I took a quick look at Penn State’s openness website that debuted yesterday. The school bills it as “a resource for the Penn State community and other stakeholders to find answers to their questions regarding ongoing investigations and related matters.”
Some initial thoughts:
- You can see PDFs of contracts for the president, athletic director, football coach and VP for business. That’s good. (Remember how hard Penn State fought to keep Joe Paterno’s salary private).
- You can see financial audits of the university going back to 2000, and audits of programs that receive federal awards going back to 2001. Also good.
- In the FAQs, you can get answers to questions such as “What is the most important thing that students, faculty, staff and alumni can do right now for Penn State” and “What is the answer to the perception that Penn State’s reputation might be tarnished as a result of these allegations of sexual abuse and the reaction to information about them?” That’s PR, and there’s really no need for those types of questions to be on a site devoted to creating more transparency.
- The school does list, in the FAQs, fees it is incurring for attorneys, consultants and PR. It’s about $3.2 million. That’s good, solid information, and it should have its own section on the site with a breakdown of what exactly that money is buying (posting the firms’ invoices would be a place to start).
Overall you have to appreciate Penn State’s efforts here, and it’s probably to be expected that an institution that has considered itself to be above public scrutiny, for the most part, doesn’t have it exactly right yet. But it’s a step in the right direction.
What do you think?
