To: Penn State Alumni Association
cc: alumni networking
I received the Alumni Association's appeal for a gift to the Sustaining Life Member Program in yesterday's mail. The Alumni Association seems to have forgotten very quickly its actions during the past few years that disqualify it from any further support for the foreseeable future.
(1) The Web page on which Roger Williams expresses support for the Board of Trustees is still online at http://alumni.psu.edu/news/2011/statement-from-the-penn-state-alumni-association. I know it was posted before the Board disgraced the University on November 9, but its continued presence implies PSAA's support for the current Board as controlled by Keith Masser.
(2) Former PSAA President Tom Hollander publicly attacked alumni-elected Trustees (during the comment period at a Board meeting) for performing their fiduciary duty by supporting a lawsuit against the NCAA.
(3) Upward State, a shill organization for Keith Masser and his cronies, was supported by three PSAA Past Presidents. Jim Carnes is, in fact, one of the group's founders. http://www.collegian.psu.edu/news/campus/article_a86fed96-a41b-11e3-93ee-0017a43b2370.html This organization also attacked Trustees for suing Penn State (as a legal formality necessary to attack the NCAA), thus showing clearly that its leaders relationship with the Masser faction came first, and the well-being of Penn State a distant second. Upward State finally dried up and blew away in the wind, but Masser & Co. rewarded some of its leaders nonetheless. It is particularly telling that the Masser faction added two Upward State people (Matt Schuyler was an Upward State Trustee candidate whom the alumni rejected soundly in 2014) to the Board this year.
(4) PSAA attempted to keep off the 2015 ballot the names of two candidates for whom I, and the necessary number of other alumni, took the time to sign petitions. The Republican Party, of which I am a member, similarly kept Bob Guzzardi off the primary ballot in 2014, and told me when I complained that Tom Corbett was going to be our party's candidate. I replied that my party could therefore go to Hell in November as far as the gubernatorial contest was concerned, and I voted for Tom Wolf. If PSAA's controlling clique is going to exclude from the ballot people for whom I signed petitions, PSAA can similarly go to Hell when it comes to me with its hand out for money. In fact, had I not paid for a Life Membership long ago, I would quit my membership by discontinuing my dues payments. As matters stand, I at least get the magazine every couple of months.
(5) A posting in BWI Rivals shows unequivocally that the Penn State Alumni Association is now governed ("led" would be the wrong word) by an out of control, unaccountable cabal of self-serving insiders whose primary agenda is to network and feel important rather than serving the Association's stakeholders. This cabal has just expressed its open contempt for the Association's dues-paying members as follows. "One of the bylaws changes against which I argued most vehemently was the removal of nomination to Alumni Council by 50 valid signatures. The language of the previous bylaws (prior to April 17, 2015) did not indicate that nominations accompanied by signed petitions of 50 alumni association members were subject to review and approval of the nominations committee. Indeed, the bylaws language indicated that these are two independent processes. That has all changed now. Nomination by petition from active alumni members has been eliminated, as has nominations from the floor of council. You can now self-nominate or be nominated by the Nominations Committee. This bylaws change (next paragraph, additions are noted in CAPS) will allow the Nominations Committee to review, and have the final decision, regarding all nominations to Council."
The removal of the petition nomination process is an obvious reaction to the successful petitions of Board of Trustees critics Elizabeth Morgan and Jim Smith. If PSAA's governing cabal thinks hundreds of thousands of Penn State graduates are too stupid to recognize this, PSAA has been drinking too much of Keith Masser's Kool-Aid and Karen Peetz's soma (the don't worry, be happy drug from Brave New World). This is a flat-out declaration of war by the Association's so-called leaders on the dues-paying members. PSAA cannot slap me in the face and treat me as an enemy one day, and hold its hand out to me for money the next.
Until such time as the PSAA returns to its original mission of being an alumni association rather than a shill for Keith Masser, Keith Eckel, Kenneth Frazier, and the other dysfunctional Board leaders who are trying to cover up their own incompetence, dishonesty, and dereliction of fiduciary duty (the latter is the takeaway from the Commonwealth Court's decision of April 9 2014) at Penn State's expense, I encourage fellow alumni to seek alternate channels for involvement in Penn State. Donations can be sent directly to selected activities, scholarships, and so on rather than through PSAA.
William A. Levinson, B.S. '78
cc: alumni networking
I received the Alumni Association's appeal for a gift to the Sustaining Life Member Program in yesterday's mail. The Alumni Association seems to have forgotten very quickly its actions during the past few years that disqualify it from any further support for the foreseeable future.
(1) The Web page on which Roger Williams expresses support for the Board of Trustees is still online at http://alumni.psu.edu/news/2011/statement-from-the-penn-state-alumni-association. I know it was posted before the Board disgraced the University on November 9, but its continued presence implies PSAA's support for the current Board as controlled by Keith Masser.
(2) Former PSAA President Tom Hollander publicly attacked alumni-elected Trustees (during the comment period at a Board meeting) for performing their fiduciary duty by supporting a lawsuit against the NCAA.
(3) Upward State, a shill organization for Keith Masser and his cronies, was supported by three PSAA Past Presidents. Jim Carnes is, in fact, one of the group's founders. http://www.collegian.psu.edu/news/campus/article_a86fed96-a41b-11e3-93ee-0017a43b2370.html This organization also attacked Trustees for suing Penn State (as a legal formality necessary to attack the NCAA), thus showing clearly that its leaders relationship with the Masser faction came first, and the well-being of Penn State a distant second. Upward State finally dried up and blew away in the wind, but Masser & Co. rewarded some of its leaders nonetheless. It is particularly telling that the Masser faction added two Upward State people (Matt Schuyler was an Upward State Trustee candidate whom the alumni rejected soundly in 2014) to the Board this year.
(4) PSAA attempted to keep off the 2015 ballot the names of two candidates for whom I, and the necessary number of other alumni, took the time to sign petitions. The Republican Party, of which I am a member, similarly kept Bob Guzzardi off the primary ballot in 2014, and told me when I complained that Tom Corbett was going to be our party's candidate. I replied that my party could therefore go to Hell in November as far as the gubernatorial contest was concerned, and I voted for Tom Wolf. If PSAA's controlling clique is going to exclude from the ballot people for whom I signed petitions, PSAA can similarly go to Hell when it comes to me with its hand out for money. In fact, had I not paid for a Life Membership long ago, I would quit my membership by discontinuing my dues payments. As matters stand, I at least get the magazine every couple of months.
(5) A posting in BWI Rivals shows unequivocally that the Penn State Alumni Association is now governed ("led" would be the wrong word) by an out of control, unaccountable cabal of self-serving insiders whose primary agenda is to network and feel important rather than serving the Association's stakeholders. This cabal has just expressed its open contempt for the Association's dues-paying members as follows. "One of the bylaws changes against which I argued most vehemently was the removal of nomination to Alumni Council by 50 valid signatures. The language of the previous bylaws (prior to April 17, 2015) did not indicate that nominations accompanied by signed petitions of 50 alumni association members were subject to review and approval of the nominations committee. Indeed, the bylaws language indicated that these are two independent processes. That has all changed now. Nomination by petition from active alumni members has been eliminated, as has nominations from the floor of council. You can now self-nominate or be nominated by the Nominations Committee. This bylaws change (next paragraph, additions are noted in CAPS) will allow the Nominations Committee to review, and have the final decision, regarding all nominations to Council."
The removal of the petition nomination process is an obvious reaction to the successful petitions of Board of Trustees critics Elizabeth Morgan and Jim Smith. If PSAA's governing cabal thinks hundreds of thousands of Penn State graduates are too stupid to recognize this, PSAA has been drinking too much of Keith Masser's Kool-Aid and Karen Peetz's soma (the don't worry, be happy drug from Brave New World). This is a flat-out declaration of war by the Association's so-called leaders on the dues-paying members. PSAA cannot slap me in the face and treat me as an enemy one day, and hold its hand out to me for money the next.
Until such time as the PSAA returns to its original mission of being an alumni association rather than a shill for Keith Masser, Keith Eckel, Kenneth Frazier, and the other dysfunctional Board leaders who are trying to cover up their own incompetence, dishonesty, and dereliction of fiduciary duty (the latter is the takeaway from the Commonwealth Court's decision of April 9 2014) at Penn State's expense, I encourage fellow alumni to seek alternate channels for involvement in Penn State. Donations can be sent directly to selected activities, scholarships, and so on rather than through PSAA.
William A. Levinson, B.S. '78
