Penn State Scandal: Large Donation a Step in Right Direction for State College

Penn State officials made their first stride towards reclaiming the university's integrity. 

University president Rod Erickson told The Associated Press Thursday morning that the school would be donating its Big Ten bowl revenue to a pair of sex-crime advocacy organizations. This equates to $1.5 million.

While the university has already fired their former president Graham Spanier and football coach Joe Paterno for their alleged roles in the Jerry Sandusky scandal, this is their first real step towards building back their reputation and trust with the public.

Why Firings Did Not Instill Faith

Penn State had little choice but to make sweeping personnel decisions. The heat from the public dictated it.

Had they retained the services of people directly involved with those allegations they would have been ostracized by the majority of the public. Among other negatives associated with that, this would have led to the loss of revenue.

That would lead the door wide open for people to speculate that this institution was concerned solely with their bottom line, and not trust and integrity.

It's All About the Benjamins

A total of $1.5 million is a large chunk of change for Penn State to donate—even in light of the massive amounts we are talking about with big-time college football.

According to CNN Money, the Penn State football program generated a profit of $50,427,645 over the course of the school year ending in 2010. That made Penn State the third-most profitable program in the nation.

While $1.5 million is a small portion of that total, it is a much bigger chunk out of the bottom line. The Nittany Lions' athletic budget revolved around football.

Penn State is donating this money knowing that their budget will not just shrink by the size of the donation either. The football program is not likely to be generate the type of revenue they have grown accustomed to.

Conclusion

This was a necessary step in the recovery process for PSU as an institution. It would do little good for them to fire the people involved in the news of the scandal and simply slide new people back into the same culture.

That was a culture where money was king. The Penn State football program made that university rich, and in turn, school officials had essentially let everything else take a back seat to the health of the football program.

University officials could say all the right things, and fire all the right people, but until they made some kind of show that they would not be slaves to the almighty dollar, every move was going to be hollow.

Penn State still has a long way to go before they can expect to earn the trust of the public back and reclaim a positive reputation. 

They need to continue to demonstrate that they are committed to their ideals, and not making money.

This is just the first step, but at least that step was in the right direction.