The Penn State Board of Trustees has decided not to rename the Gary Schultz Child Care Center at Hort Woods at this time.
The board's Committee on Finance, Business and Capital Planning met to discuss the child care center at Thursday’s meetings and presented the issue at today's public meeting. Trustee Linda Strumpf represented the committee.
After several trustees insisted on waiting for the trial in a few months, Strumpf asked the committee to table the motion. The motion passed and the renaming did not take place.
Tom Poole spoke about the process of the attempted renaming. He said the goal of the renaming was to have a generalized and neutral name, especially after parents' concerns for their children's safety were made after the sign on the building was vandalized and removed in November.
Trustee James Broadhurst also spoke, saying that if the renaming were to happen, that it should be a temporary renaming because of an earlier public comment about the center being named after the center's Director of Education Linda Duerr.
In a letter dated Sept. 10, Gary Schultz’s attorney Thomas Farrell asked the board to defer consideration of renaming” the child care center until after Schultz’s trial in January because the name removal would “unfairly and precipitously” portray him as guilty.
Trustee Anthony Lubrano read part of this letter during the meeting. Before reading the letter, Lubrano said he saw this item on the agenda and asked, "Why do we have to do this now?"
Schultz is charged with perjury and failure to report child abuse relating to the Jerry Sandusky sex abuse case. Jury selection for Schultz’s trial is scheduled to begin Jan. 7, 2013.
