different conversation. Then people start to see that you do need to use this spotlight for positivity, you do need to use this as a teaching moment, and it can’t just be one isolated teaching moment.”
How can Penn State recover?
Lebowitz himself believes that if Penn State is to retain the support of its community, it will need to reach out with the promise of rebuilding.
“If I was at Penn State, I’d be reaching out as a development officer or somebody else and say that if you really do love the institution, we need to rebuild our reputation,” said Lebowitz. “At no other point is this giving more important. I would think that if you really are aligned with the university, you would understand that the culture there has gone awry, and here’s a chance to make a difference and start a new culture.”
