PhillyInc

We recently got wind of the fact that Wharton's new dean, Thomas Robertson, has shared ownership of a Cape Cod vacation house for more than two decades with ex-Wharton marketing professor L. Scott Ward, the convicted (and now sentenced) pedophile. We were in the process of checking it out when Philadelphia magazine ran this piece last week. It includes Robertson's statement that he is "appalled" and had no idea that his old friend was leading some kind of double life. Robertson says he first learned about Ward's other life in 2006, when Ward was arrested for the last time. Robertson was named to the Wharton job in June 2007. Nothing illegal, of course, in co-owning a house with a colleague who has an arrest record. And as far as we can tell, the friendship was nothing that should have disqualified a highly qualified person like Roberston for a high university post after an apparently exhaustive (see p.2 of of Gutmann's original announcement) search. After all, Lots of people at Wharton knew and were friends with Ward, too, during the whole period. Not sure where all this goes. But there it is, for now.

- Thomas Ginsberg