It is now exactly one year to the day that Jerry Sandusky was arrested and charged with 40 counts of child sexual abuse. The arrest kicked off the one year that we at Penn State would like to forget most of all. The scandal devastated us, as the school and its symbols we thought we knew seemed to unravel. But I think I've learned more in the past year than perhaps any other.
Exactly one year ago, the Penn State community entered into a whirlwind of shock, confusion, tragedy, and eventually the first seedlings of healing. The images are still fresh in our mind from all these emotions, and will no doubt continue to be as the community moves forward.
If you recall, there were four men mentioned by Louis Freeh and his team as being at fault for endangering children: Graham Spanier, Gary Schultz, Tim Curley, and of course, the late Joe Paterno. Charges have been filed against the three living men that were perpetrators in the eyes of Louis Freeh, so I have to wonder if Joe Paterno would be in Spanier's shoes today.
Welcome back to your favorite weekly Onward State student government recap, folks. In this week's University Park Undergraduate Association general assembly meeting, there was legislation involving a business report, a presentation about a sustainability committee, and a comment about porn. Yes, you heard me right, porn. If any or all of that sounds interesting to you, read on.
We all know who Ernest Hemingway is. Chances are that you read A Farewell To Arms or one of his other famous novels in high school -- well, read them on Sparknotes, but you get the idea. Thanks to his writing, Hemingway has earned a reputation as a brash, war-hardened, angry man. But that reputation is being changed, largely thanks to a the Hemingway Letters Project led by Penn State professor Sandra Spanier, wife of our dear former leader Graham Spanier.
The Daily Collegian ran an editorial yesterday vilifying those calling for the Board of Trustees to review the Freeh Report and urging the board to simply move forward and enact the recommendations for the university that were laid out in the report. I took issue with the editorial's assertion -- not because it went in complete circles and not because each sentence got its own paragraph -- but because of the flawed premise that the writer based his or her argument on.