Penn State Trustees Meet to Begin Recovery

The arduous task of rebuilding Penn State's shattered image began Friday with a meeting of the university's board of trustees - the group that fired football coach Joe Paterno and President Graham Spanier this week amid a child sex abuse case against a former team assistant.

The trustees opened their meeting with Chairman Steve Garban welcoming interim President Rod Erickson. Gov. Tom Corbett was also on hand to help the board navigate a course through the turmoil.

Garban pledged to support Erickson as the board works “for the future of this institution that we respect and love.”

Paterno and Spanier were fired Wednesday in the fallout of a shocking grand jury report alleging repeated, illicit contact between retired assistant coach Jerry Sandusky and boys as young as 10.

Without mentioning Spanier or Paterno, Erickson told trustees that their deliberate and decisive action had set a course for the university's future.

Erickson said that his heart aches for the victims and their families, and that his role will be to restore confidence in the school's future, adhere to the highest standards of honesty and integrity and let Penn Staters know the university's future is still bright.

He also reiterated that the trustees will vote to form a special commission to investigate the allegations of wrongdoing, an initiative that was announced earlier this week.

Paterno and Spanier were fired Wednesday night, four days after a grand jury report charged Sandusky with a series of sexual assaults stretching back to the late 1990s.

The grand jury report alleges Sandusky assaulted eight boys - including one he allegedly raped in the university's football facility shower. Much of the alleged inappropriate contact with seven victims happened on Penn State's campus, where Sandusky maintained an office as an emeritus professor following his retirement.