Newly-elected alumni trustee Anthony Lubrano called into a Board of Trustees' conference call Sunday night that discussed the NCAA consent decree signed by Rodey Erickson -- though he said after that he did not think the meeting was warranted.
“We should have never had that discussion via teleconference,” he said. “It wasn’t a format that allowed for much debate and interaction.”
Commenting on the fact that almost all the presenters and trustees had prepared speeches, Lubrano said that he too wants to move forward with the university but there is too much “rich heritage” to put in the past so hastily.
“We can’t do that until we bridge the past to the future,” he said.
Lubrano, who was recently elected as a trustee by alumni, was one of the only trustees to express concerns about the process in which Penn State President Rodney Erickson went about signing the consent decree involving the NCAA.
He said the report by former FBI Director Louis Freeh mentioned Penn State’s power issue with its football program, yet the head football coach was included in the decision-making process regarding the NCAA sanctions and members of the board were not.
“The leadership of the Board of Trustees failed me,” he said, referencing the executive board, which Erickson said he briefed with regard to the NCAA sanctions. Lubrano said the rest of the board, however, was not briefed.
But with thousands of emails from alumni, not one of which was in favor of ratifying the consent decree, Lubrano said he will not fall back on his word to those who elected him.
“The uniformity in the Penn State alumni is quite significant,” he said. ” And I’m not going to sit back and do nothing.”
