The university released an update of former FBI Director Louis Freeh’s 119 recommendations Wednesday, noting that more than half have been completed.
In the second progress report on the recommendations, 44 are marked as “Complete or Substantially Complete,” 17 are marked “Ongoing and Continuous” and 58 are “In Progress and On Track.”
University spokesman David La Torre confirmed that the recommendations marked “ongoing” are considered in the one-half of completed recommendations.
La Torre wrote in an email that “items that have been coded ‘ongoing/continuous’ cannot by their nature be ‘completed’ because they contemplate ongoing activity.”
He referred to a recommendation that the Board of Trustees should be kept up on national news related to the university. This is something the university does and will continue to do, so it is marked as “ongoing,” La Torre wrote.
According to the update, other examples of ongoing recommendations include ones that call for “continuous improvement” across the university, or the more general focuses on “transparency.”
This release also comes after the Nov. 16 Board of Trustees meeting where Senior Vice President for Finance and Business David Gray said there had been 46 completed recommendations and 13 ongoing.
With regard to this change, La Torre wrote that some of the complete recommendations were reviewed further and were “deemed to be more accurately described as ongoing.”
This update compares with the 40 recommendations that were considered complete in the progress update released Oct. 10. In that update, 75 were marked in progress and four were ongoing, or with an initial step complete. Both updates so far note that none of the recommendations are behind schedule or require intervention. The second update also does not explicitly state that any recommendations will not be followed.
The updated list was prepared by the administrative response team, which consists of Gray, Vice President and General Counsel Stephen Dunham and Vice President for Administration Thomas Poole, as previously reported. The Freeh Advisory Council also advises on the implementation of the recommendations.
University Park Undergraduate Association President Courtney Lennartz, a member of the council, said before the Nov. 16 board meeting that they had discussed the “culture” recommendation at length. This recommendation, which is the first recommendation, remains “In Progress and On Track” in the update.
Though the recommendations will probably all be implemented in some way, Lennartz said some will not be implemented fully, such as a recommendation that the vice president for human resources report to the university president instead of the vice president for finance and business. This university’s status on this recommendation notes that this change will not be made.
Gray and Freeh Advisory Council member Larry Backer could not be reached for comment by press time Wednesday.
