Condoleezza Rice Turned Down Penn State President Job
The former Secretary of State was offered the President's position at Penn State through a search firm hired to find a steady hand to help the University in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky scandal. She turned them down.
Condoleezza Rice is perfectly happy with her position as a political science professor at Stanford, the university she's worked with on and off for thirty years, according to the statement her reps gave the Philadelphia Inquirer. "We received a request about this position through a search firm," Georgia Godfrey, Rice's chief of staff, said. "Our office declined on her behalf, since she intends to remain at Stanford. Penn State is a fine institution, and Dr. Rice wishes the search committee the very best." As ESPN points out, the job could have created a conflict of interest for the former politician: Rice is a member of the 13-person committee that will choose which teams make the long-gestating (and presidentially approved!) college football playoffs in 2014.
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The search for a new Penn State president has not gone well. Current president Rodney Erickson hopes to leave his role at the end of June. The scandal-plagued university was set to announce David R. Smith, the president of SUNY's Upstate Medical University, as the school's new president last Friday until the vetting firm discovered evidence of shady payments from companies connected to SUNY. Smith has since resigned from SUNY, and Penn State is left searching for a new leader.
This article was originally published at http://www.theatlanticwire.com/national/2013/11/condoleezza-rice-turned-down-penn-state/71428/
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