Having recently left his cushy post with us for the greener swamplands of DC, Jim Newell is already rolling in the perks. Today he wrote an op/ed for the Daily Pennsylvanian on that whole Stetson affair thing.

Seizing on the telling detail (“Lasers! Amy Gutmann in strapless red!”) and making use of everyday analogies (“It’s like a babysitter refusing to feed an infant its Gerber, and then at the end of the day asking that infant for $3.5 billion.”), Newell makes a compelling case that Lee Stetson should not be forced to give money to Penn even though he had sex with a 19-year old, or something like that.

After the jump — words, sweet words.

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See Philadelphia media? If we all team up, we can sometimes make Penn speak — that is, beyond the inane drivel that Dementor-ish University spokeswoman Lori Doyle shits out every few days.

Philadelphia magazine’s online Daily Examiner picked up where we left off re: new Wharton Dean Thomas S. Robertson’s academic and domestic partnership with Scott Ward (left), ex-Wharton prof and disgrace to humanity. The two were teaching at Harvard when they bought the home in 1977, according to Philly Mag. And according to Jerry Bessette, who broke the Ward-doing-boys news to Robertson last fall, Robertson responded, “This scares the hell out of me.” He also called Bessette about a month ago, shortly after starting the new post at Wharton, and asked “Do you think there’s going to be any fallout [from my friendship with Ward]?”

In other words, the response “Dean Thomas” — not to be confused with the token black kid in Harry Potter — sent Philadelphia today has probably been sitting in his e-mail’s Drafts folder for some time. The letter and some other pressing super-important issues after the jump.

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Penn students and some others remember with equal parts horror and glee the case of kiddie-canoodler Scott Ward, a Wharton marketing professor until last August. That was when security officials at Washington’s Dulles Airport found videos of him doing little boys on his laptop. Shortly thereafter, school investigators found 80 images in his Wharton office of him doing more little boys. A year later and he’s already been sentenced 15 years in Virginia and may see a second trial in Pennsylvania.

Wharton probably hopes that the new Dean, Thomas S. Robertson, can wipe the slate clean. Still, what sort of b-school worth its salt keeps a professor with a record of sexual misconduct on staff?? I mean, Ward had co-published a study called “Adolescent Attitudes Toward Television Advertising” and co-edited a book called Commercial Television and European Children: An International Research (1986)! Obvi his main goal was to fuck millions of kids.

Who would dare co-publish or co-edit such academic smut with Ward? That’s almost as bad as, like, owning a house on Cape Cod with a convicted pederast for 25 years.

Oh hey, look, one guy did all of these things: Thomas S. Robertson, the new Wharton Dean.

After the jump: a special happy friendship revealed. 

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Lee Stetson, Penn’s Dean of Admissions and a 29-year veteran at the University, announced in July his plans to resign at the end of the current school year. He was going out on a high note as Penn had just admitted its most selective class ever.

This is where things come undone.

On August 29, Stetson abruptly made his resignation effective immediately. The Office of Admissions, behind University spokeswoman Lori Doyle, offered little explanation beyond Stetson’s personal statement in which he said “that it is in the University’s, and my own best interest, to step down immediately, before the commencement of the fall semester.” Stetson was unavailable for further comment at the time, Admissions said, because he was traveling. According to the Daily Pennsylvanian, “As recently as Tuesday morning [Stetson] had given no indication in a DP interview that he would resign sooner than he had previously announced.”

Ruh roh.

It’s been weeks since Stetson’s departure and neither the Daily Pennsylvanian nor the Philadelphia Inquirer have released the details of his rush for the exit. The Office of Admissions won’t say a thing.

But that’s OK, because as with most good stories, there are even better rumors. After the jump, we’ll break down the Office of Admissions’ silence-pact-on-crack, the Daily Pennsylvanian’s status with the case and IvyGate’s own findings. At least two of these involve sex.

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