Admissions officials arrived at their offices last Wednesday morning to find a voicemail from then-Dean of Admissions Lee Stetson waiting for them.
The message informed staff that Stetson was immediately resigning, according to three independent sources close to the admissions office.
It was the first that many high-ranking officials in the office heard of the change in Stetson's date of resignation, the sources said. Someone arrived in the dean's office later that day to clear out Stetson's belongings.
The sources, who are all close to various admissions officials, were granted anonymity because the officials were instructed by the University not to speak about the resignation.
Stetson had originally announced in July that he would step down effective June 2008 after 29 years as dean of admissions.
The sudden change, and its handling, has left University administrators and professors suspicious and those in the know even more tight-lipped.
Inquiries to various members of the admissions office were directed to University spokeswoman Lori Doyle, who once again declined to comment.
Those admissions officers who could be reached said they were told by the University not to speak about the departure.
Outside of a terse memo from University President Amy Gutmann's office merely announcing the resignation to senior University administrators, many high-ranking administrators claim they were given no information about Stetson's resignation.
The consensus among Penn officials with whom The Daily Pennsylvanian has spoken is that Stetson's manner of departure is so bizarre that there must be some explanation yet to be uncovered.
"When a University official gets an announcement like that, that's that terse and lacking in detail, the two logical conclusions are: a very serious illness that precludes coming to work or a very serious legal issue that precludes remaining at work," said one senior administrator who has been at Penn for several decades.
Professors and administrators said that when a long-standing senior administrator leaves Penn, there are usually a series of receptions for the departing administrator.
For Patrick Harker's departure from his position as dean of the Wharton School last year, there were several going-away parties, including a cocktail reception and a dinner at the Palestra.
Even among unplanned departures, Stetson's case is a strange one for a university that has seen its fair share of faculty and staff scandal.
The same high-ranking University source, who was granted anonymity because he was not supposed to talk about the departure, said that even in a case such as that of Rafael Robb, who is charged with murdering his wife, more information was released to administrators by the University than has been for Stetson.
Business and Public Policy professor Bruce Allen, who has been at Penn since 1968, said that even less senior administrators generally have at least a small event organized by their staffs when they step down.
Allen had one such event in 2000 when he left the position of vice dean of Wharton's graduate division.
According to administrators and those within the admissions office, no such events were held for Stetson.
What struck Political Science professor Henry Teune the most was an erroneous article in the Sept. 4 edition of the University's official newsletter, the Penn Almanac, which seemed unaware that Stetson's departure had moved up.
"The faculty certainly don't know," Teune said, but "people are all wondering what's happening."
- Staff Writers Anthony Campisi, Emily Babay and Rebecca Kaplan contributed to this report
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