Remarks from the Senate Chair

Faculty/Staff Conference 2014

Congratulations to the Chair-Elect

Amir Marvasti, Ph.D.(University of Florida, 1999)• Assoc. Prof., Sociology• 2002-present• Specializations include

deviance, social psychology, race and ethnicity, qualitative methods

A HUMBLE SUGGESTION

Penn State AltoonaValues Survey

Item Faculty Staff StudentsAccountability 59% 65% 64%Community 47% 63% 65%Courage 47% 63% 55%Discovery 54% 69% 65%Excellence 52% 65% 62%Honesty 45% 58% 56%Integrity 48% 61% 58%Openness 42% 56% 52%Respect 47% 64% 60%Responsibility 49% 64% 58%Service 47% 56% 56%Sustainability 40% 54% 50%Transparency 33% 55% 43%

Table shows percentage of respondents answering “very important” to question, “How important…are each of [these] values to Penn State now?” (N=268, response rate 6.1%, margin of error 5-8%)

Sayre’s Third Law of Politics

In any dispute the intensity of feeling is inversely proportional to the value of the stakes at issue.

—Wallace S. Sayre (1905-1972)Prof. of Political Science, Columbia University[from Issawi, 1973]

Robbins (2008) suggests the university is a “quasi-state” with a shifting institutional footprint over time.