Jerry Sandusky Scandal Case Study

An organization already in crisis not only requires swift action to correct the situation, it also requires they inform the public of their knowledge as well as display the actions being put into place to remedy the problem and support for those directly affected immediately (Crandall et. al., 2014). This is one of the areas the officials at Penn State failed in their response to the scandal (Stern Strategy Group, 2012). The board of trustees did act swiftly in their termination of former university president Greg Spanier and former head coach of the football team Joe Paterno following the Grand Jury indictment of Jerry Sandusky in 2012. Consequently, the action was still delayed since they had been made aware of the pending indictment in early 2011. The internal emails used to convict the staff members involved with the cover-up could have been easily uncovered by technical staff at the university and used to begin termination much earlier.

When a statement was given by former university president Greg Spanier the focus was not to support the victims of the incident, conversely, his focus was placed on supporting the

al., 2014). There should be a publicity campaign to stress to the public that while the incident did occur the school is more than that defining instance (Stern Strategy Group, 2012). The changes within the operation of the organization as well as the campaign to display their commitment to their students and community would certainly assist with rebuilding the university's reputation. The university must become completely transparent to display their honesty to improve upon public opinion. This approach would show all the stakeholders that the university has learned from the incident and has built a system to be more proactive in preventing any future incidents from