University President Amy Gutmann has built her career as a political theorist in the field of deliberative democracy, which emphasizes the political values of openness, transparency and publicity.
Gutmann has for the most part extended her philosophy to her administration at Penn, extolling these principles in her four years as president.
But her refusal to disclose the details behind former Dean of Admissions Lee Stetson's resignation represents an outlier in a long trend of openness as an academic and administrator.
Gutmann's seminal work on deliberative democracy, Democracy and Disagreement, written with Dennis Thompson of Harvard University, devotes an entire chapter to the value of publicity, in which she argues that citizens should be trusted more than leaders with the information necessary to make decisions.
Deliberative democracy experts disagree over the degree to which transparency is appropriate, but Gutmann - who refused to comment for this article - has stressed that at least some measures for accountability in decision-making are necessary.
"For those institutions that cannot function without high degrees of secrecy, we suggest some institutional devices to secure either prior or retrospective accountability," she wrote in a 1999 essay with Thompson.
Gutmann has stressed before that these principles also apply to university governance, and when she first assumed the presidency at Penn, her colleagues said this academic philosophy would translate well.
"It's part of Penn tradition to have a really open and deliberative process, but it also feeds into Amy's background and training," Joann Mitchell, a member of Gutmann's staff at Princeton and Penn, told The Daily Princetonian at the time.
Since her inauguration, professors say Gutmann has largely led in accordance with those values she espouses in her academic work.
Pediatrics professor Cindy Christian, the chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Faculty and the Administration, said Gutmann often brings up issues herself to the committee, which is charged with examining issues with the administration.
Penn learned one lesson about the value of transparency during a sticky situation last spring, when the University was implicated in the student-loan scandal uncovered by New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo.
Penn had not revealed the existence of a revenue-sharing program with CitiBank, and keeping the agreement secret ultimately ended up costing the University $1.6 million in payments to students who had taken out loans from the company.
Instead of shying away from a scandal that has rocked dozens of universities, Gutmann made it a point to be upfront about the administration's mistakes.
"It was important that we do this for transparency's sake," she said at the time.
It's unclear whether that line of thought should apply to Stetson. The University has argued that unlike issues such as the student-loan agreement, Stetson's resignation is a personnel matter requiring no explanation. Deliberative-democracy experts have also said Gutmann's theories regarding transparency come with caveats in which openness is not always the best option.
On the other side, good-government advocates say openness and transparency should be core values for all non-profit organizations, including when dealing with personnel matters.
"If the person is in a position of leadership and the work they do really impacts the community, there's this gray area where to be sensitive to the community, it's important to share," said Susan Morales-Barias of the Center for Philanthropy and Nonprofit Leadership.
Regardless, it's clear that Gutmann's reticence about Stetson's departure is not the norm for a president whose academic and administrative career has long emphasized accountability.
Professor Grace Kao, director of the Asian American Studies program said Gutmann's silence concerning Stetson has struck the faculty as unusual.
Gutmann is generally "relatively straightforward" with faculty, Kao said, and is known for being "very clear and explicit" when talking about the University and her ideas.
The main principles that guide Gutmann's leadership also reflect her work emphasizing the connection between education and democracy, said Philosophy professor Samuel Freeman.
"Her liberal and democratic thinking comes out in how she conceives the mission of the University," he said.
Overall, Gutmann's colleagues have said her academic theory has clearly influenced her work as an administrator, making her handling of Stetson's departure even stranger.
"She's known for deliberative democracy - something we've both written about," Thompson told The Harvard Crimson in 2004. "She actually practices it."
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