Trustees didn't mean to 'interfere'

University Trustees never meant to "interfere" with the interim administration by releasing a public statement speaking out against recent decisions, Trustee Board Chairperson Alvin Shoemaker said last night. The statement, which criticized University administrators for not disciplining nine students who confiscated copies of The Daily Pennsylvanian in April, was made on behalf of the board during Friday's meeting of the Trustee's Executive Committee. Shoemaker said last night that the Trustees were under "extreme pressure from alumni around the country" and felt they needed to respond to the "large number of alumni inquiries" about the issue. "As long as the University was handling it in their way, we weren't going to say anything," Shoemaker said. "Now that the whole thing is done, we felt we could speak," he added. Although the board's statement appeared to openly contradict administration policy, Shoemaker said the Trustees had no intention of reprimanding University administrators. He said the Trustees support Interim President Claire Fagin and Interim Provost Marvin Lazerson – but felt they had to express their discomfort with the DP ruling. "They did the right thing in terms of building for the future," he said. "We support them in that effort. We never said we don't support them." Shoemaker refused to comment on whether speaking out might hurt their desire to "move on" – or whether such a public move might prolong the controversy. He said only that he wants to put the entire thing behind him. "We emphasized [in our statement] that we want to put this behind us and wanted to move into the future," Shoemaker said. "The whole thing is done now. It's time to move away from it," he added.