Graham Spanier
| Graham Spanier | |
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16th President of the Pennsylvania State University |
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In office 1 September 1995 – 9 November 2011 |
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| Preceded by | Joab Thomas |
| Succeeded by | Rodney Erickson |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Graham Basil Spanier July 18, 1948 Cape Town, Union of South Africa |
| Spouse(s) | Sandra Spanier |
| Children | Brian, Hadley |
| Alma mater | Northwestern University |
Graham Basil Spanier (born July 18, 1948) was the 16th president of Pennsylvania State University, from September 1, 1995, to November 9, 2011, when he was forced to resign in the aftermath of the Penn State child sex abuse scandal.
Spanier is currently president emeritus, university professor, and professor of human development and family studies; sociology, demography, and family; and community medicine. He had a one-year post-presidential sabbatical leave following his resignation as president of Penn State in November 2011. He was later convicted on March 24, 2017, of one misdemeanor charge of child endangerment.
Graham Basil Spanier was born to Rosadele Lurie and Fritz Otto Spanier in Cape Town, South Africa and came to Chicago as an infant following his parents' decision to flee apartheid. His father had previously escaped Nazi Germany in 1936; much of his father's extended family perished during the Holocaust.
The family moved to a working-class neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, living there until 1956. Spanier’s father worked in a nuts, bolts and screws warehouse loading and unloading trucks; his mother worked in a clerical position. The family moved to the suburb of Highland Park, where Spanier graduated from Highland Park High School in 1966. His father became postmaster of Highland Park in 1962 and retired from that position in 1975.
Spanier has revealed that his father was physically violent with all three of his children. His sister Anita told The New York Times that Graham received the most violent beatings, leaving him with lifelong complications. “I’ve had to have four operations to correct serious deformities inside my head from beatings my father gave me,” Spanier said. “They had to rebuild me from the inside out.”
As a teenager, Spanier largely supported himself financially, working part-time jobs at a radio station, a children's clothing store, a legal office, and saving for college by mowing lawns and baby-sitting. He was president of J&A Radio Productions, a Junior Achievement company that produced a weekly show called “Variety” targeted to Chicago-area youth. Along with Brian Ross, he co-founded a radio news service that covered the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
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